7. Amara
AMARA
Morning light slices through the kitchen window, turning dust motes into tiny constellations.
June sits at the table with her coloring book spread open, tongue poking out in concentration while she works on filling in what appears to be a jellyfish.
Breakfast is simple: scrambled eggs, toast with too much butter because that's how she likes it, orange juice in the plastic cup with the cartoon octopus that's her current favorite.
I lean against the counter with my coffee, still half-asleep, brain fuzzy from a night of restless dreams where Cassian's face kept appearing and disappearing like a glitch in my subconscious.
"Mama, look." June holds up the coloring book. The jellyfish is now purple with green tentacles and what might be scales. "I made it special."
I manage a tired smile. "That looks amazing, honey. Good job."
"Do you think there could be a butterfly squid?"
I blink. "What?"
"A butterfly squid. Like, a squid with butterfly wings instead of tentacles." She sets down her crayon, eyes wide with the seriousness of someone proposing a scientific breakthrough. "Could that be real?"
"In nature? Probably not."
Her face falls.
"But you know what?" I sit down across from her. "You could create one. With art. Paint it, draw it, make it exist on paper even if it doesn't exist anywhere else."
The smile that breaks across her face is pure sunshine. "Really?"
"That's what art does, remember? Makes impossible things real."
She grabs a fresh page, starts sketching immediately. Lines that don't quite connect, proportions that make no sense, but the vision is there. A squid with wings, existing because she decided it should.
My eyes rise from her work to her face. A deep exhale escapes my nostrils.
Her curls fall forward as she leans over the paper, wild and untamed despite the detangling session we had this morning. Hazel eyes intensely focused on the scribbles before her. The little furrow between her eyebrows when she's concentrating.
Those are all Cassian's features, I realize it with stunning clarity. His eyes, focus, his refusal to quit once he's decided something matters.
I look away, take a long sip of coffee that's gone lukewarm.
Last night crashes back in waves. His face across the gallery, that moment of recognition, the way he moved toward me like I was the only person in the room full of big names and glamorous personalities. The conversation that felt like walking on glass.
"You disappeared and I spent six years wondering what the hell I did wrong."
I left because I thought he'd chosen Raylin.
Because her friends had spent months planting seeds of doubt, whispering that I was just a phase, that Cassian would eventually come to his senses and realize his childhood friend—the one who understood his world, who came from money, who fit his lifestyle better than I ever could—was the obvious choice.
"He's going to leave you," one of them told me after they cornered me in the college library under the pretense of checking up on me. "You know that, right? You're fun for now, but Raylin's his future. Always has been."
I'd brushed it off at first. Cassian wasn't like that. He didn't care about social status or family connections or any of the things those people valued.
But then I saw them together at that fundraiser. The way Raylin touched his arm, leaned close to whisper something, how he didn't pull away immediately. The way she looked at him like she owned him.
And I'd thought: maybe they're right. Maybe I've been fooling myself.
After that, it was small things. She was spending so much time at his penthouse. She would post online about their outings, their hang-outs, their excessive amount of time together. And I didn't understand why Cassian didn't just push her away.
He was choosing her over me. Nothing could convince me otherwise. That's when I decided to leave him. Thankfully, it coincided with our college graduation, so the moment I got my diploma in my hands, I was gone. Out of his life forever, so I thought.
Two weeks later I found out I was pregnant. Standing in a bathroom with a positive test, hands shaking, tears blurring my vision, thinking about Cassian and Raylin and the future I'd convinced myself didn't include me.
So I ran.
June's voice pulls me back to the present. I blink a few times to reorient myself. "Mama, does it need more colors?"
I focus on her drawing. The butterfly squid has multiplied. Now there are three of them, swimming through what looks like outer space.
"I think it's perfect."
"You always say that."
"Because you always make perfect things."
She rolls her eyes, but she's smiling.
My phone lights up on the kitchen counter. I get up and see that it's a text from Katheryn.
I open it. There's a photo attached: a massive bouquet of white peonies, easily three dozen stems, arranged in a crystal vase so expensive that it feels like overkill at this point.
"These just arrived at the studio. No card. You know anything about this?"
My stomach drops. Another text follows immediately.
"They're lovely but there's no room for them."
White peonies. Cassian's favorite flower, or at least they were six years ago. He'd brought them to my apartment once after I mentioned liking them, filled my tiny kitchen with blooms until I could barely move without brushing against petals.
I type back quickly. "Toss them."
"What?"
"Toss them. Or use them in an art project. Whatever you want. I don't want them."
The dots appear again, longer this time. I can practically hear Katheryn's confusion through the screen.
"Amara. These are easily $500 worth of flowers."
"I don't care. Get rid of them."
I set the phone down before she can respond.
Shit. Shit shit shit.
He's already starting. The flowers, the pursuit, the refusal to accept that I don't want this reopened. He's Cassian Griffin, heir to an empire, a man who's spent his entire life getting what he wants through persistence and resources most people can't fathom.
And apparently what he wants right now is answers I'm not ready to give.
June looks up from her drawing. "You okay, Mommy?"
"Yeah, baby. Just work stuff."
"Is it about your show?"
"Yeah. Something like that."
She accepts this, returns to her butterfly squids. I drain the rest of my coffee even though it's cold now, tastes bitter without the heat to soften the edges.
This is what it means to have Cassian back in my life.
Not just awkward encounters at gallery events, but this.
The constant weight of his attention, the inevitability of him pushing until he gets what he wants, the knowledge that I can't keep running forever because we're in the same city now and he knows where I work.
My phone chimes again, but I don't have the stomach to look at it right now.
June hums while she draws, some melody from the ocean documentary she's obsessed with. She's happy, blissfully unaware that the foundation I built for us is already starting to crack.
I think about the white peonies wilting in a gallery office. Small hazel eyes looking up at me from a face that looks like him. About the five-year-old girl who deserves better than parents who can't figure out how to exist in the same room without everything falling apart.
The coffee cup is empty. I set it in the sink, rinse it out, watch water swirl down the drain. Last night I told him to give me space. But Cassian's never been good at respecting boundaries when he's decided something matters.
And he just made it very clear that I matter.