“No,” I scream, choking on the words. “Don’t you give up, Phantom. Don’t you give up on me, on yourself. We’re partners in this. I’m still fighting! Fight with me! Don’t leave me alone.”
I get it now, and even though it doesn’t justify their actions, not by a long shot, it helps me understand. This must be what it felt like for me to pull away from Phantom. It feels like abandonment. It’s unbearable.
Dragging me toward the door, Noah says, “We’re getting the hell out of here and I’m calling the cops.”
Phantom’s shoulders sag as they just stand there, watching.
I wail, “No! Phantom, please. Don’t let him take me away. Phantom!”
Their eyes, those eyes that have seen every part of me, say more than words ever could.
I ram my elbow back against Noah’s ribs, as hard as I can. He cries out in pain as I run back to Phantom, my lips crashing against theirs. They sob against my lips as they lace their fingers behind my neck and hold me to them like I’m a life raft and they’re lost at sea.
There they are.
My muse. My other half. My partner. They’re still there.
“I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you,” I whisper over and over between kisses.
But then Phantom pushes me away gently. “You have to go.”
“What?” My chest explodes in a pain I’ve never felt before. It sears.
“You have to go with him.”
Clutching their hoodie in my fists, I protest, adamant, “I’m not going anywhere.”
“Maeve,” they say softly, tucking a tuft of loose hair behind my ear. “Everything he’s said is right. I’m hurting you. I’m interrupting your life. I’m using art to make you feel things maybe you otherwise wouldn’t.”
“Don’t you dare. Don’t you dare invalidate my feelings for you!”
“What kind of relationship starts off that way ours did, with lies, manipulation, abduction? This isn’t healthy, Maeve. I’m not good for you. I’m—”
“You’renottoxic,” I bellow.
I’m losing control. They’re slipping between my fingers like smoke.
Noah’s hurried words come from behind us. “Hello, 911? I need immediate assistance at—”
More pain. More burning. I can’t breathe. It feels like my chest’s cracking right down the center. I turn to Noah and plow into him, pushing him up against the wall. He rams into it with a heavythudbut keeps talking to the police dispatcher.
The cops are coming. There’s no stopping it now. I have to hide the evidence. That’s the only solution.
I rush to grab the stack of photographs, planning to burn them or flush them, whatever it takes to make them disappear, but Phantom stops me halfway there. “Leave it.”
“But—”
I stare into the determined set of their eyes. “It’s long past time that I paid for my sins, Maeve.”
Over the scorching pain in the back of my throat, I say, “You’re giving up.”
“No,” they whisper. “I’m finally taking responsibility, like you said.” They glance back at our painting, our masterpiece, lettingtheir eyes linger there for a moment before returning their gaze to me.
“Thank you for giving me the happiest days of my life.” They kiss me once more, slow and tender. When they pull away, their red-rimmed eyes memorizing me, a final word leaves their scarred lips. “Stunning.”
Then, I feel it. Their love. In that word. The word they’ve spoken to me time and time again. And in this sacrifice. Even as I reject it with every fiber of my being, I feel it. It feels like how our painting makes me feel. How every glance Phantom’s ever given me has made me feel. Seen. Understood. Loved.
It’s then I realize. They’ve known how to love the whole time. I’ve been loved long before I first read that anonymous comment. Phantom had just forgotten how it felt, to give their heart to someone they trust, but there it was, being given all the same. Their love.
