Page 178

Okay. I’m here if you need anything. Come home when you can.

The read receipt appears almost immediately, but there’s no answer back.

I set the phone face down on the nightstand and stare at the ceiling.

Part of me wants to drive to Seattle. Show up at his office with coffee made just the way he takes it. But I know Everett.

I know what happens when you push a man who’s already pulling away. He doesn’t push back. He just shuts another door. And then another one. And then you’re standing in a hallway full of closed doors wondering which one he’s behind.

If I drive to Seattle right now, I won’t find the man who carried my bags into his bedroom and said for longer. I’ll find the version that runs a billion-dollar company on zero sleep and the sheer force of not letting anyone see him sweat.

I’m not ready for that version.

Not today.

So I stay.

I shower. I make coffee in the kitchen—his kitchen, our kitchen, the kitchen where he stood barefoot in sweats two mornings ago and slid my mug across the counter without looking up. Like we’d been doing that for years.

God. That was two days ago.

The house is quiet. Not the good kind. The kind where you can hear the refrigerator humming and your own footsteps sound too loud and you start to understand why rich people always have so many dogs.

I should get a dog.

I should not get a dog. I should drink my coffee and stop spiraling.

I take my coffee upstairs to the studio.

The room is different in full daylight. When Everett showed it to me, it was early morning—silver and soft, everything still possibility. Now the clouds have broken enough to let real sun move through those north-facing windows, and the light is almost impossible. It catches on the hardwood. Warms the canvases. Turns the whole room into invitation.

I set my coffee on the drafting table—the one that now comes with a very specific memory that still makes my face hot—and stand in the middle of the room for a second.

Just breathing.

Then I unpack my satchel. Brushes. Palette knife. The tubes of paint I carried back from France because I couldn’t leave them, like the colors themselves were proof that something happened there. That I’m different now.

And around me, everything Everett chose.

Professional oils in brands I used to stare at in catalogs and close the tab. Brushes I never would’ve bought on an assistant’s salary. Belgian linen canvases stacked against the wall.

He didn’t just build a studio.

He armed it.

My phone buzzes on the drafting table.

I glance over, expecting Everett even though I know better by now.

It’s not him.

Gabriel Amaury.

Aria, I hope this isn’t too forward. I’ve been thinking about the piece you posted and the response to it. I meant what I said in Cannes. Your work deserves to be seen. I’m curating another showing, and I would love to include you if and when you’re ready. No pressure. Just an open door.

I read it twice. Then a third time, slower.

A showing. A real one. An actual gallery show curated by an actual gallery owner who saw my work and thought yes, that one.