ARIA'S POV
I stood in the entrance of Torres Contemporary at six fifteen and looked at what I had made.
Twelve pieces. All of them mine. All built from the last eighteen months of my life. They hung on the white walls in the sequence Clara and I had spent two weeks arranging, each one in conversation with the next, the whole thing moving from fracture toward something that wasn't quite repair but was something better. Something honest.
I'd expected pride but what I felt was quieter than that. Recognition. The particular feeling of seeing something that had been inside you finally existing outside of you, in a room, in the world, where other people could stand in front of it and bring their own lives to it.
"Ready?" Clara came up beside me.
"Yes," I said.
We did one final walk-through
