My eyes dart open as the sting of his mustache hair prickles my cheek.

  A kiss.

  Like nothing is wrong.

  Like we both hadn’t been flinching awake at every midnight phone call.

  I want to believe this silence between us is temporary, but the bandage on my hand doesn’t nurse my heart. I want to believe things will get better, but something is unraveling.

  I roll over to find him seated at the edge of the bed, his back to me, gray threaded through his coils while morning light begins to pry through the curtains. I reach for his back, my palm barely settling there. Distance has become the new roommate in our home.

  A sign slips from his mouth. He sets his phone on the bedside table and walks into the master bathroom. A moment later, the shower starts.

  I turn onto my back and stare at the ceiling. Adrian’s phone lights the room, the flashes bouncing off the plaster like a pulse. Something about it feels wrong.

  I think about last night, the way I stood outside his office door, listening to his low, guarded voice on the other side. I couldn’t make out the words, only the shape of them.

  His phone lights again. I push myself upright. The bathroom door glows at the edges, light spilling into the bedroom.

  I shouldn’t. I know I shouldn’t.

  I pick up the phone and answer it.

  It was just after six, Alarica sat folding laundry she hadn’t bothered to put away. Her phone buzzed on the couch beside her.

  “Hello?” She trapped the phone between her ear and shoulder, tilting her head to keep it from slipping while her hands kept moving through the pile of clothes.

  “Hey stranger,” Maya said. “Come out with me tonight. There’s a paint-and-sip at this little studio in NoDa. We can drink cheap wine and pretend we’re da Vinci.”

  Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  She almost laughed. “I don’t know…”

  “Please. We haven’t talked in months. I miss you.”

  That did it.

  By seven-thirty Alarica and Maya were sitting shoulder to shoulder at a long paint-splattered table, each with a blank canvas and a plastic cup of red wine. The air was warm and woodsy, tinged with the subtle wax of fresh acrylics.

  At the front, the instructor adjusted the sample painting on her easel. “Alright everyone, tonight we’re painting something a little different. This one’s about letting go.”

  On the canvas, two thin skeletal hands opened upward, releasing a swirl of butterflies into a fading sky.

  “That’s…dark.” Maya said unsure whether to admire it or not.

  Alarica tilted her head. “It’s kind of pretty,” she said, though her stomach had tightened.

  “Start with the background,” the instructor guided. “Blend your blues and grays. Keep your strokes loose. Think about the mood you want behind your subject.”

  They dipped their brushes and began.

  “So,” Maya said casually. “How’ve you been? Really.”

  Alarica shrugged, her eyes remained focused on the canvas. She brushed the paint in a diagonal pattern across the center. “Busy. Work. Life.”

  “Life,” Maya echoed, like it was a code for something else.

  “Now block out the hands,” the instructor continued. “Don’t worry about the details, yet. Just find the shape.”

  Maya’s strokes were heavy and uneven, creating a rough surface. “You always were the better artist.”

  “I’m not,” Alarica said, as she grabbed her cup of wine. She took a small tentative sip, instantly regretting it as the acidic tang felt like taking a bite of unripe grapefruit.

  “You are. You pay attention to things.”

  She didn’t answer. She was focused on the hands, the bones, the empty space between the fingers.

  “You never told me what happened,” Maya said quietly. “With him.”

  The brush stilled in her hand.

  “I mean, you don’t have to,” Maya added. “I just…you disappeared for a while.”

  Across the room the instructor’s voice floated again. “Add the butterflies last. They’re the light in the piece. The thing being released.”

  “He still doesn’t know.” She wiped her face with her sleeve.

  “Know what?” Maya questioned.

  “I was…” She swallowed. “I was—” She stopped, the paint brush rested against the wing of a butterfly. The words dried up. Alarica pressed her lips together. The moment she closed her eyes, she remembered the tile, the bleach, the printer ink. Thinking— “.”

  The instructor’s voice came again. “Let the butterflies feel like they are drifting away. Don’t trap them in your painting. They’re not meant to stay.”

  Alarica turned toward Maya. Her eyebrows were sewn together with concern.

  “I saw her,” Alarica blurted. “Selene. I had to tell her.”

  “Tell her what?” Maya prompted her to continue.

  Alarica’s jaw tightened. She pinched the paint brush between her fingers.

  “That he’s dangerous. That he lies.” Her tone fell to a hush as her gaze met the space beneath them. “That he ruined more than her.”

  Droplets puddled on the floor from Alarica’s eyes.

  Maya didn’t move.

  Alarica lifted her shoulder and dragged her sleeve across her cheeks once more, smearing the dampness across the fabric. “I shouldn’t say this, but when Selene lost her baby… I felt something I’m not proud of.”

  Maya waited.

  “Not joy, exactly. Relief maybe.” She swallowed. “She got to walk around glowing. I never wanted her to lose the baby. But when she did… a part of me felt even. She still had everyone’s sympathy. I had silence.”

  Maya reached out and touched her arm. “I’m so sorry,” she whispered.

  “I thought if I just kept moving, it wouldn’t live in me like this,” she said. “But it does. It still does.”

  Alarica turned back to her canvas, adding crumpled pieces of gold foil to her butterfly wings. A touch of delicate beauty.

  They continued to paint in silence as the other women chattered amongst themselves, the room alive around them. Alarica kept working the brush, layering color over color, as if she could bury the past beneath the paint. The canvas was the only place the memories couldn’t reach her.