The gallery smelled faintly of varnish and dust, though Elena doubted anyone else noticed. To most visitors, the old converted warehouse was a place of polished concrete floors, tall windows, and carefully mounted frames. For her, every space carried ghosts—of brushstrokes, of mistakes, of moments too fragile to name.
She lingered in front of a canvas that wasn't hers. A stormy piece, blues and grays bleeding into one another, as though the sea itself had lost patience and decided to swallow the world. The artist's nameplate read Clara Duval, but Elena felt the painting was her own confession, splashed across someone else's canvas. She had lived inside storms for years, though hers were made of silence rather than thunder.
"Elena."
Her name tugged her back to earth. She turned and found Mira, her best friend and the gallery's curator, balancing a wine glass in one hand and a clipboard in the other. Mira's dress was all angles and shimmer, something that caught light in every careless turn.
"You're hiding," Mira accused, though her tone was softened by affection.
Elena smiled faintly. "I'm observing."
"You observe at every opening. People are starting to whisper that you're a myth—an artist who floats rather than mingles."
"Maybe I prefer it that way."
Mira sighed and nudged her with a shoulder. "You also prefer solitude, old paperbacks, and coffee that could dissolve a spoon. But tonight isn't about preference. It's about opportunity."
Elena didn't ask what she meant. Mira had been pushing her for months to step into the light, to let her art do more than sit on silent walls. Elena's work had sold—quietly, consistently—but she never attended the exhibitions built around her pieces. She left others to guess at the woman behind the colors.
Still, tonight was different. She had promised Mira she'd at least show up.
And she had, though part of her wished she hadn't. Because something inside her tonight felt restless, like the gallery's air carried a charge.
As Mira drifted away to greet donors, Elena found herself staring at her own painting across the room. A piece titled Mistakes in Amber. It was one of her more abstract works: warm tones fractured by sudden dark strokes, like sunlight splintering across broken glass. She remembered the night she'd painted it, hands trembling, memories pressing too close.
Her chest tightened. She'd sworn not to think of him tonight.
But memory was disobedient.
Adrian's face rose in her mind, as sharply as if he stood among the gallery guests. Dark hair, always too neat for someone who secretly craved chaos. Eyes that held both patience and fire. The man she had once nearly loved—had, in fact, loved in ways she refused to name aloud.
And the man she had lost in one reckless mistake.
"Elena."
The voice wasn't Mira's this time. It was deeper, steadier, a chord struck from her past.
Her breath faltered.
She turned slowly, as if the world had narrowed to that one impossible sound.
And there he was.
Adrian Hale, after seven years.
He looked older—not in the way of lines or gray, but in the stillness that wrapped around him. A tailored suit, of course. Broad shoulders carrying something heavier than the fabric. His eyes, dark and sharp, caught hers and held them.
For a moment, neither spoke.
Elena's pulse hammered against her ribs. She wanted to move, to step back, but her feet rooted to the floor. The gallery around them dissolved into background noise: laughter, clinking glasses, Mira's distant voice.
"It's been a long time," Adrian said finally, his tone unreadable.
"Yes," she managed. Her voice came out softer than she intended, almost a whisper. "A long time."
He looked at the painting—Mistakes in Amber. His gaze lingered on it in a way that made Elena's throat ache.
"You always did turn your guilt into beauty," he said quietly.
Her breath caught. It was not an accusation, nor entirely a compliment. Something in between, like so much that had existed between them.
She should have looked away. She should have let Mira's chatter or the hum of strangers rescue her. But instead, she found herself staring at him as though time had folded, carrying her back to nights of laughter, of arguments, of possibilities that never bloomed.
"Why are you here?" The question slipped out before she could guard it.
Adrian's mouth curved in something that wasn't quite a smile. "Maybe the same reason you are. Mistakes have long shadows."
Her chest tightened again, this time with something perilously close to anger. "You think I came here for—" She stopped herself. The last thing she wanted was to bare her raw edges in the middle of a gallery opening.
But Adrian didn't press. He only watched her with that maddening composure.
---
A memory, uninvited
She was twenty-one again, laughing too loudly in a student café, her fingers stained with paint because she never remembered to wear gloves. Adrian had sat across from her, his law books spread open, his patience stretched thin. He'd teased her for leaving smudges on his notes, she'd teased him for being too serious.
And later—later came the mistake. One night of confusion, of words said too sharply, of choices she'd tried to justify but never forgiven herself for.
That was the night everything broke.
---
"Elena," Mira called from across the room, her voice bright and oblivious. "Come meet the sponsor!"
The spell broke.
Elena blinked, glanced once more at Adrian, and then forced herself to step away. Her legs felt fragile, as though she'd borrowed them from someone else. She didn't dare look back, afraid of what she might see—or not see.
But Adrian followed. Not close enough for others to notice, but she felt the weight of his presence behind her, the way she always had when they were younger. He was a shadow she couldn't shake.
She endured introductions, handshakes, the meaningless swirl of polite conversation. She laughed when required, smiled when expected, but her heart wasn't in it. It was somewhere else—back with the man who had once known her better than anyone.
When the sponsor was distracted by Mira, Elena slipped away toward the quieter end of the gallery. The air was cooler there, the noise muffled. She pressed her palm against the wall, grounding herself.
"You still run when it matters."
She closed her eyes. Of course he'd follow.
Turning, she found him leaning against the opposite wall, his posture deceptively relaxed. His gaze, however, was anything but.
"Why are you really here, Adrian?" Her voice trembled more than she wanted. "It can't be coincidence."
He hesitated, and in that silence she remembered how he used to pause before answering hard questions. As though words mattered too much to waste.
Finally, he said, "Because I needed to see if time had changed anything."
Her breath caught. "And has it?"
He stepped closer, not enough to touch but enough to draw her into the gravity he carried. His eyes searched hers, and for a terrifying moment she thought he might say everything she'd both longed for and dreaded.
Instead, he said, "You tell me."
The words landed like a stone in her chest. She looked away, unable to bear the intensity.
Time hadn't changed enough.
She was still bound by the same mistake, the same guilt, the same unspoken love.
---
The night wore on, but Elena barely registered it. When she finally left the gallery, the city air was cool, threaded with the scent of rain. She hugged her coat tighter around her, but the chill came from within.
Behind her, the gallery lights glowed against the dark. And somewhere inside, Adrian still lingered—proof that the past was not finished with her.
As she walked away, one truth settled deep inside her:
Whatever she thought she had buried had clawed its way back.
And this time, she wasn't sure she had the strength to fight it.