Chapter 6 The Painting That Shouldn't Exist
The next morning, Aveline woke up with a heavy head. The long night that ended in tears still clung to her body. The house was silent because Adrian had left before sunrise, without leaving a single message. Honestly, Aveline was relieved not to have to see her husband this morning. After the lipstick stain she found last night, Aveline didn't know how she should act in front of him.
She prepared herself with slow movements, putting on her work clothes, tidying her hair, and trying to look like the authoritative art lecturer who could still stand tall in front of a class. She dabbed a bit of concealer under her eyes and practiced a thin smile in the mirror. But her reflection still looked like a woman who had cried all night.
On campus, the air felt lighter than at home. Students were milling about, the sounds of laughter, hurried footsteps, and the scent of paint from the art studio seemed to help mask her emptiness.
She took a deep breath before entering the classroom.
A few students were already seated, preparing their canvases and pencils. But one figure was standing near her desk, waiting, holding something covered in a shabby cloth; from its shape, Aveline could guess it was a canvas. Ezra.
Aveline immediately felt her heart stir uncomfortably. She expected the young man to be polite, as he had been the previous days. But this time, there was something different in Ezra's face. His gaze was more intense and more... certain.
"Good morning, Miss," Ezra said softly, his voice hoarse, as if he hadn't slept all night.
Aveline gave a slight nod in return. "Are you waiting for me? What do you need? Class hasn't started yet."
Ezra didn't answer. He simply placed the object down in front of Aveline, then pulled off the cloth covering it.
Aveline froze. What appeared before her eyes made her entire body tense up.
It was a painting of herself. Not just a facial portrait. But a painting of her in a version that was too personal and too intimate. In the painting, her face was depicted crying, her eyes glistening with tears, her lips trembling, her messy hair covering part of her face. Her shoulders were bare, half-covered by a thin fabric like a blanket.
It was as if Ezra had seen her in her most vulnerable moment... and the one moment no one was supposed to see.
Aveline felt heat crawl from the back of her neck to her fingertips. "Ezra... what is this?" Her voice was low, but laced with pressure.
The young man looked at her without fear. "This... I couldn't sleep last night, so I drew it. I just... felt you looked like someone carrying many things you never speak of."
The statement only made Aveline's body stiffer.
"What do you mean by depicting me like this?"
"Because...," Ezra swallowed, his eyes never leaving Aveline's face, "...that's how you looked yesterday. All of it was visible, not from the outside... but from within."
Thump. Something in her chest rattled. A mixture of anger, fear, and shock.
Ezra saw her too deeply, too closely. As if he could read a soul that even Adrian no longer saw. But the shock eventually turned into anger.
"Ezra, this is inappropriate!" Aveline raised her voice. Three students in the front row turned their heads. "What made you think you were allowed to paint me like this?!"
Ezra didn't move an inch. "I apologize, Miss. I only wanted you to know that..."
"Enough!" Aveline held her breath, trying not to falter. "Leave the class today. I don't want you in my lesson."
The words came out harsher than she had planned. Ezra looked at her for a long time, the look in his eyes shifting slightly. It changed from warmth to something faint and inexplicable. Not anger. Not disappointment either. But more like... a small, suppressed hurt.
Finally, the young man lowered his head.
"Very well, Miss." He gathered his belongings, looked at Aveline one last time, then walked out without saying another word, leaving his painting behind.
As the door closed, Aveline realized her hands were shaking. The other students pretended to be busy, but Aveline knew they saw everything. She quickly covered the painting with the cloth, as if it were something shameful.
Class that day proceeded awkwardly. Aveline couldn't fully focus; her mind kept returning to Ezra's expression before he left, and especially... to the painting. How could he draw something so private and sensitive? She had never cried in front of Ezra. Never bared her shoulder. Never shown herself like that. Yet the painting was accurate. Too accurate to be merely imagined.
It was like a mirror reflecting something she had even hidden from herself.
After class finished, Aveline sat in her chair and gazed at the object still covered in the shabby cloth. She should dispose of it, or return it to Ezra. Or perhaps even report it as inappropriate conduct by a student toward a lecturer.
But she couldn't.
Despite her anger, a part of her was magnetically drawn to the canvas.
She didn't want to touch it... yet she couldn't bear to leave it in the studio.
Aveline slowly uncovered the cloth again, ensuring no students were watching. And once more, the image hit her like a strong wave:
She saw herself. The broken Aveline. The Aveline she couldn't admit to anyone.
Her breath caught. How could Ezra have seen her. Or guessed it. Or, somehow... understood her wound.
She let the cloth fall back over the painting, then hugged it gently, as if it were something fragile.
This was wrong. She knew it. But the strange feeling persisted. A small tug in her chest, like the sensation when their hands first touched yesterday. A subtle tremor that shouldn't be there.
Aveline went home earlier that day. The house looked just as cold. Adrian hadn't returned yet, of course. What could she expect from a husband who was getting colder by the day?
She carried the canvas inside, making sure no neighbors noticed. She carefully stepped into Liam's room. The safest place to hide something that no one should ever know.
Aveline placed the painting in the corner of Liam's closet, wrapped it multiple times with a white cloth, and gently closed the closet door.
She leaned against the wooden closet, closing her eyes for a moment. There, in the silence of her son's room, she felt something pass through her slowly. A feeling that was almost like... a need.
The need to be seen. To be seen as a wounded person, not just a strong wife or a bereaved mother.
Ezra saw that, somehow. And that's what made everything scarier.
Aveline stood up again, wiping away the tears that had escaped.
Her heart was still racing. And she knew one thing. Ezra shouldn't be able to read her so deeply. But the young man had entered a space that even Adrian never entered anymore... The space where Aveline hid her most fragile self.
And now, she wasn't sure if she was more afraid of Ezra... or of herself.