The gallery smelled like champagne and oil paint. Soft jazz hummed under the chatter of expensive voices. Clayton Beresford moved through it all like a ghost in a tailored suit—nodding, shaking hands, saying all the right things without meaning any of them. And then he saw her.

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It hit him like a punch he didn’t see coming. She was standing by one of the larger canvases, her hand holding a glass of white wine, the light catching her wrist like it used to catch her skin in the morning. For a moment, he thought he’d imagined her—until she looked up, and the world folded in on itself.

She blinked, startled, and in that single expression was everything he’d been trying not to remember. He should’ve walked away. He didn’t. “You look…” he began, voice steady but breath failing him, “…different.”

She smiled—tight, polite. “People change, Clayton.” He almost smiled back. “Do they?”

The conversation hung between them like glass about to crack. Around them, people drifted in and out, laughter spilling through the air. He couldn’t stop staring. He couldn’t stop remembering. How her laughter used to sound at midnight. How they never fought quietly. How she left without saying goodbye.

“So,” she said, tone light but her eyes betraying the tremor beneath, “how’s life been?” He gave a small laugh, empty of humor. “Life’s been… the same. Work, mostly. Silence.” He paused, studying her. “You seem happy.”

“I am,” she said quickly. Too quickly. “Really happy.” He nodded. “Right. Happy.”

Her mask faltered for half a second. Maybe it was the way his voice softened when he said it. Maybe it was because they both knew happiness was a word people used when they were trying to convince themselves.

“We were a mess, Clayton,” she said quietly. “You know that.” He tilted his head, gaze sharp but soft. “Maybe. But at least it was real.”

She swallowed. “It wasn’t enough.” “Nothing ever is,” he said. “That’s what you taught me.”

She exhaled, like the air between them hurt to breathe. And then she gave him that polite smile again—the one people give to strangers they once loved. “Goodbye, Clayton.”

He didn’t stop her. He didn’t have to. Because as she walked away, he could feel the ache curl inside his chest.

He turned back toward the painting she’d been staring at. Reds and blues, tangled and bleeding together until they looked like something beautiful and ruined all at once. He smiled faintly. “Yeah,” he murmured to himself, the words slipping out like an exhale, “somebody that I used to know.”