Sketches, watercolors, oils.
They covered all four walls, large and small, hundreds of faces layered over one another, every single one the same woman.
Stephanie Fox.
Stephanie smiling, Stephanie looking down, Stephanie with her hair in a ponytail, Stephanie in a school uniform…
Every expression, every flicker across her face, Christian had remembered it all.
Each one was signed in the bottom right corner, dated, spanning from seventeen years old to yesterday.
The newest was at the top of the easel, the paint not yet dry.
In it she stood at an airport exit, pulling a suitcase, sunlight falling across her face.
I reached out and touched the painting.
Indigo oil came away on my fingertip.
Like a nail, driven hard into my heart.
A room sealed shut for years had been opened again, for Stephanie Fox.
Christian, who'd sworn he would never paint again, had picked up the brush again, for Stephanie Fox.
Every piece of evidence pointed to the same answer.
Christian had never loved me.
The next day, I couldn't get out of bed for the pain.
Christian canceled the dinner at the old house, hung up the phone, and brought me warm honey tea.
"Drink it while it's hot."
He sat on the edge of the bed, slid his fingers under the blanket, and kneaded my stomach with just the right pressure.
His palm was warm. I drifted off, half-conscious, and in the dream I was back on the high school field at seventeen.
I worked up the courage. "Christian, in your heart, who am I?"
In the dream he froze for a second, then pulled his mouth into a smile. "Miranda, you're someone very important to me."
Half-asleep, half-awake, I held onto his hand and asked the question that had puzzled me for years.
"Christian… did you ever love me?"
He went still for a moment.
Then I felt him lean down, his warm breath brushing the edge of my ear.
"Why ask that all of a sudden?"
"Love? That's a strange thing to ask."
Christian said he'd go make me some cinnamon dumplings, and I got up and walked out of the room.
The laptop sat open on the coffee table, the screen frozen on a transfer page.
A wire of over a hundred million, into the company owned by Stephanie's family.
In the notes field it said: A pleasure doing business.
But I knew it wasn't business.
It was Christian helping her.
Helping her escape a marriage she didn't love, helping her hold on to the family company, helping her do everything she needed done.
I looked at it calmly, and felt only that it was exactly what I'd expected.
When it came to Stephanie Fox, wasn't Christian always like this, holding nothing back?
A text message popped up in the bottom right corner of the screen.
【Chris, it's thundering again.】
【How is Southport just like London, the rain never stops? Does your hand hurt?】
Lightning split the sky outside, washing the living room a sickly white.
Christian came out of the kitchen carrying the bowl of cinnamon dumplings.
"Eat it while it's hot. Add more sugar if it's not sweet enough."
"Something urgent's come up at the company."
He set the bowl down, leaned over, and kissed my forehead. "Don't wait up tonight."
"Are you going to be with her?"
The thunderstorm night in senior year, he'd told me he was going back to his grandmother's. Later I found out he'd ridden his bike halfway across the city to be with Stephanie Fox.
She was afraid of thunder, and he'd stay with her all night long.
But he knew that after my mother left me on a thunderstorm night when I was five, I was afraid of thunder too.
His movements stopped.
Thunder rolled across the sky, and the window glass hummed with it.
"Miranda——"
"Are you really going to come back?"
"You said you wouldn't lie anymore."
I held onto his cuff.
That stretch of dark blue shirt fabric crumpled in my grip, then slowly loosened.
He crouched down and cupped my face.
His thumb brushed the corner of my eye, where it had gone wet.
"Don't think too much." He said it softly. "I promise, I'll be back before ten."
