35. Kael
KAEL
I left my apartment the day after Ash called to end it for good. Jamal said the studio would only take a few minutes to pack, but I’ve turned it into a whole sad little project, dragging it out because leaving for real feels worse than sleeping on the floor between half-filled boxes.
Everything I own is spread across the room in disorganized stages of surrender. The studio still smells like turpentine and dreams, but the cold’s already seeping in.
Getting control of my life is exactly as hard as I thought it would be. I made the “responsible” choice. Shouldn’t there be a reward for that? If life worked that way, more people would make it.
My life is a hot mess, but it’s my hot mess. I tell myself no regrets, but the echo rings a little hollow. I put it all on the table, and Ash rejected me.
Why stay? What did I think would happen? He’d sprint after me like a movie ending?
Last night answered that. The silence pressed down as soon as the sun set.
I stretched out on the thin rug I’d hauled over from my apartment, but the floorboards stayed unforgiving beneath me.
Every time I closed my eyes, I saw Ash’s face, heard his laugh, and felt the ghost weight of his arm across my chest.
By morning, the need to get out is so strong I throw the window open and gasp at the air like I’ve been underwater. I need out, and a new skyline lets me pretend I’ve got a new life waiting under it. The studio that used to nurture my dreams feels more like a tomb for them now.
Jamal knocks on the open door. “You want help with these?”
I stand too fast. “Yeah. Uh, that’d be great.”
“I know I gave you a hard time about this …” He looks past me at the boxes. “But I wanted to say … I’m proud of you. I know that’s weird, but I think—”
I cut him off with a hug. “I’m going to miss you.”
“You know I’m coming to Kansas once you’re settled.”
“I know.” I try on a smile. “I’ll show you what I’m sure is an amazing art scene I’ll have cracked by then. And obviously I’m coming back to visit.”
“You got this,” Jamal says quickly, before it can get too earnest. “And… we got you this.”
His paint-stained hands hold out a package wrapped in the same brown kraft paper we use for finished canvases.
“You didn’t have to,” I say, running my thumb over the smooth leather cover of the sketchbook inside, “KW” embossed in gold. “This is incredible.”
“Wait until you open it,” he says. “Everybody chipped in.”
Inside, every page has another pasted over it: the studio in twenty-seven pages.
Goodbyes painted in watercolor, inked in black and white, and scrawled in calligraphy.
One page has big block letters that spell LOVE AND ART, with each letter filled by tiny drawings of Beanie Babies, Rocky, Gram’s mug… A sketchbook turned love letter.
My vision blurs, tears gathering but refusing to fall.
Jamal’s the only one who saw all of it. Leaving him behind hurts in a way I haven’t let myself look at. I pull him into another hug, and even though I know he hates it, this time he hugs me back.
Not posting the recording. Ash rejecting me. Packing up my life. This stupidly beautiful sketchbook. It all crashes together.
“Am I making a mistake?” I ask, my throat as tight as my grip on him.
“You don’t have to go,” Jamal says, rubbing my back. “But isn’t this the way to do it? When it’s because you want to, not because you’ve got no choice?”
I nod, and the weight shifts enough to let him go.
He grabs a box. “Your car downstairs?”
“Thank you,” I say. “Seriously. For this. For everything.”
“Dude, nobody’s dying.”
Packing the studio turns out to be exactly as easy as he promised.
I run my fingers over the worn handles of my brushes, bristles stiff with dried paint, and set them back in their tin cans, then into a box.
My inspiration board’s chaotic collage of photos, clippings, and dried flowers all comes down in a few limp sheets.
I wrap and stack finished canvases. Once the easel’s folded, I’ve uprooted the last piece of my life here.
Hauling boxes downstairs makes me almost grateful I don’t own much. It takes eight to fill the seats and a ninth shoved into the trunk, leaving just enough room for the canvases.
Jamal helps with the awkward stack of finished work, and we ease it snugly into the remaining trunk space.
My whole life is inside Gram’s wood-paneled Buick Century, and I can’t help but think she’s whisking me away from yet another disaster. I rest my hands on the open lift gate, stare down into the packed space, and think of her. She’d tell me it’s okay to go, to try, and to see what’s next.
No struggle, no strength.
I slam the trunk closed, and my next breath catches.
Across the hood, Ash is standing there with wind-tousled hair and red-rimmed eyes. My knees go loose.
He’s real. He came.
“Kael, I almost missed you.”
My heart splits again, and I shove the hope back down. I let it loose when he called and when he said he loved me and then broke up with me anyway. Hope is just the universe tallying its bill.
“What are you doing?” I ask, my voice trembling.
“I had to see you. I had to tell you…” He searches my face, then his expression tightens and a flush creeps up his neck. “I’m sorry. Showing up like this isn’t fair.”
I’m okay suppressing hope, but I’m done pretending I don’t want anything.
“Just tell me what you came to say.”
Ash comes around the car, one hand jammed into the pocket of his gray coat, the other fidgeting in midair. He steps closer, and the street, the building, Jamal all drop away until it’s just him, close enough for me to smell his cologne. I hold my breath.
“I’ve been an idiot,” he whispers. “I couldn’t see what I wanted. I kept making the same decisions and getting the same results, over and over.”
It’s almost what I need, but not quite. “What are you saying?”
“I love you,” he says.
The words don’t have their lightning-strike quality this time.
“You said you loved me right before breaking up with me,” I remind him. “You made it pretty clear love didn’t matter if I couldn’t change who I am.”
“I was wrong.”
He reaches for my hand, but when his fingers brush mine I flinch back. The gallery show’s still too close. The burn of our last encounter’s too fresh.
“I’m not ashamed,” I say, trembling as I gesture to everything I’ve packed into the Buick. “I love my life, but I can see how you’d think I’m a burden. I’ve got nothing to offer.”
“I’m so sorry I made you think that.” His fingers rest on the trunk lid, right above my stack of paintings.
“But it couldn’t be further from the truth.
You’re everything I need. Your passion for life.
Your dimpled smile. The way you see color everywhere.
Your stupid jokes. Your steady strength.
You aren’t a burden, Kael. You’re what makes the rest of it worth carrying. ”
“You said you wanted someone grounded,” I snap.
Ash pulls an envelope from his coat pocket.
“I want to be wherever you are,” he says. “And I’m not trying to manage your reaction this time. I did that with the gallery, and I was wrong. This is me changing my life and asking if you’ll, please, keep being a part of it.”
“I won’t change for you,” I say. “And I don’t want you to twist yourself into something else for me, either. I’m the fire, remember?”
“Then I want to burn.”
He takes my hand, and this time I let him guide the envelope into my palm. Inside is a single sheet folded in thirds, heavy paper with numbers across the top, signatures at the bottom, and a seal stamped in the corner.
“What is this?” I ask, scanning over the words GRANT DEED beside his name. My brain stalls. “Congrats. You… bought a place?”
I try to hand it back, but he nudges my hand to my chest.
“I love you,” he says again. “And I quit.”
“What?”
“I can’t work for Alistair. Not after hearing that recording.”
“But your freedom,” I protest.
“That job isn’t freedom,” he says. “Freedom is building a life I actually want to wake up inside, one with you in it, if you still want me too.”
Stuck tears blur my eyes as I read down the page. There are two other first names I recognize, but the lines won’t stay still.
“I love you,” he says again. “I’m trying to give us a shot. Because I’m praying you still love me too. I’d move to Kansas if you needed me to. But I bought this because I needed to change my life, not yours.”
“So… you’re moving?” I ask.
Ash nods and points to the address. “To Paradise.”
I stare at him. “You bought Sharon and Walt’s place.”
“I called them,” he says, with that ridiculous, proud little smile. “We made a deal. I’m going to open my coffee shop.” He squeezes my hands and heat blooms out from his grip. “And there’s room in the back for a studio. If you want one.”
I want to tell him I was in the middle of changing my own life too, but what comes out is, “Ash, a studio doesn’t fix this. You— you hurt me.”
“I know. But I want to apologize and keep going. Isn’t that what people do?”
“But… your number,” I say weakly. “That’s what you’ve wanted forever.”
“I wanted to live long enough to enjoy my life,” he says. “Turns out, I might not have to wait for a line graph to say when it’s time.” He strokes my knuckles. “If you’ll forgive me, I want to build that life in Paradise. I want the coffee shop, and I want you. What do you want?”
I already walked out of Alistair’s house. I already packed the car. Nobody did that for me.
Standing here with Ash, I finally see I’ve got two choices: follow through on the half-baked Kansas plan, or stay and try to build something messy and real with him.
“It’s irresponsible,” I say, laughing as the tears spill over. “It’s reckless.” I step into him. “And I love you.”
Our mouths find each other, and everything else goes up in smoke. I curl my fingers in his hair, the Buick at my back, the whole damn city fading out. His kiss tastes like coffee, and I give myself over to the fire.