The scent of paint and old wood hit Maya the moment she pushed open the art room door. It was familiar now -- less jarring, less intimidating than it had been before. She stepped inside, careful to shut the door quietly behind her, as though noise might break whatever fragile thing kept drawing her back here.
She hadn't planned to come. Not really. Her feet had just brought her here after last period, past the whispers and stares, past the group of seniors huddled near the lockers pretending not to look. She had ignored them all, eyes down, throat dry.
Now, standing in the familiar stillness, she realized she'd been craving it. This room. This silence. Him.
Damien sat at his usual corner, the large canvas in front of him like a shield. His posture was relaxed but focused, sleeves rolled, a smudge of charcoal across one cheekbone. His hair had grown a little longer since the first time she saw him paint. Still messy. Still careless. Still him.
She didn't announce herself. She didn't have to.
"You came," he said after a long beat, not turning.
"I didn't think I would," Maya murmured.
A faint smile touched his lips, the kind that looked like it had nothing to prove. He set his brush down on the edge of the table and finally looked over his shoulder.
"Yet you did."
Maya hesitated, hugging her arms across her chest. She hadn't worn makeup today. Her hoodie was too big. Her hair was pulled back in a loose, hurried tie. And still, the way he looked at her -- like she was exactly enough -- made her shift uneasily.
"You don't have to talk," Damien said quietly. "Just sit."
So she did.
The chair creaked under her weight as she settled into the far corner. Light poured in through the high windows, cutting across his face in soft streaks. He turned back to his work, his hand moving with a calm she didn't understand. He never seemed rushed, never pressed. It was like he lived in a time that bent around him.
Maya watched in silence. Every movement he made was deliberate, his fingers knowing exactly where to press and pull and layer.
The quiet stretched between them -- not awkward, not empty. It was the kind of silence that made space. That said you could breathe here.
Her eyes dropped to her lap. "I don't know who I am anymore," she said suddenly.
His hand paused.
"I'm trying," she went on, voice low, "but it's like I'm half-in and half-out of myself all the time. Like I keep looking for the old version of me, and she's just… gone."
Damien glanced over, his gaze steady. "Maybe she's not gone. Maybe she just needed to be redrawn."
Maya looked up, startled. "Redrawn?"
He nodded once, then stepped aside from the easel.
"Come see."
She rose slowly. Her heart thudded harder the closer she got. There was always a part of her that flinched before seeing herself --like she still expected to find the version everyone else used to mock, the one that made her curl into herself.
But what she saw wasn't that.
It wasn't the trembling girl who kept her eyes glued to the floor. It wasn't the girl they had laughed at and posted about and named a hundred things behind her back.
It was her. But braver. Shoulders relaxed. Chin tilted just enough to suggest strength. Her mouth wasn't smiling, but it wasn't afraid either. There was something defiant in the way her eyes stared back. Something alive.
"That's not how I look," she whispered.
Damien didn't move. "It's how I see you."
She bit the inside of her cheek. Her fingers curled into her sleeves.
"She's not me," she said again, softer. "Not yet."
"She is," he said. "You've just been trained not to believe it."
Silence settled over them again. Maya's chest ached from the weight of it.
"She's everything I'm trying to be," she said finally. "But when I stand in front of the mirror, I still see the girl who hid in the library to eat lunch. The one who didn't speak up when they shoved her bag into the trash."
Damien didn't interrupt. He didn't correct her. He just listened.
"I kept thinking it would stop hurting," she continued. "That one day I'd wake up and not feel it. But it's still there. Some days it's small. Some days it's loud. But it never goes away."
He was quiet for a long time before replying.
"Pain doesn't leave," he said. "It just changes shape. Some days, it's background noise. Other days, it demands attention. But either way -- it doesn't mean you're not healing."
Maya swallowed hard.
"I wanted to disappear back then," she admitted. "Now I'm scared of being seen."
"You're already being seen," he said.
He didn't mean by him. She could tell.
"I mean by you," she said, meeting his eyes.
He nodded. "Yeah. Me too."
They stood there, the two of them, in the soft light and sharp quiet. She didn't know what this was, what it meant, what it was turning into -- but it felt real. Heavy in her lungs. Warm in her bones.
"You never told me why you painted me the first time," she said, eyes back on the canvas.
He considered that. Then, without looking at her, he said, "Because you looked like someone trying not to exist. And somehow, I couldn't stop seeing you."
She let the words sink in. Not just the meaning, but the weight of being seen by someone who wasn't trying to fix her. Or own her. Or pretend he understood. Just someone who watched quietly. And didn't look away.
Her throat tightened.
"I don't know how to be that girl," she whispered again, nodding at the portrait.
"You already are," he said. "And when you believe it… they won't be able to touch you."
She didn't speak after that. Didn't need to.
She sat beside him again while he picked up a new canvas and began sketching something else -- something abstract this time. Swirls of red and black and ash.
His silence didn't shut her out. It held her. Kept her safe.
Outside, the wind moved through the trees. Inside, she felt her ribs loosen for the first time in days.
And when the final bell rang and she rose to leave, Damien didn't say goodbye.
He just said, without looking up, "Don't forget how she looked today."
Maya turned back. "The girl in the painting?"
"No," he said. "You."
Then he went on painting like he hadn't just broken her open with a single word.
And she left with that version of herself still lingering in her chest -- steady, quiet, and completely unforgettable.