Sloane closed the distance between them, standing close enough to touch but keeping her hands by her sides. “Because I deserve better than halfway,” she whispered, voice strained with emotion. “I deserve better than a love you’re ashamed of, Catherine. I won’t be something you hide. I want to be someone you fight for.”
Catherine’s breath hitched, her eyes brimming with tears she refused to let fall. “I’m not ashamed. It’s just—” She swallowed hard, words catching. “I don’t know how to be the person you need.”
Sloane reached out then, gently cupping Catherine’s face, forcing her gaze up to meet hers. “I don’t need perfection. I don’t need you to have it all figured out. But I do need you to stop running from this, from us.”
Catherine pressed her eyes shut tightly, a tear finally escaping, trailing silently down her cheek. “What if I can’t?”
Sloane’s chest tightened painfully, realization settling in heavily. She brushed her thumb gently across Catherine’s tear-streaked skin. “You can. You just won’t. And that hurts more than anything.”
Catherine’s eyes fluttered open, filled with sorrow and regret. “Sloane, I?—”
“You love me,” Sloane whispered softly, stepping back slowly. “I know you do. But if you can’t live it, if you can’t say it, I’m done trying to make you.”
The silence hung heavily between them, charged and aching. Catherine opened her mouth as if to speak, but no words came.
Sloane drew in a steadying breath, her voice gentle but firm. “I came here because I had to know. Because I couldn’t bear this silence anymore. But now it’s your turn, Catherine. You have to choose.”
She stepped toward the door, pausing with her hand on the handle, hoping against hope Catherine would stop her. But the room remained silent, heavy with unspoken truths and shattered hope.
When she finally opened the door and stepped out into the quiet hallway, it was with a finality that reverberated deeply in her chest. The click of the latch behind her felt like the breaking of something fragile and irreplaceable, and she walked out of the building.
The studio felt hollow and empty when Sloane returned. The usual warmth and vibrant chaos she loved now seemed distant, almost mocking. She stood for a long moment in the center of the room, the silence echoing louder than any noise ever could. Her heart still raced, adrenaline from their confrontation pulsing painfully through her veins, but beneath the anger, beneath the hurt, lay a deep, heavy sadness that she could no longer ignore.
Her eyes moved across unfinished canvases, each one started with hope, painted with reckless abandon. They felt foreign now, like relics from another life. A life before Catherine had cracked her open and left her raw and vulnerable.
She moved to her workspace, the paints and brushes waiting, quiet and patient. Without thinking, Sloane grabbed a fresh canvas, propped it roughly against the wall, and began mixing colors—deep crimson, harsh black, fierce gold. Her motions were frantic and sharp, the paint smearing across her hands, streaking up her wrists and forearms. She didn’t care. Tonight, precision and control meant nothing.
She attacked the canvas with desperate, bold strokes, channeling every aching heartbeat into furious color. The brush became an extension of her grief, her confusion, her anger. Red dripped like blood down the canvas, stark against the dark swaths of black that swallowed the brightness, the gold slicing through it all like bolts of lightning. The chaos felt appropriate, honest, everything she’d ever wanted Catherine to embrace, everything Catherine had run from.
Sweat mingled with tears she didn’t realize she was shedding, blurring her vision. Her breath came fast, shallow, and ragged, each stroke of her brush more frantic than the last, desperate to fill the empty silence and the hollow ache inside her chest.
“You said to try,” Sloane whispered harshly, her voice thick with pain. The words fell into the quiet room, absorbed by paint and canvas. “I did everything you asked.”
Her hand faltered, her brush suspended in mid-air, tremors running down her fingers. She sank slowly to the floor, her knees buckling under the weight of exhaustion, emotional and physical. The brush slipped from her grip, hitting the floor with a muted clatter.
“I gave you everything,” she murmured to the empty space, her voice cracking under the weight of truth. She wrapped her arms tightly around her knees, paint smearing onto her clothing, not caring about anything except the heavy pressure building in her chest. She closed her eyes tightly, fighting the wave of grief rising rapidly, unrelentingly.
The images came without permission: Catherine’s careful smile, the unguarded laughter she’d coaxed out of her, the softness in her beautiful blue eyes that had given Sloane hope. She remembered every kiss, every touch, every whispered confession tangled between sheets and tangled hearts. It had felt real. It had felt true.
And now, she was alone again, holding the shards of what might have been, unsure whether she’d imagined the depth of connection or if Catherine had simply chosen fear over love. It hurt. It hurt more than she’d expected, more than any heartbreak she’d ever known.
Slowly, eyes heavy and aching, Sloane opened them and looked at the canvas before her. It was wild, brutal, raw. The storm she’d painted mirrored her soul, capturing the wreckage Catherine had left behind.
She stayed there, slumped against the cold floor, staring at her own creation, the brush and paints abandoned around her like remnants of a battle lost. There were no answers in the chaos, no clarity in the colors bleeding into each other. Just an echo of her pain, frozen now in paint, a permanent record of her heartache.
The silence stretched around her, unforgiving and final. She drew in a ragged breath, tears drying on her cheeks, resolve settling heavily inside her. Catherine had made her choice, even if the choice was silence. And now Sloane had to learn how to live with it.
But as she closed her eyes again, leaning her head back against the wall, she couldn’t shake the feeling that she had just lost something irreplaceable. Something she’d never find again.
And this time, she didn’t know how to fix it.
17
CATHERINE
The grand facade of Evelyn Harrington’s mansion loomed before Catherine, its windows glistening like judgmental eyes under the sinking sun. Every Sunday dinner felt like a performance, a carefully orchestrated dance where mistakes weren't permitted, weakness was unforgivable, and vulnerability was punished with silent disdain.
Today, however, Catherine arrived already shattered. The ache from her confrontation with Sloane still burned, raw and fresh, gnawing at her ribs. Catherine’s chest tightened as she stepped onto the meticulously maintained marble entryway. Breathing deeply, she tried to calm the storm within, arranging her face into the cold, composed mask Evelyn taught her so well.
