Chapter 5: Glass Walls
985 Words
Selina had always been excellent at constructing facades—perfect, seamless, calculated. Her world was a collection of expertly assembled masks, and she'd worn them so long they had begun to feel like skin. Each day was a performance, and she was both the director and the lead.
But after Damien, the performance faltered.
It wasn't his presence alone. It was the way he looked at her—like he saw through the veneer to the woman underneath. The kind of gaze that didn’t flinch when she was sharp, and didn’t retreat when she was silent. It was infuriating. It was disarming. And she hated that part of her craved it.
She didn’t know when it had started—this unraveling. Maybe the night they sat side by side on her apartment floor, talking about buildings and broken people. Or maybe it was the moment she didn’t hang up on him when her father’s voice had left her shaking.
What she did know was this: walls were useful until they became prisons.
On Saturday morning, Selina joined Damien at a private design workshop tucked behind a bookstore café. It was his monthly ritual, attended by dreamers—students with frayed sketchbooks, retired architects who brought their stories folded into napkins, and curious souls chasing something intangible.
Selina arrived in her signature black, posture precise, eyes guarded. But she stayed.
Damien didn’t announce her presence. He introduced her like anyone else—no titles, no pedestal. “This is Selina. She builds real things.”
For the first time in a long while, she didn’t correct anyone. She took a seat beside a girl sketching a bridge made of glass and cloud shapes.
By the end of the session, Selina had filled three pages of her own notebook. Not for profit. Not for clients. Just for herself.
Afterward, they walked the narrow backstreets of District 3, their fingers brushing but never quite locking. It was humid, the city buzzing with the hum of scooters and incense drifting from alley shrines.
“I thought you didn’t like crowds,” he said.
“I don’t,” she answered. “But I like what they create.”
“And what’s that?”
“Momentum.”
Damien smiled. “You always sound like you’re writing poetry for engineers.”
“I probably am.”
They reached a small bakery. Without asking, he bought her a sticky rice cake and handed it over.
Selina rolled her eyes. “You really think food can solve everything?”
“No,” he said, unwrapping his own. “Just most things.”
She took a bite. It was warm. Soft. Unexpectedly comforting.
Later that night, in her apartment, the calm fractured.
Her phone lit up again.
Her father.
Selina stared at it, debating whether to silence the call or face it head-on.
She answered.
“Your mother tells me you’re still seeing that Vu boy.”
She sighed. “He has a name. Damien.”
“He has a reputation. And so do you.”
Selina’s voice sharpened. “Is this about image or control?”
“It’s about legacy. And stability. Do you even understand what you’re risking by indulging in this… flirtation?”
“It’s not a flirtation.”
“Then it’s worse. Emotion complicates everything. You used to know that.”
“I still do. I just stopped fearing it.”
His pause was cutting. “You sound like your mother.”
“Thank you.”
She ended the call and stared into the glass reflection of her own face, rage and ache carved into every line.
Damien arrived without needing to be called.
He found her on the rooftop garden of her building, blanket around her shoulders, a cup of untouched tea cooling beside her.
She didn’t speak.
He sat beside her, wordless.
Eventually, she whispered, “I hate him.”
“No, you don’t.”
“I do. For thinking I’m just a function of ambition. For forgetting I’m still human beneath all this.”
Damien reached for her hand. “You’re more than human. You’re fire in restraint. But even fire gets tired.”
They sat under the bruised violet sky, the city blinking beneath them.
“I don’t want to be saved,” she said.
“I don’t want to save you,” he replied. “I want to stand beside you while you keep saving yourself.”
The next morning, she found a note under her ceramic mug.
It read:
“I know what glass walls feel like. They let light in, but they don’t let anyone touch you. When you’re ready to shatter one, I’ll bring gloves.” — D.
She read it three times.
Then she folded it and placed it in the drawer beside the blank contract Damien had once given her.
She wasn’t ready to write terms yet.
But for the first time, she wanted to try.
That afternoon, Selina met her mother at a tea salon downtown. Uyen studied her daughter’s face, then smiled without asking questions.
“I told your father to stop calling,” she said.
“Did he listen?”
“No. But I reminded him you’ve survived worse than a bitter man’s opinion.”
Selina let out a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding.
“You were always the stronger one, Mom.”
“No,” Uyen replied gently. “I just waited for you to believe it.”
That night, Selina sent Damien a message.
Selina: “What kind of gloves?”
Damien: “The kind that still let you feel the glass shatter.”
Selina: “I want to try.”
Damien: “Then let’s break something together.”
And beneath the weight of years she hadn’t realized she’d been carrying, Selina began to feel something light growing inside her.
It wasn’t peace.
But it was possibility.
To be continued...
- Writer
