A mechanical voice echoed in my ear.
“Main menu. Messages available. Tap twice to open.”
Blind-assist mode.
My fingers trembled as I dragged across the glass, counting every vibration, praying I would land on Rowan’s name.
I didn’t.
A recording played on its own.
“Julian, she said ‘Mama’ today,” a woman’s voice laughed softly. “You should’ve been here to hear it. Next time I’ll teach her to call for you.”
Seraphine.
My throat closed. This wasn’t my phone.
Another tap.
“Do you think it’s okay if she starts calling you Dad now?” A man replied, his voice thick with happiness I hadn’t heard in years. “I’ll tuck Elara in and head over soon.”
Him.
I remembered the night before everything fell apart. I’d woken thirsty and gone looking for him, assuming he was still buried in paperwork. He wasn’t working at all. He was with her.
Our wedding night replayed in my head.
I had whispered, half-joking, “If you ever fall out of love with me, just take the ring back. I’ll disappear from your life.”
He’d kissed my temple and promised, “If I ever hurt you, I deserve to die forgotten.”
Footsteps approached from the kitchen. I slid the phone back exactly where I’d found it.
Julian came in carrying a bowl, sitting close enough that I could feel warmth radiating from him. “Careful, it’s hot,” he said, guiding the spoon like I was something precious.
His phone rang.
He paused, then picked up.
“Yes?” His voice shifted instantly.
“Sir, the paperwork’s ready. We just need your signature,” came a familiar woman’s voice.
Not paperwork. An invitation.
I heard a baby cry faintly in the background.
His tone softened completely. “I’m coming now.”
He placed the bowl in my hands. “Something urgent came up. Eat while it’s warm.”
I forced a small smile. “Go. I’ll manage.”
He studied me, puzzled that I wasn’t clinging to him. Then the pull of the child won. “You’re alright,” he said, patting my head before leaving.
When the door closed, I picked up my own phone.
I recorded a message to Rowan, the assistant who had kept my gallery alive for years.
“Find me a cornea donor. Also, reserve me the earliest flight out the day after tomorrow.”
My eyes had once been my livelihood—every hue, every glimmer of light passing through them before it reached canvas. Julian had taken them for his lover.
So I would take everything back.
But first, I needed to see.
I used to believe in beauty. In love. In color. I believed in Julian, the way I believed in my art.
Paint fades. So does devotion.
He had chosen.
Now I would too.
---
Light seeped faintly through my closed lids when I woke again. The silence told me it was late.
I tried to make it to the bathroom alone, counting each step. My knee smashed into a table leg and I went down hard, biting back a cry.
The door flew open.
“Elara! What are you doing?” Julian rushed over. “Why didn’t you wait? I was only gone a moment.”
A lie. He didn’t smell like the outside world.
“I’m okay,” I said calmly. “Go back to whatever mattered more.”
His hand patted my hair. “Nothing is more important than you.”
Those words once meant everything. Now they meant nothing.
He helped me up and escorted me to the bathroom like a jailer.
Afterward he asked, “What do you want for lunch? I’ll make anything.”
“I want to go home.”
He hesitated. “But your condition—”
“I don’t know this place. At home I won’t keep crashing into furniture.”
“Fine,” he agreed.
Back at the villa, I was already planning my escape when he spoke again.
“A friend of mine lost his wife during childbirth. He was in an accident yesterday… he didn’t survive. He asked me to take care of his baby.”
I sipped water, masking the disgust. “Bring her here tomorrow.”
He hugged me. “That’s why I love you. You’re always so kind.”
He cooked dinner. I barely ate.
“You hardly touched it,” he said. “Want me to make something else?”
“I’m full.”
He was about to push when the doorbell rang.
