chapter 3
1322 Words
Lola had always believed that art was about instinct. Muscle memory. Feeling first, thinking later.
But standing in front of the half-finished canvas with Tristan brushing soft blues into the curve of a shadow she’d painted, all she felt was... hesitation.
“You’re brushing too softly,” she said.
“I’m blending,” he replied, not looking at her.
“You’re muting the contrast. It’s supposed to be jagged.”
“It’s called nuance.”
“It’s called losing the damn edge.”
Tristan finally set the brush down and turned to her. “You always did love confrontation more than collaboration.”
Lola stepped forward, arms crossed. “I don’t mind collaboration. I just hate when people dilute my work.”
“Your work?” His brow rose. “I thought this was ours.”
“Don’t start with the ownership semantics.”
“Then stop micromanaging me like I’m your assistant.”
The silence that followed was sharp. Tense.
Outside, the early afternoon light filtered through the tall gallery windows, illuminating dust motes like falling glitter. The rest of the artists worked in their assigned corners, whispering, laughing, creating without the emotional wreckage looming like a third wheel.
Lola exhaled slowly, pulling herself back.
“I’m not trying to be difficult,” she said, voice quieter now. “I just... This matters.”
“I know it does,” Tristan replied. “To me too.”
She glanced at him—really looked at him. He did seem invested. His fingers were stained with pigment, his brows furrowed like the work was unraveling something in him too.
But it wasn’t just about the canvas. It was about control. About the fact that five years ago, he’d vanished and taken the future she thought they’d planned with him. And now he was here, shoulder to shoulder, sharing space like nothing had shattered.
She stepped back from the canvas. “We need a break.”
“I agree,” he said.
They grabbed their coffees and headed to the back patio of the gallery, a small brick-lined courtyard peppered with mismatched café chairs and overgrown vines clinging to the wall. Lola chose the farthest table. Tristan didn’t argue.
“I had a dream last night,” he said after a few sips.
She raised an eyebrow. “Is this the part where you tell me I was in it?”
He grinned faintly. “Actually, no. It was about the apartment we used to sketch in. Remember that loft above the deli on Avenue B?”
Lola blinked. “That place was a fire hazard.”
“And it smelled like garlic bread twenty-four seven.”
She couldn’t help but smile. “I miss that garlic bread.”
Tristan’s voice softened. “I miss that version of us.”
Lola’s smile faded.
“I don’t,” she said, but it came out weaker than she intended.
He nodded slowly, not pushing.
“Do you ever wonder,” he began, “if maybe we were just... too young?”
“No,” she said. “I wonder why you didn’t believe in us.”
That shut him up.
The door opened behind them and Jules poked their head out, sipping from a straw wedged into a coconut.
“Lovers,” Jules said dramatically. “Less tension, more texture. Back to work. And I better see some vulnerability on that canvas, or I’ll come in here with glitter and a staple gun.”
Tristan gave a mock salute.
Lola just rolled her eyes.
But something in her cracked as they walked back in—just a hairline fracture. Still, it was enough.
---
The afternoon passed slowly, thick with unspoken questions and long, tense pauses. Lola kept her side sharp—angles and shadows, swaths of indigo and plum clashing with gold. Tristan worked in curves and earth tones, his brushstrokes deliberate, his textures layered like memory.
Somehow, it started to come together.
At 5 p.m., they took a step back.
The piece looked like heartbreak. Like history. Like forgiveness peeking out from behind resentment. It wasn’t finished—not even close—but it had started breathing on its own.
“Let’s leave it here for today,” Lola said. “I need to clear my head.”
Tristan nodded. “You want company?”
She hesitated.
Then, against her better judgment: “Sure.”
---
They walked together down Mercer Street, the sky streaked with rose gold and soft gray clouds. The tension between them had simmered into something calmer now, like low tide. Still there, just... less threatening.
“Do you remember that night at the rooftop bar?” Tristan asked suddenly.
Lola gave him a sidelong glance. “You mean the one where you said you were ‘definitely not drunk’ and then tried to serenade the bartender with a shoelace microphone?”
He laughed. “Yes. That one.”
“You tripped over a planter.”
“I still maintain that planter came out of nowhere.”
They stopped at a food truck and grabbed tacos. Sat on a bench in Washington Square Park.
Tristan grew quiet.
“I kept your sketch,” he said after a moment. “The one you gave me when I left for LA.”
Lola looked up from her taco. “You told me you lost it.”
“I lied.”
“Why?”
He shrugged. “Because keeping it felt like cheating. I’d told myself I was letting you go. But I never really did.”
Lola didn’t know what to say to that. So she didn’t.
They ate in silence, watching a street performer juggle knives near the fountain.
“I’ve been thinking,” Tristan said, “maybe we’re not just painting the past. Maybe we’re building a bridge to something new.”
Lola chewed slowly. “Or maybe we’re digging up things we buried for a reason.”
“Is that what you want?”
She looked at him. Really looked.
“I don’t know,” she admitted.
---
Back at her apartment, Maya was sprawled on the couch with a bowl of popcorn and a face mask that made her look like a peeled grape.
“Well, well, well,” she said as Lola walked in. “If it isn’t Miss Emotional Reckoning.”
Lola dropped her bag by the door. “Don’t start.”
“I’m just saying. You’ve got that post-repressed-feelings glow.”
“It’s called sweat.”
Maya narrowed her eyes. “You didn’t sleep with him, right?”
“What? No!”
“Just checking. You’ve been known to make questionable decisions under romantic duress.”
Lola flopped down beside her. “We talked. We fought. We painted. The usual.”
“And?”
“And... he’s still him.”
“That’s not an answer.”
Lola sighed. “He apologized. He admitted he was scared. He remembered the garlic bread loft.”
“Oof,” Maya said. “Memory lane’s a bitch.”
“I know.”
“But?”
“But I don’t know what I want from him anymore. I just know that painting with him feels like bleeding onto the canvas.”
Maya paused, then handed her the popcorn. “Bleed. Then see what it looks like.”
---
That night, Lola couldn’t sleep.
She went into her studio and turned on the soft light above her easel. A smaller canvas sat nearby—one she hadn’t touched in weeks.
She unwrapped it. Picked up a brush.
She didn’t think. She just painted.
Shadows.
Light.
A silhouette she knew too well.
But instead of sadness, this time she added something else—color. Hope, maybe. Or longing. It didn’t matter.
She let it breathe.
And for the first time since he came back, she let herself imagine what it would feel like if they didn’t ruin each other this time.
- Writer
