✧･Chapter 40 Youve Always Had Me. #2
I take a slow breath before finally making my way down the hallway. My heels click softly against the polished floor, the sound carrying through the otherwise empty gallery.
I keep expecting to hear voices, soft music, and people talking about Mae's work. Anything, but the farther I walk, the quieter it gets. I glance over my shoulder once, half expecting someone to come rushing in and tell me I've somehow wandered into the wrong part of the building.
Nobody does, so I keep going. The doorway comes closer, and I can see warm light spilling out from inside. I slow slightly as I reach it, my hand brushing against the edge of the door.
"Mae?" I call softly, and no answer.
I hesitate for just a moment before stepping inside and the door closes quietly behind me.
I look around the room, and stop. I take another step into the room, still completely confused about what I'm doing here.
My eyes move across the walls, taking in the paintings hanging beneath the soft gallery lights.
There are only a handful of them, each one spaced carefully apart, but I don't recognize any of them from a distance.
I glance around again, half expecting to see someone else walk through the doors or hear the familiar noise of a gallery opening somewhere nearby.
Nothing, just silence.
I finally turn my attention towards the first painting. At first, I don't understand what I'm looking at.
It's a crowded room, people scattered throughout the background, dressed up and mingling around tables. The colors are warm, almost golden, and the whole scene has that slightly dreamlike quality Mae's paintings always seem to carry.
I take another step closer, because something about it feels familiar. My eyes move over the details, trying to place the setting. The decorations, the table, the way the room is arranged.
Then I see the clipboard.
My stomach drops.
My eyes immediately move to the woman holding it.
Me.
I just stare.
She's younger, so much younger. My hair is different, my clothes are different, and even the way I'm standing feels like a version of myself I haven't seen in years. I'm holding the clipboard against my chest, looking toward two women standing in front of me.
One of them is June, and the other is Mae. My breath catches so sharply that I almost take a step backward.
I move closer to the painting, my eyes scanning every inch of it, because I remember this.
I remember the fundraiser at Helena's. I remember being there with my clipboard, trying to collect donations and doing my best to make small talk with people I didn't know. I remember June standing beside Mae.
And I remember Mae. I remember the first time I saw her.
In the painting, Mae is turned slightly toward June, her hands raised between them as they communicate through ASL. I can almost picture the conversation happening in front of me, June signing something and Mae responding with that small, easy smile she used to have when she was listening.
And I'm standing right there, watching them.
Watching Mae.
I stare at my younger self's face, and suddenly I remember that too. I remember how my attention kept drifting toward her. I remember pretending it wasn't. I remember wondering who she was.
I remember thinking she was beautiful before I even knew her name.
My fingers slowly curl in my hand as I stare at the painting, completely flabbergasted.
Mae painted this, not something similar, or some fictional scene inspired by us.
Our first time meeting.
She remembered the room. She remembered the fundraiser. She remembered June and the way they were. She remembered me standing there with my clipboard, looking at her without having the slightest idea that this woman was going to become the person I would eventually build my entire life around.
My throat tightens.
I know Mae remembers our past, that's not a secret anymore. We've talked about it. We've fought about it. We've cried over it. I've heard her tell me exactly what she remembers.
But knowing she remembers is one thing.
Seeing it painted in front of me is something else entirely.
I lift my hand toward the canvas, stopping just before my fingers could touch it. For a moment, I can't do anything but stare. Seven years ago, I was standing in that room with a clipboard in my hands, thinking I was just doing my job.
Mae was standing a few feet away, signing to June.
Neither of us knew. Neither of us could have known, and yet somehow, looking at this painting now, it feels like Mae is showing me the exact moment our story began.
I let out a quiet, disbelieving laugh and shake my head.
My eyes drift toward the next canvas, the second painting is different. Smaller somehow, and softer, and the second I see it, I know exactly where we are.
Mae's old car.
I stop a few feet away, staring.
The scene is painted from outside the driver's side window, the perspective slightly angled so I can see Mae sitting behind the wheel. Her hair is falling loosely around her face, one hand resting near the steering wheel while the other is somewhere in her lap. She's looking toward the window.
Toward me, and there I am, leaning down into the open window, one arm braced against the door.
I actually laugh under my breath.
"Oh my God."
I remember this. It was one of those afternoons that shouldn't have meant anything.
Mae had brought June to Helena's work, and I'd gone outside when I realized she was waiting in the car.
I remember walking across the parking lot without thinking much about it, then bending down beside the driver's window because Mae had rolled it down.
We'd talked, nothing important, nothing dramatic. At least, not that I knew of, but Mae painted the way I was looking at her.
And suddenly I understand why.
There is something in my expression that I don't remember seeing back then. Something softer, more curious. Like I was already searching for reasons to stay beside her a little longer.
My chest tightens as I step closer.
The details are almost ridiculous in their accuracy. The faint reflection across the windshield. The little crack in the corner of the passenger-side window. The coffee cup sitting in the console. Even the ridiculous air freshener Mae had hanging from the mirror.
I lift my hand, stopping just short of touching the canvas. I look at the painting again, at myself leaning into her car and at Mae looking up at me.
It feels strangely intimate, not because we're touching - because we aren't.
Not because we're kissing, we're not even close enough for that. It's intimate because I can see something I couldn't see then.
The beginning.
The tiny, almost invisible shift from strangers into something else.
I take another step back, looking between the first painting and this one.
The fundraiser, then this. Mae isn't painting memories, she's painting the pieces of our story I never realized mattered to her.
My throat tightens and I turn toward the next canvas, and there it is.
Our coffee shop.
I stare at it, and this time the smile comes before I can stop it.
We're sitting across from each other at the little table near the window, two coffee cups between us. Mae has one elbow on the table, her chin resting against her hand while she's listening to me talk. I'm smiling at her.
Not politely or casually. I'm completely gone. I can see it now, even in the painting. The way I looked at her and the way she looked back.
Once a week.
Every week.
We had called it friendship.
I let out a quiet breath, shaking my head as I move closer to the painting and for the first time, I start wondering how many of these there are.
I stand in front of the coffee shop painting for a long moment, the smile still lingering on my face despite the ache settling somewhere beneath my ribs.
Of all the memories Mae could have chosen, this one feels almost painfully ordinary.
There's nothing dramatic about it. No life-changing confession, no fight, no kiss.
Just the two of us sitting across from each other at our usual table, coffee between us, talking like we had all the time in the world.
But I remember those afternoons.
I remember how quickly they became the best part of my week.
Every time I walked through the door, I would look toward the window before I even realized I was doing it, searching for Mae.
Sometimes she was already there, her sketchbook or whatever book she was pretending to read sitting beside her.
Sometimes I beat her there and would order her coffee before she arrived because, by then, I already knew exactly what she wanted.
We talked about everything.
Work. Art. Helena. June. Stupid things we'd seen online.
Places we'd never been. Things we wanted to do someday.
Sometimes Mae would get distracted and start telling me about a painting she was working on, and I'd listen even when I didn't understand half of what she was talking about.
I liked listening to her talk. I liked the way her hands moved when she got excited about something, the way her whole face changed when she forgot to be careful.
I look at the painting again, because Mae captured that too.
The way I'm looking at her isn't the way you look at a friend you're casually meeting for coffee.
It's softer than that. There's an ease to me that I don't recognize until I see it reflected back at me.
Like being there with her was already becoming something I needed.
Something I looked forward to.
My fingers curl loosely at my side as I take a slow breath and look from the painting to the one before it. The fundraiser. Her car. The coffee shop.
Three moments.
Three pieces of a story I hadn't realized Mae had been carrying around with her.
I move to the next painting, and the warmth disappears from my face. I know it before I even see all of it.
The wedding.
My stomach drops. For a second, I just stand there, unable to make myself take another step.