**Chapter Outline:**
1. **"Fragments"** – Lena burns a painting of Michael's hands. Flashbacks to the night he ignored her "no."
2. **"The First Time"** – A harrowing vignette of her teenage assault, juxtaposed with Michael's words: *"I'm not him."*
3. **"The Silence After"** – Lena stops speaking for a week. Her therapist leaves a voicemail: *"Trauma isn't a competition."*
4. **"Unspoken (Art Series)"** – Lena begins painting abstract self-portraits using materials that scar the canvas.
5. **"Michael's Apology"** – He begs forgiveness, but Lena isn't sure if it's for her or his own guilt.
6. **"The Exhibition"** – Lena's art goes viral. A stranger whispers: *"This happened to me too."*
7. **"The Choice"** – Lena decides whether to leave Michael or rebuild—on *her* terms.
**Chapter 1: Fragments**
The match trembled in Lena's fingers before catching fire. She held it to the corner of the canvas, watching as the gold-and-blue strokes of Michael's portrait—*his smile, his damnably gentle hands*—curled into blackened lace. The paint bubbled like skin.
She hadn't planned to destroy it. But this morning, she'd woken to his arm slung over her waist, his breath warm against her neck, and for one dizzying second, she'd been *there* again—back in her parents' basement at seventeen, pinned beneath a weight she couldn't scream her way out of. Then in their bed last year, tears soaking the pillow as Michael muttered *"You wanted it"* into her hair.
The fire alarm shrieked. Lena dumped the smoldering canvas into the sink, ashes swirling like guilt. On the counter, her phone buzzed—another message from Michael:
*"Lena, please. We need to talk. I didn't realize—"*
She hurled the phone against the wall. *Didn't realize what?* That *no* didn't mean *convince me*? That forcing himself into her after she'd said *stop* made him just another man who treated her body like a locked door he was entitled to pick?
Outside, rain blurred the city lights into streaks. Lena pressed her forehead to the cold glass. Somewhere, Michael was probably telling himself *"I'm not a monster."*
But monsters rarely know their own names.