Chapter 10
987words
I heard he'd developed a high fever and was hospitalized. Alex called several times, dancing around the subject before finally asking if I might visit Julian.
I declined politely each time.
I was busy moving into the new apartment Leo and I had purchased on the west side of Central Park. Sunlight flooded through massive floor-to-ceiling windows, leaving no shadows where memories could hide.
On my final night in the old apartment, New York surprised us with an unseasonably late spring snow.
I'd already discarded most of my old belongings. Only one thing remained.
Ten paintings I'd created for Julian. One for each year from fifteen to twenty-five, documenting a decade of unrequited love. These canvases held the secret history of my youth—witnesses to my humiliation, fleeting joy, heartbreak, and despair.
I lined them against the wall like soldiers standing for inspection—the fallen army of my youth. The paintings traced his evolution: from the naive boy in school uniform, to the spirited graduate in academic gown, to the detached man in his tailored suit.
They had once been my entire world.
Now I would bury them with my own hands.
I slipped on headphones, letting music wall me off from the world. Black paint pooled from the bottle as I picked up my brush and approached the first canvas. Julian at fifteen—captured on the basketball court, his profile gilded by sunlight, sweat glistening on his skin.
I once thought nothing in the world could be more beautiful.
With steady hands, I raised the brush and drew it downward in one fluid motion. The painting now bore a harsh black scar.
I didn't cry. I felt no anger. My heart was as empty and quiet as the falling snow outside. This ritual wasn't for him—it was for me. A final goodbye to the pathetic girl who had chased him for so long, making way for someone who could embrace Leo's love with an undamaged heart.
Just as I moved toward the second canvas, my apartment door swung open.
I assumed it was my mother or my best friend. Instead, I turned to find Julian standing there.
He'd lost weight, his face paper-white, unmelted snowflakes still clinging to his shoulders. He'd clearly been running—his chest heaved as he struggled to catch his breath.
"You're… moving away?" His voice rasped as he surveyed the room filled with packed boxes.
I nodded and removed my headphones.
"Weren't you in the hospital?" I asked.
His lips twisted into something worse than tears. "You never visited. Not once."
"I didn't want to," I replied flatly.
My bluntness shocked him. His eyes widened, as if my words had physically struck him.
Then his gaze shifted to the paintings behind me, lingering on the portrait marred by black paint. What little color remained drained from his face.
"These are…" He approached slowly, his voice shaking. "You painted these?"
He recognized them.
He moved closer, staring at the row of paintings—at versions of himself that had haunted my youth. His breathing grew labored, his eyes wide with disbelief and horror.
"What are you doing?" he whispered.
Without answering, I raised my paint-soaked brush and moved toward the next canvas.
"Stop!" He lunged forward, reaching for my wrist.
I sidestepped him easily.
"Don't touch them!" he growled, his voice cracking. "Don't destroy them!"
I fixed him with an icy stare. "These are my paintings. What I do with them is none of your concern."
"How can it not concern me?" His bloodshot eyes reminded me of a cornered animal. "That's me in those paintings! It's us! Our memories!"
His words struck me as absurdly funny.
I couldn't help it—I laughed out loud.
"Us?" I met his gaze calmly. "Julian, was there ever really an 'us'?"
My question hit him like ice water, dousing his frantic energy. He froze, lips trembling, speechless.
Indeed. We never had an "us."
There had only been my one-woman show, occasionally graced by his lordly, charitable condescension.
I turned away from him.
I approached the final painting—created when I was twenty-five—showing him in the bathroom, drying my hair. In it, his eyes held a tenderness I had imagined but never actually witnessed.
I raised my brush.
"Don't…" His voice broke, suddenly small and tearful like an abandoned child's. "Please, Clara, don't… don't reject me."
He bombarded me with questions.
Why, after loving someone for so many years, could I just stop so suddenly?
Why had I always looked back before, but not now?
Why couldn't I wait for him just a little longer?
He claimed he'd returned to start fresh with me. That now he loved me even more than I had ever loved him.
Disgust rose like bile in my throat.
"So what, Julian?" I cut him off. "Now that you've decided to love me, I'm supposed to come running?"
"When you pushed me away time after time, when you left me sitting alone in that restaurant on my birthday, when you told me 'this is quite boring'—did you ever think about my feelings?"
"Not once."
"Now I don't want to hear another word from you."
I stared at his broken expression and, with newfound resolve, dragged my brush across the final canvas—a thick, black line of finality slashing from left to right.
When I finished, I tossed the brush into the paint bucket with a splash.
Julian collapsed to his knees, burying his face in his hands, releasing animal-like whimpers. Heedless of his cracked, wounded skin, he tried desperately to wipe away the wet paint, only smearing it further into a hopeless, muddy mess.
In the painting, his face—once the object of all my devotion—disappeared beneath a veil of darkness.
I was already gone.
I walked downstairs to find Leo's car waiting in the swirling snow. Its headlights cut through the darkness like open arms, welcoming me home.
