Hazel:
Sunday morning light is a liar. It spills through the crack in my curtains, a bright, cheerful light that feels like a personal insult. I'm curled on the sofa, wrapped in a blanket that's lost all warmth. My body is heavy, a leaden weight sunk deep into the cushions. If I close my eyes, I can still feel the humiliating sting of Luke walking away from me at the restaurant, and the striking contrast of his pale face last night at his old apartment.
Two different men. Which one is real?
My gaze drifts, avoiding the discarded black dress puddled on the floor like a shadow of a self I no longer recognize. It lands on my sketchbook and the box of charcoal pencils on the coffee table. A fresh pain lances through me. My sanctuary and my escape. Now, it just feels like the starting point of all this pain.
I reach out a trembling hand and pull the sketchbook onto my lap. The cover is worn, the paper inside thick and textured. I haven't opened it in months. Just touching it brings him back.
It started with charcoal. Two years ago, I was sitting in the park, lost in the intricate, beautiful chaos of an oak tree's bark. My hand was smudged black, the world narrowed down to lines and shadows.
"You've captured the light perfectly," a voice said, not too close, not intrusive. "Most people would just see a tree. You see the life in it."
I looked up. It was Ethan. He was handsome, sure, with a confident smile. But it was his eyes that hooked me. He was really looking at the drawing, and then he looked at me with a focus that made me feel utterly seen. "It's just a sketch," I'd mumbled, my face heating.
"It's not," he said, his voice firm but kind. "It's a piece of you. That's obvious."
He was charming. He was exciting. He remembered the names of my favorite artists. For the first time, someone didn't treat my art as a cute hobby. He treated it as a key to my soul. I fell for it. I fell for him, very hard.
The first crack was so small. A comment about my friend Angelos from class. "He seems a little too interested in you, doesn't he? I just don't trust him." He framed it as protection, as love.
Then it was the money. A hundred here, two hundred there. "It's just until this deal closes, Haze. You're the only one who believes in me." And I did. I wanted to support the brilliant, misunderstood man I thought he was.
The first time I found the text, my world tilted. It was flirty, from a woman named Cloe. When I confronted him, his face crumpled. He didn't get angry. He cried. Actual tears.
"She means nothing," he'd choked out, grabbing my hands. "I'm just so insecure. You're this incredible, talented artist, and what am I? I feel like I'm going to lose you. It was a stupid, stupid mistake."
I took him back. I comforted him. I told him he was enough. I was so desperate to hold onto the illusion, to the man who had once seen the light in my drawings.
The final time, there was no denying it. I saw them together, his arm around another woman, his laugh easy and familiar. The confrontation was different. No tears. Just a cold, hard rage.
"You were spying on me?" he'd sneered.
"We're over, Ethan."
His face had twisted. "You'll never do better than me, Hazel. You think you're special? You're a naive little artist who can't handle the real world. You'll be back."
I walked away. I took my shattered heart and the ghost of my creativity and I locked them both away. The charcoal dust reminded me of his deception, of my own blindness. I stopped drawing. I got the job at the office. I built a small, quiet and safe life. The walls went up. And then there was Luke.
He was so different. Where Ethan was loud, Luke was quiet. Where Ethan's confidence was a performance, Luke's awkwardness was painfully real. I saw him watching me sometimes, not with possession, but with a kind of shy wonder that made my heart ache in a different way.
Our first real conversation at the café… it was like breathing fresh air after being trapped in a smoky room. He asked about my sketches. He listened, really listened, as I tentatively told him about charcoal and light and finding beauty in broken things. He didn't pretend to be an expert. He was just… interested... in me.
For the first time since Ethan, I felt a piece of myself stirring, waking up. The part of me that saw beauty wanted to share it with him. With Luke, it felt pure.
Now, sitting here in the crushing silence of my apartment, I see the trap with painful clarity. Luke is right to be angry. Ethan is a poison. His texts to Luke, showing up at my building… it's not love. It's a campaign. It's ownership.
But Luke doesn't understand the fear. That metallic taste in my mouth when I see Ethan's name on my phone. The way my heart seizes when I hear a knock at the door. Ethan's "I'll never let you go" isn't a plea; it's a threat.
And Luke… the man who kissed me in the rain can transform, in the blink of an eye, into the cold, smirking stranger who walked into a gala on Anna's arm. He has a darkness in him too, one I don't understand. A capacity for cruelty that appeared out of nowhere.
I'm trapped. Caught between a past that wants to drag me back into the dark and a future that might just be a different kind of prison.
My fingers trace the edge of the blank page in my sketchbook. It's been so long. The charcoal stick feels foreign and familiar in my hand, a forgotten limb. I take a deep, shaky breath that rattles in my chest. Then, I press the charcoal to the paper.
It's not a grand gesture. It's a single, hesitant line, then another. I'm not drawing for Ethan. I'm not drawing for Luke. This smudge of black, this rough shape emerging from the white void… this is for me.
It's the first step to taking my life back.