Chapter 8 Bidding on the Wreckage

Chapter 8 Bidding on the Wreckage
Rafael is standing on the left side of the room, not sitting, leaning lightly against a column near the window. One hand in his pocket, the other holding a glass. His face is turned toward the stage. His eyes… are on me. Not on the screen, not on Moreau. On me, fully, with zero effort to hide it.
Of course.
I glance back at the screen behind me, where The Altar fills the projection: a dark altar, dim candles, unfinished shadow figures. The room I built when insomnia refused to quit a few years ago.
I let out a small breath, the mic catching the tail end of it.
“Hi,” I say finally, my voice coming out steadier than I feel. “I’m Maya. And like a lot of you, I also did not expect to someday be asked to stand behind a mic and explain why I painted a room that looks like the perfect setting for a horror ritual.”
A few people laugh. The tension in my shoulders drops by maybe one percent.
“Galleries usually love it when artists give some kind of philosophical explanation,” I go on. “You know, the kind of words they can put in a catalog so guests feel smarter reading them.”
Another wave of soft laughter, a little easier this time.
“Unfortunately,” I flick a quick look at Moreau, “I’m not very good at being serious.”
“Please, continue,” Moreau grins, his mic off but his lips easy to read.
I turn back to the crowd. Rafael’s eyes are still there, steady.
“When I started painting The Altar,” I say, choosing each word slowly, “I was in a phase of my life where my bed felt more like an interrogation stage than a place to rest. Every night, as soon as the lights went off, my brain switched on. Every unfinished thing lined up for its turn.”
I lift one shoulder, rolling a thin ring on my other finger. “So I did the only logical thing: I gave them their own room.”
I gesture toward the screen. “An altar, for me, isn’t always some holy place. Sometimes it’s just where we pile up all the things that should’ve been buried already but, for whatever reason, we still keep taking care of.”
I can feel a few people lean in a little. Good. Watch.
“In that painting, there are those small candles,” I continue. “For some people, they probably just look decorative. For me, they’re little reminders that some things stay lit even after we’ve turned the lights off. Exes, trauma, hope, versions of ourselves that used to be way too naïve…”
I intentionally stop there, letting the silence stretch. The word naïve hangs a beat longer than it needs to.
My gaze drifts, like I’m skimming random faces in the crowd. But the line lands on Rafael anyway.
He doesn’t move. His jaw tightens just a fraction, almost impossible to catch unless you know what you’re looking for.
“Sometimes,” I say again, my voice softening, “if we want to live like normal people again, we have to build an altar to bury that too-naïve version of ourselves. Not because she’s awful. But because she’s dangerous. She’s the one who believes every promise, who ignores all the signs, who still thinks love by itself is enough to stop bad things from happening.”
An old wound pulses slow and dull in my chest. But my mouth is smiling.
“So The Altar, for me, is sort of a warning site,” I say. “Kind of a big, ‘don’t come back here without a flashlight.’” I let out a small laugh, and a few people laugh with me.
“A lot of people ask, ‘those two shadow figures in the middle, who are they?’” I go on. “The answer’s simple: whoever you want them to be. It could be you and someone you love. You and someone you hate. Or you and someone you no longer allow anywhere near your life.”
The room shifts, just slightly. Someone in the third row tilts their head.
“Bottom line, this painting isn’t just about loss,” I say. “It’s also about taking things back. About saying, ‘okay, this is all the valuable trash that once destroyed me, but now I’m the one who decides where I put it.’”
I look at Rafael again as I say that. Only for a fraction of a second, but it’s enough. His eyes don’t move. The tip of his finger taps lightly against the side of his glass.
“And if you’re wondering, ‘is this based on a true story?’” I lift a brow. “Yes and no. The emotions in it are real. Very real. The people… well. If you feel personally attacked by the painting, that might be something to unpack in therapy, not in a gallery.”
Laughter bursts out, freer this time. Moreau laughs the loudest.
I wrap it up with a small exhale. “Last thing… I made The Altar to remind myself I’m not a victim in the same story on loop anymore. If I’m going to build an altar, this time I decide who stands beside me, and what gets sacrificed.”
I fire that line straight into Rafael’s eyes.
He doesn’t blink.
“Thank you,” I say, stepping away from the mic.
Applause rolls through the room. I step back, my shoulders loosening. Moreau touches my upper arm for a moment, satisfaction written all over his face.
“That was perfect,” he murmurs. “Personal enough to make them care, mysterious enough to make them bid higher.”
“Obviously,” I say. “If a mental breakdown has to happen, it should at least come with an ROI.”
I step down from the side of the podium, moving past the rows of chairs. Luca is standing at the end of the row, watching me with a mix of pride and… something else.
“You just made everyone want to buy trauma,” he says quietly when I reach his side. “Impressive.”
“Trauma is a luxury commodity now,” I answer as I sit. “The more complicated, the higher the price.”
He doesn’t laugh this time. “Maya.”
I turn to him. “Hm?”
His gaze drops, locks in. “You saying all that… that was just for dramatic effect, right?”
“Which part of ‘all that’?” I ask, feigning innocence.
“‘I decide who stands beside the altar.’” Luca mimics my tone from earlier, a soft tease under it. “That sounded very… specific.”
I shrug. “I’m an artist, Luca. Specific is literally my job.”
He studies me for a long beat. But as soon as the auctioneer steps up to the podium and the mic booms through the room, he lets it go.
“Fine. We’ll save that for later.”
The auction starts with other artists’ work. One by one, the slides change: abstract landscapes, portraits, photo installations. Numbers float into the air, paddles lift. “Fifteen thousand. Twenty. Twenty-two.” Applause each time the hammer drops.
I watch, but half my mind drifts to another room, to the beach where Hazel is probably already asleep, sand still stuck in her hair. The other half tracks the dark figure at the edge of this room.
Rafael doesn’t sit. He shifts a little, speaks quietly to Daniel, then faces the front again. Sometimes he lifts his glass, takes a sip. Sometimes his fingers play with the rim of the crystal. Every now and then, someone walks up to greet him and he answers in short lines. His aura hasn’t changed: calm, lethal, like someone who could buy the whole room if he ever got bored.
Two more pieces go by. I couldn’t describe them if my life depended on it.
“Lot number seven,” the auctioneer’s voice finally cuts through the fog in my head. “The Altar, by Maya De Cruz.”
The room seems to tighten.
The slide flips. The Altar fills the screen again, but this time with a small label in the corner: starting bid.
I blink. The number dries out my throat. Not because it’s too high or too low, but because it’s an amount I once thought I’d never see next to my name.
“Starting at twenty,” the auctioneer says. “Twenty thousand.”
A heartbeat of silence. Then the first paddle goes up.
“Twenty,” he calls. “Do I hear twenty-two?”
Another paddle. “Twenty-two. Twenty-four?”
I watch the numbers forming on his mouth like someone watching a game score when she never made it to practice. Twenty-eight. Thirty. Thirty-five. Soft laughter, scattered whispers.
Luca leans in. “You realize now, if Hazel asks for an actual pony, we can’t use ‘mommy doesn’t have money’ as an excuse anymore, right?”
“That kid is perfectly happy with stray cats and beach sand,” I say, but my voice sounds distant, even to me.
Forty-two. Forty-five. Fifty.
Cold sweat starts beading at the back of my neck.
“Fifty thousand,” the auctioneer murmurs. “Anyone for more?”
A paddle in the front row lifts. “Fifty-two.”
I try not to look for Rafael’s face, but eyes have their own instincts. With the smallest shift, I find him.
He’s still in the same spot. No paddle in his hand. The only thing moving is his finger, tapping against the body of his glass.
Daniel stands not far from him, iPad in hand, head tilted slightly toward the auctioneer, like he’s waiting for something.
“Fifty-five,” the auctioneer calls. “Fifty-five thousand, thank you. Do I hear sixty?”
The room buzzes a little. The numbers are starting to cross some people’s comfort line.
Luca lets out a low whistle. “If I’d known your paintings could go for this much, I would’ve proposed with a business contract years ago.”
“It’s not sold yet,” I say. “Relax. My life isn’t suddenly turning into a biopic.”
The auctioneer repeats, “Sixty, do I have sixty?”
Right then, something shifts on the left side of the room.
Rafael tilts his head a fraction, then sets his glass down on the small table beside him. His other hand comes out of his pocket, reaching for a paddle I hadn’t even noticed was tucked behind the tall chair. The movement is slow, almost lazy.
He doesn’t lift it high. Just halfway, enough for the auctioneer who already has every important person mapped in his head.
The auctioneer freezes for a split second, then his smile climbs a notch. “Sixty,” he says, his tone changing. “Sixty thousand from the gentleman in the back.”
A few heads turn. Mine follows, even though it doesn’t have to.
Rafael doesn’t look around. His eyes stay forward, on the podium. The paddle drops back down, casual, like he’s just ordered dessert, not tossed out a number that could pay for a few years of Hazel’s tuition.
The auctioneer sweeps the room. “Sixty thousand. Do I hear sixty-five?”
Silence. Someone in the front row wiggles their paddle, then thinks better of it. A woman on the right side frowns, leans in to whisper to the man next to her, but no one raises a hand.
“Sixty thousand once…” The auctioneer taps the hammer lightly in the air.
My chest feels heavy.
“Sixty thousand twice…”
I stare at The Altar on the screen. The small candles look even brighter under the glare, the shadowed figures in the center even darker. It feels like watching my own mind displayed and priced by the man who made me build it in the first place.
“And…” The hammer lifts. “Sold. Sixty thousand to Mr. Bernardi.”
The room applauds. I don’t.
The name slices through the air like a thin blade. Mr. Bernardi. Six years ago, that name was printed on my wedding invitations. Now it sits on an auction record under a painting born from the wreckage of those same invitations.
Daniel walks over to Rafael, and they talk briefly, quickly. Rafael signs something on the iPad without really looking, like this is just one small transaction out of the hundreds he runs every month. Then he picks his glass back up and takes a sip.
“Hey,” Luca’s voice cuts through the layers in my head. “This is good, Maya. That’s a lot. Seriously, that’s… a lot.”
I nod, halfway. “Yeah.”
“With that much, we could—”
The auctioneer’s voice rolls into the next lot, but it sounds like it’s coming from the far end of a very long hallway. People are still talking, clapping, laughing, praising. The world keeps moving. The world always moves.
On the screen, The Altar disappears, replaced by another painting. In the catalog, in small type beside the title, it will read: sold to private collector. Private.
Of course.
For the second time in my life, he’s the one standing on the altar side, and I’m the one paying the price.