The first time you met him, it was raining—one of those persistent drizzles that soaked through coats and skin alike, the kind that blurred the world into soft watercolor grays. You had ducked into his gallery by accident, searching for shelter, trailing wet footprints on polished concrete. He barely looked up from his canvas at first. Just nodded. “Stay as long as you need,” he murmured. You watched him paint in silence, mesmerized by the way his brush moved like it had a will of its own, like he wasn’t guiding it so much as it was guiding him.

You didn’t know then, not fully, what kind of ache lived inside his chest. But you could feel it in the air around him. Some people carry grief like an anchor—dragging it with them. He wore his like a second skin. He didn’t speak much those first few weeks. You returned often, pretending to admire the art, pretending you weren’t drawn to him like moth to flame. Eventually, he asked if you would sit for him.

“I like the way your face holds quiet,” he said, cryptic and gentle. “There’s a softness in your eyes. Familiar, somehow.”

You took it as a compliment. You told yourself that perhaps it was fate. That maybe you were meant to help him heal, to pull him out of whatever abyss he was painting his way through.

But it didn’t take long for you to notice the patterns.

She was everywhere.

Not in name—he never spoke it. But in oil and canvas and charcoal, her image haunted every room of that studio. A high cheekbone. A curve of a smile not quite yours. The delicate slant of a nose. The same small beauty mark beneath the left eye. At first, it was flattering, uncanny even. You thought maybe you had stumbled across someone who just looked like you. A coincidence.

Until you saw the date on the earliest portrait. Five years before you ever met him.

She had been real. That much became clear. A dancer, someone said. Vanished one winter. No note. No explanation. Just gone. They whispered about it in the gallery sometimes, voices hushed with pity, curiosity, reverence.

He never confirmed anything. But he painted her over and over again. And now—he painted you.

You started to pay closer attention. The way he stared at you during sittings—not studying, not observing—but searching. The way his fingers trembled sometimes, just before they touched the canvas. Like he was afraid you’d disappear if he blinked.

One day, you wandered deeper into the backroom of the studio, a space you were never quite invited to. Dust motes danced in the slant of sunlight through the blinds. There were dozens of portraits, some unfinished, others nearly identical. All of her. All of you.

And suddenly it hit you—not like a slap, but like a slow, suffocating realization.

He hadn’t chosen you for you.

He had chosen you because you looked like the person he couldn’t forget.

That night, when he walked in and found you sitting among the paintings, his face paled like he had seen a ghost. Maybe he had.

You didn’t speak at first. Neither did he. But eventually, the silence cracked.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” your voice barely above a whisper.

He lowered his gaze. “Would it have changed anything?”

You stood. “Yes. It would’ve.”

He looked tired, older than he did the day before. “You remind me of someone I lost. She was… everything. When I saw you that day, standing in the rain, I thought—I thought maybe the world was giving her back to me in pieces.”

Your breath caught in your throat. “I’m not her.”

“I know,” he said, and the ache in his voice made you wish he had lied. “But sometimes, when you laugh, it’s almost the same. And I wanted to believe that healing could come in familiar shapes.”

You swallowed hard. “So what am I, then? A stand-in? A shadow?”

His eyes found yours, and for once, he didn’t look past you.