43. Ava
43
Ava
T here’s something uniquely soul-crushing about having your heart dissected by lawyers who bill by the hour.
“As we approach the final thirty days of the arrangement,” says Mr. Hoffman, sliding another document across the polished conference table, “we should review the dissolution protocols outlined in Section 8.3.”
Dissolution protocols. Like what Gideon and I have together is just some chemical compound that needs to be safely neutralized.
Jesus.
I nod, maintaining what I hope is an expression of professional interest rather than the internal screaming that’s actually happening behind my eyes. The conference room at Hoffman, Weiss & Partners is exactly what you’d expect. All mahogany, leather and discreet wealth, the kind of place where emotions go to die comfortable, expensive deaths.
Gideon sits beside me, one hand resting casually on the table, close enough that I can feel the warmth radiating from it. His expression betrays nothing. No discomfort, no hesitation, just the calm, collected CEO reviewing another business transaction reaching its natural conclusion.
My stomach twists. When did this become so hard?
“Ms. Redwood,” Mr. Hoffman’s voice pulls me back to the nightmare at hand, “I’ll need your initials on pages four, seven, and twelve. These confirm your understanding that upon dissolution of the marriage, the voting trust will revert to Mr. King exclusively.”
Dissolution of the marriage. There it is again. Our relationship reduced to legal jargon that makes it sound like we had something toxic.
“Of course,” I say, taking the Mont Blanc pen he offers. The weight of it feels obscene somehow, like I’m signing away pieces of myself with a tool that costs more than most people’s monthly rent.
I flip to page four, where Paragraph 5.3 stares back at me in crisp, accusatory type:
“Both parties affirm that no emotional attachment or involvement has developed during the course of this arrangement that would constitute grounds for contesting the predetermined dissolution.”
The paragraph might as well be highlighted in fluorescent ink, bright like a warning sign. I can feel Gideon’s eyes on me, probably wondering why I’ve suddenly turned into a statue with a really expensive pen.
Fuck me.
“Is there an issue with the language?” Mr. Hoffman asks, frowning slightly. His tone suggests that having feelings would be not just inconvenient but possibly a breach of contract .
“No,” I manage, scribbling my initials with more force than necessary. “Just... reading carefully.”
Gideon’s hand moves slightly closer to mine, almost touching but not quite. Like everything else between us: almost, but not quite.
“And here,” Mr. Hoffman continues, flipping to another page filled with more heartless legalese, “we outline the division of assets acquired during the arrangement period.”
Division of assets. That phrase hits me like a bucket of ice water, triggering a memory I’ve been trying to outrun for years.
“Your little paintings aren’t assets, Ava, they’re hobbies. I’m just helping you understand their actual value in the real world.” My stepfather’s voice, explaining why he’d sold my grandmother’s portrait, the one thing I’d created that mattered most. The thing Gideon had gotten back for me.
This is different, I remind myself. These terms were transparent from the beginning. I agreed to them with my eyes wide open. There’s no betrayal here, just business.
So why does it feel increasingly like my stepfather’s living room all over again? My life being clinically dismantled by someone with a calculator and a condescending smile?
“Ms. Redwood will of course retain all artistic works created during the arrangement,” Gideon interjects, his voice breaking through my spiral.
I glance at him, surprised. It’s not that the provision is unexpected. It was in our original agreement, but something in his tone catches me off guard. There’s an edge there, a firmness that suggests this point is non-negotiable.
“Yes, that’s noted in Section 6.9,” Mr. Hoffman confirms, looking slightly annoyed at the interruption. “Along with the stipulation that Mr. King retains right of first refusal should Ms. Redwood wish to sell any works created during the arrangement.”
“I won’t be selling those,” I hear myself say, the words escaping before I can filter them through my Professional Business Wife persona.
Both men look at me, Mr. Hoffman with mild surprise and Gideon with... something I can’t quite read.
“I just mean—” I start, then stop, realizing I don’t actually owe an explanation. “They’re not for sale.” I give Gideon a sly look. “Besides, he’s already bought enough of my work.”
It’s meant to be a joke, but he looks more hurt than amused.
The meeting drags on for another half hour, each minute more excruciating than the last. By the time we finish, I’ve initialed away our future with the precision of a surgeon removing a tumor. Clean edges. Minimal scarring. Complete excision.
The drive back to the penthouse passes in strange silence. Gideon takes calls, his voice a soothing background hum of business terminology and decisive commands. I stare out the window, watching Manhattan scroll by in all its chaotic glory, wondering how I’ve gone from being so careful about not getting attached to sitting here feeling like my ribs are slowly being pried apart on the operating room table.
“You’re quiet,” Gideon observes as we ride the elevator up to the penthouse, his first direct comment to me since leaving the attorney’s office.
“Just processing,” I say, which isn’t exactly a lie. I am processing... processing the fact that in less than thirty days, I’ll be back in my apartment alone, this entire phase of my life relegated to an awkward anecdote I’ll probably never actually share with anyone.
What about Lucy? I’ll shut out even her?
“Hoffman can be... clinical,” Gideon offers, bringing me out of my head. “It’s why he’s good at what he does.”
I nod, not trusting myself to speak. The elevator doors slide open to reveal the penthouse, our penthouse, though not for much longer, and I head straight for my studio without another word.
I’m standing here in my usual spot by the window. The evening light filters through the penthouse glass, illuminating the floating dust particles like tiny stars in the temporary galaxy Gideon and I have created together. My hands are stained with cerulean blue and burnt sienna, and I’ve somehow managed to get a streak of red across my forearm and probably ruined a three-hundred-dollar silk blouse in the process. Classic Ava.
Still, the canvas in front of me is working out all too well.
And I know exactly why.
It’s because I’m thinking about him . About Gideon. About how are time is almost up. About what we had. About what we could have had. About so many things.
God, I’m such a cliché. The struggling artist distracted by thoughts of a man. My grandmother would’ve laughed at me, then handed me a fresh brush and told me to paint him out. I rub my temples, leaving what I’m sure is a lovely new smudge of paint.
But here’s the thing that’s hitting me like a bucket of cold turpentine: I’ve been wrong about love. Like, fundamentally, embarrassingly wrong.
All this time, through my dad walking out, through my stepfather’s systematic campaign to crush my spirit one belittling comment at a time, through those exes who treated my art and me like their personal investment opportunity, I’ve been thinking love was about finding someone who wouldn’t hurt me. Someone who would “complete” me, as if I’m walking around with this Ava-shaped hole inside me that needs filling.
Insert eye roll here.
I bite my lower lip, fidgeting with my paintbrush. I can feel the heat rising in my cheeks. Lucy would be cackling if she could see me now, turning progressively redder as I stand here having an existential crisis in paint-splattered designer clothes.
But what if love isn’t about completion at all?
When Gideon hung my Parsons paintings throughout his penthouse, he didn’t see a commodity. He didn’t see dollar signs or a chance to mold me into some bankable art world darling. He saw me . The real me, hiding behind layers of paint and years of protective armor.
And here’s the really weird part: I saw him too. Not the powerful businessman, not the guy whose name makes gallery owners like Dean Wess practically salivate, not the frustratingly gorgeous man whose mere existence turns the sophisticated women of New York into giggling, hair-twirling teenagers. I saw the boy who was betrayed by a woman he loved, who built walls just as high as mine, who understands what it means to protect your heart at all costs.
It’s like... we’re both walking around with these invisible versions of ourselves that nobody else has bothered to notice, much less embrace. These fragile, uncertain, hopeful selves that we’ve been trying, and mostly failing, to love on our own.
I drop my brush into the turpentine with a splash, watching the colors bleed into the liquid. That’s it, isn’t it? Love isn’t someone swooping in to save you or complete you. It’s that rare, miraculous moment when someone sees your hidden self, the one you’ve been struggling to love alone, and says, “Hey, I see you. And you’re worth loving exactly as you are.”
And somehow, impossibly, you see their hidden self too.
“Well, shit,” I mutter to the empty studio as I process this revelation. “That changes everything.”
I turn back to my canvas, suddenly seeing exactly what I’ve created. Not just emotional chaos, but truth. My truth. The real me, unfiltered and unafraid.
The painting isn’t chaotic because I’m losing my mind (though that’s still up for debate). It’s chaotic because I’ve been holding back, still afraid of being truly seen. Still stuck in that mindset my stepfather drilled into me: that vulnerability equals weakness, that expression equals exposure.
But if Gideon can see me, and I mean really see me, and still look at me with those eyes that make my blushing go into overdrive... maybe I can finally stop hiding.
I step closer to the canvas again. For the first time in forever, I feel like I’m not carrying the weight of my own unloved parts alone. And maybe that’s what love actually is, not someone to complete your missing pieces, but someone who recognizes the whole puzzle, messy and unfinished as it may be, and chooses to sit down beside you while you both figure it out together.
Which is exactly what the lawyers were telling me today isn’t supposed to happen.
Both parties affirm that no emotional attachment or involvement has developed...
I close my eyes, the reality of our situation crashing back like a wave. In a little over thirty days, I’m supposed to walk away from this, from him , cleanly. No messy feelings. No complications. Just a business arrangement concluded to mutual satisfaction.
And here I am, standing in a studio I’ve created within his luxury penthouse, wearing clothes stained with paint I bought with his money, having just realized that I’ve fallen completely, catastrophically in love with him.
“Fuck,” I whisper to the canvas, which seems to be mocking me now with its accidental accuracy. “This wasn’t supposed to happen.”
But it has. And no amount of legal language or “dissolution protocols” can undo it.
I’ve fallen in love with Gideon King, in direct violation of Paragraph 3.2. And the most terrifying part isn’t that I’ve broken our contract. No, it’s that I have absolutely no idea if he’s done the same. Why would he hang my paintings on my wall if he hadn’t? Because maybe it’s his way of saying goodbye.
Oh god, I just don’t know.
I step back, wiping my hands absently on my already-ruined blouse, and stare at the evidence of my emotional unraveling splashed across the canvas. At least I’ll have my art when this is over. That’s more than I had when my stepfather betrayed me.
Small comfort, but comfort nonetheless.
I reach for my phone, and briefly consider texting Lucy to come over with emergency ice cream and cynical relationship advice, then put it back down.
I will talk to her. I will . I just... need a bit longer to process things.
Instead, I pick up a fresh brush, dip it in silver-white, and add a single, deliberate line across the chaos of the canvas. A horizon line, barely visible but somehow holding the entire storm together.
Because that’s what Gideon has become for me. The line I orient myself by, even in the midst of emotional chaos.
The line I’m about to lose.