The canvas stared back at me, a jagged, weeping mess of charcoal and bruised violets. My hands were stained, my fingernails still holding the ghost of the night before, but the silence of the loft was a physical weight.
Sleep was an unattainable luxury, a phantom I couldn't grasp while his scent still clung to my skin like a shroud. I couldn't stop the tremors in my fingers, nor could I stop the memory of that morning, the clinical way he had buttoned his shirt, the way he had checked his watch, the way he had looked at the phone screen and then, for a brief, agonizing second, looked at me as if I were nothing more than a temporary fix.
I picked up the brush, my movements sharp and frantic, trying to bleed the ache out onto the fabric. But every stroke felt like a betrayal. I wasn't painting art; I was painting my own funeral. I was painting the eighty-nine days left until he walked down that aisle and traded his freedom for a boardroom merger.
My mind slipped, the smell of turpentine fading into the sterile, ozone-sharp air of his executive office.
Twenty-four hours ago. The breaking point.
I had walked into Sterling Tower like a woman walking to the gallows. I was there to quit. Not my job, not my life, but the role I had played for two decades: the best friend. The confidante. The woman who stood in the shadows while he charmed the world. I couldn't do it anymore. The wedding invitations were in the mail, and the thought of watching him exchange vows with Vanessa, a woman who looked at me like I was a smudge of paint on a pristine rug was a blade to my throat.
I had confronted him by the floor-to-ceiling glass of his office, the city of Newark spread out below us like a carpet of dying embers. I told him I couldn't be his person anymore. I told him it hurt too much to be the girl he called when he was lonely, only to watch him play the role of the devoted groom-to-be the next morning.
I had turned to leave, my chin held high, my heart shattering into a thousand jagged pieces. But I never made it to the door.
Josh had moved with a predator's grace. He reached out, his hand snapping out to lock around my wrist, and yanked me backward. He didn't say a word. He pinned me against the cold, expansive glass of his office window, fifty stories above the earth. The world felt dizzying, tilted, and far away. He was there, towering over me, his tailored jacket discarded, his tie hanging loose around his neck like a noose.
"Don't you dare walk out on me," he had growled, his breath hot against the shell of my ear.
"I have to," I had cried, my voice cracking. "I love you, Josh! I have always loved you, and it is killing me to stand here and watch you throw your life away for a merger!"
The confession hung in the air, raw and terrifying. I had finally said it. The unrequited love that had defined my entire existence was finally out in the open, naked and hideous. I waited for him to push me away, to laugh, or to tell me I was insane.
Instead, he kissed me.
It wasn't a gentle kiss. It was a collision of years of pent-up starvation. He crushed his mouth to mine, his hands roaming over my back, his fingers digging into my shoulders as if he were trying to imprint himself onto my soul. The best-friend rule, the invisible, sacred line we had danced around since we were children snapped. It didn't just break; it evaporated.
When we finally broke apart, gasping for air, he had pressed his forehead against mine, his eyes dark with a desperate, frantic intensity. He didn't offer me a future. He didn't offer me a life. He offered me a countdown.
"Ninety days," he had whispered, his thumb tracing the line of my lower lip. "We are both dying, Viv. We have been dying for years. I am shackled to that woman, to that company, and to that name. I can't escape it. But for ninety days, I want the truth. I want you."
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small, heavy silver chain. Attached to it was a small, ornate key not for a lock, but for a memory. He didn't put it around my neck. He took my hand and pressed it into my palm, his grip firm and proprietary.
"Wear this under your clothes," he had commanded, his voice dropping to a dangerous, low hum. "Every time you feel it against your skin, remember that you are mine. Nobody knows. Nobody sees it. In public, you are the best friend. You are the girl who keeps my secrets. But when you are behind closed doors, you belong to me, and I belong to you. No strings. No jealousy. No love. Just these ninety days."
I had accepted the key. I had accepted the bargain. I had agreed to the terms: We would meet only in private. Not a soul on this earth would know the depravity we shared behind locked doors. In public, the mask would never slip. We were best friends, nothing more, nothing less.
He hadn't mentioned love because, to him, love was the complication that would ruin the arrangement. He didn't know that I had already given him every part of my heart years ago, and that he was simply playing with the wreckage.
I looked down at my chest, where the silver key rested against my skin, cold and heavy. It was a secret mark of possession, a silent promise that he owned the parts of me that he wasn't allowed to see in the light.
I turned back to the canvas, my heart aching with the sharp, rhythmic pulse of the secret chain against my sternum. Eighty-nine days of stolen darkness left. Eighty-nine days to pretend that the touch of his hand wasn't the only thing keeping me alive. I dipped my brush into the paint, the red smear looking too much like fresh blood, and began to paint the face of the man who was currently planning his wedding to someone else.
I knew the rules. I knew the stakes. And I knew that when the ninety days were up, I wouldn't just be losing my best friend. I would be losing the only version of myself that had ever truly felt real. The bargain was struck, the ink was dry, and the countdown had begun. And God help me, I was going to burn for every second of it.