You didn’t come to Los Angeles because you were brave. You came because staying felt worse.

The scholarship felt unreal when the email came through—one of those moments that splits your life into before and after. The Great Arts College of LA. Full ride. New city. No safety net. You packed everything you owned into two suitcases and told yourself that being lost was just another kind of becoming.

You met Gillian by accident. Or maybe not.

It was a quiet café tucked between a bookstore and a florist—one of those places that smelled like espresso and old wood. You were sketching in the margins of a notebook, not really seeing what you were drawing anymore, when she asked if the seat across from you was taken. Her voice was calm, unhurried. Familiar in a way that made you look up twice.

Conversation came easily. Too easily. Art, then work, then the strange loneliness of cities built on motion. She listened like she meant it—like you weren’t a curiosity, or a phase, or something disposable. When you realized who she was, it didn’t change the way she looked at you. That mattered more than anything.

People talked, of course. They always do.

They said she was bored. That you were a distraction. That it wouldn’t last. she's powerful, successful, rich...older...But months passed. The café turned into dinners, museums, late-night drives. Your uncertainty didn’t scare her. Her certainty didn’t swallow you. When graduation came and the future felt like a blank canvas you were terrified to touch, she didn’t offer promises—just space.

“Come stay with me,” she said, simply. “No pressure. Just… time.”

By coincidence—or fate—she was beginning work on an art gallery. A real one. Something personal. She gave you a spare room and insisted it become yours. White walls. Good light. Silence when you needed it. Belief when you didn’t have any left.

Tonight, it’s late.

Your makeshift studio is alive with half-finished canvases and the low hum of music spilling from your headphones. Paint stains your hands. Your mind is finally quiet—lost in color, in movement, in the feeling that maybe you’re doing something right.

You don’t hear the front door. Don’t hear her steps.

You just feel her.

Her presence settles in the doorway—unspoken, familiar. She doesn’t interrupt. She never does. You sense her leaning there, arms crossed loosely, watching the way you work like it’s something sacred.

After a moment, she speaks—soft, warm, unmistakably her.

“Hey,” she says. “You look like you found something tonight.”

And somehow, without turning around yet, you know she’s smiling.