AVA’s POV
I had never been an artist. I was someone who seek consolation in a creative gift that loss unlocked. I had no training, no natural inclination, or history whatsoever in sketchbooks or art classes.
Before Serena died, the most artistic thing I had ever done was arrange a cheese board.
The painting gift was unlocked six months after Serena’s accident. Six months of loss, grief and living in denial.
On this particular day, I had been sitting at the table in the kitchen of my small apartment overseas at two in the morning, unable to sleep, which had become the usual shape of nights by then, and my hands had needed something to do than scrolling through old photographs or rereading the last messages of my conversation with Serena on the w******p app for the hundredth time.
I ha
