I didn't hear from Richard for three days.
Not a call. Not a message. Not even a forwarded email from his assistant, who used to send polite calendar reminders to my inbox. Silence, clean and cold.
It reminded me of the frost that used to crawl across our car windshield back when we were younger. We used to sit in his father's old Volvo, breathing hot clouds onto the glass, scribbling hearts and initials that melted seconds after we drew them. I didn't realize how deeply those memories had embedded themselves into me until now, when even a blank phone screen made me feel thirteen again—unwanted, irrelevant, and forgotten.
I didn't chase him. I refused.
Instead, I worked.
My studio smelled of turpentine and old pencils, the carpet layered with years of unwashed color. I had thrown myself into a commission I'd been putting off—a set of five portraits for a woman who wanted to gift her family something "timeless." Timeless. As if any of us existed outside time, or heartbreak.
When I finished the second portrait—a boy with green eyes and a sunflower tucked behind his ear—I stared at it for a long time.
He reminded me of Richard.
Not in features, but in something subtler. That quiet defiance. That fragile way of hoping no one noticed his longing.
And I realized something, then. I wasn't painting for the commission. I was painting to survive him.
That night, I found myself sitting on my apartment floor, drinking wine from the bottle, sketchpad in my lap, and a dozen text messages unsent.
What would I even write?
—Are you alive?
—Was I just a thing you tried on for comfort?
—Did I matter at all?
None of them left my drafts. I knew the answers, or at least, I knew the versions of him that would never say them aloud.
The next morning, I found Layla at my door.
Her hair was tied in a messy bun, and she held a paper bag and a cup of coffee like she had rehearsed being a responsible adult for my sake.
"Don't say anything," she warned, stepping in. "I know you haven't eaten. And no, I'm not judging you, I'm just... here."
She didn't ask about Richard. She didn't need to.
Instead, she started talking about some tech presentation she had attended, how one of the startups had impressed a major investor, and how she might pitch her idea to Calein soon.
I listened.
And in the spaces between her stories, between her sips of coffee and her nervous tapping on the table, I began to feel human again.
Until he called.
My phone buzzed once, and his name lit up the screen. I didn't answer it.
Layla saw. Her expression didn't shift.
"I'm not going to tell you what to do," she said. "But maybe… don't pretend like this didn't hurt. You're allowed to be angry, Lara. You're allowed to want answers."
That night, I called him back.
It rang twice before his voice answered, low and unreadable.
"Lara."
"I don't know what you're doing," I said, my voice steady only because I had rehearsed this moment in my head a hundred times. "But if you needed space, you could've said it. If you regret what happened between us, you could've told me. I deserve better than silence."
A pause. Then—
"I don't regret you," he said. "I regret... how I handled everything. But I never stopped caring."
"Then why disappear?"
"I didn't think I could be the man you needed."
"That wasn't your choice to make."
He went quiet again.
I expected him to apologize. He didn't.
"I'll be at the piano bar on 5th tonight," he said finally. "I'm playing again. If you want to come."
"Is this an apology or a performance?"
"Maybe both."
The line went dead.
I didn't decide right away. I stared at my own reflection in the window, unsure if the woman looking back at me was the same one he had once started playing again for.
And then, almost instinctively, I reached for my coat.
Because I needed to know.
Not if he still loved me.
But if I still loved the man he had become.