Silence stretches between us, thick and charged. The painting looms at my back like a witness. Proof I never asked for.
I wrap my arms around myself, suddenly cold.
“I don’t need your apology.”
“You need something,” he says quietly. “Otherwise, you wouldn’t be shaking.”
I still. Then I look down.
My fingers tremble. I hate him for noticing.
“Why do you do that?” I ask, breath unsteady despite my effort. “Why do you make everything harder?”
“Because you’re the only thing that ever mattered.” He pauses, like the words cost him. “And because I don’t know how to lose you again.”
My chest tightens so sharply it almost hurts.
My mother flashes into my mind without invitation—her hands always stained with paint, the way she tilted her head when studying a canvas, the way she taught me to look. Really look. She never told me what to love. She taught me how to understand why something worked…or why it failed.
Art deserves honesty,she used to say.If you love it, you respect it enough to tell the truth.
That was how I became who I am.
Not cruel. Not vicious.
Exacting.
When my mother died, critique became the only place I felt close to her again. Brushstrokes. Balance. Intention. Truth stripped bare. No mercy for lies—because lies cheapened beauty.
I lift my chin and meet Sebastian’s gaze.
“You didn’t just hurt me,” I say softly. “You humiliated me. You took something I loved—something I believed in—and turned it into a weapon.”
His jaw tightens. He doesn’t interrupt. That almost makes it worse.
“I survived because I had to,” I continue. “I sharpened myself because the world doesn’t forgive women who bleed inpublic. And now you stand here in regret and think it changes anything?”
He doesn’t interrupt. He doesn’t defend himself. That alone throws me.
“I didn’t know about your mother,” he says finally, voice low. “Not then.”
Something flickers across his face—pain, real and unpolished.
“I found out years later,” he continues. “And when I did…it hurt. More than I expected.” He exhales slowly. “I thought reaching out would only reopen a wound I helped create. I didn’t want to make it worse.”
I study him, searching for the lie. I don’t find it.
“How?” I ask. “How did you even know about her?”
For the first time since I turned around, his expression softens completely. All the sharp edges fall away, leaving something almost unbearably gentle.
“I read your early reviews,” he says quietly. “The ones before you became…untouchable.” A faint smile tugs at his mouth. “I recognized the influence immediately.”
I blink.
Of all the things I expected him to say, that isn’t one of them.
“You cared enough to read my work?” The words slip out before I can stop them.
