Choosing Columbia University had felt like a desperate grab for independence, a way to put hundreds of miles between myself and the expectations waiting back home. I'd secured my place in New York City with a mix of high honors and a silent, bitter suspicion that my parents' wealth had smoothed the path.
My parents were the architects of their own cold world, building an empire from nothing but sheer, perfectionist will. My mother, Patricia, was the center of that world an "ice beauty" who looked less like a woman and more like a statue carved from fine marble. Then there was my younger sister, Mia. She was the most dangerous of the three; she hid a shrewd, calculating mind behind sweet dimples and a soft voice. Ever since she'd followed me to the city, I'd been living in a state of constant, low-level dread, waiting for the other shoe to drop. I often wondered what it would be like to just vanish, to give up the life I was building and start over where no one knew my name. But I was a coward. I stayed, trapped in the loop of my own ambition.
These thoughts were a heavy, rhythmic pulse in my mind as I worked in the studio. Eventually, the brush felt too heavy to hold. I dropped it onto the tray, the clatter echoing too loudly in the empty room. I sat there for a long time, taking deep breaths, trying to settle the sudden, sharp spike of anxiety that had been my constant companion for a week.
Ever since I'd told Liam no, the world had felt tilted.
It was a frustrating, exhausting paradox. I wanted him gone, yet his sudden silence felt like a void. I spent the week fluctuating between relief and an unsettled, buzzing energy that made it impossible to focus.
By 5 PM, I realized the painting was a lost cause. The colors were muddy, reflecting my own mental state, and no amount of forced effort was going to save it today. I cleaned my station with a precision that bordered on obsessive, needing at least one thing in my life to feel orderly.
I stepped out into the hallway and pulled the door shut, the click of the lock signaling the end of the day. As I turned around,the air left my lungs in a sharp, silent gasp.
Liam was there.
He was leaning against the opposite wall, a dark silhouette against the pale institutional paint. Dressed entirely in black, he looked like he'd been carved from the shadows themselves. My heart didn't just beat; it thrashed against my ribs. We stood there in a heavy, suffocating silence for a full minute. He didn't move, and I couldn't.
Finally, I opened my mouth to demand what he was doing here, but he beat me to it. He pushed off the wall with a slow, feline grace, closing the distance between us until he was only three steps away.
"I've been watching you paint for the last half hour," he said. His voice was a low, steady vibration that seemed to fill the quiet hall. "You looked upset. Why are you upset?"
The question was too intimate, too direct. He asked it with the casual familiarity of someone who had already seen past my defenses. I stood there, looking at him as if he were a ghost or a madman. I didn't know how to explain that he was the reason for half my restlessness, and my family was the reason for the rest.
I didn't give him an answer. I couldn't. Instead, I tightened my grip on my bag and started walking toward the stairs. Without a word of protest, he simply fell into step with me, his presence a silent, undeniable shadow trailing me.