I considered calling Miranda and canceling our meeting. There was no point in it anymore. She hired me because she thought I was different than the other brainless bimbos that applied to work at the gallery. She thought I was serious about art. That I was passionate about it. That she could trust me to be reliable and act in the best interests of the gallery. Now that the video was out there, she’d know she’d been wrong about me, same as everyone else.

I could explain it to her. That yes, I’d gone out with Everett Chase on the night that presumably the video was made but that, despite what the time stamp said, it’d actually been made by a vindictive ex-boyfriend, over a year ago and without my consent.

I knew it was the truth and even I didn’t believe it.

And I would have to explain it to her. If I’d had my phone. But it didn’t matter because, by the time I woke up, it was already over.

In the back of my mind, I knew this was going to happen. The second James sent me that video, I knew it would be posted. I knew there was no escaping it but I’d hoped... stepping away from the canvas in front of me, I gave it a long, hard look.

Patrick again. Always Patrick.

I love you. I love you, Cari.

He took the leap. Did the one thing no one thought he was capable of. He told me how he feels. What he really wants and I laughed at him. Told him none of it mattered. That it was fun but that I was through with him. That I didn’t want him anymore. Didn’t love him back.

I don’t know what prompts me to take my ear buds out, but when I do, I catch the tail end of someone knocking on the door. Must’ve been knocking for a while because there’s an impatient edge to the rapping that has me dashing out my bedroom door and across the living room. Throwing the door open, I find a very annoyed Miranda standing on the other side. As soon as she sees me, the annoyance smooths out completely. She looks almost pleased.

“I called you but didn’t answer,” she says, breezing past me to toss her purse on the chair across from the couch. She gives me a glance, letting her eyes flick up and down the length of me. “I’m glad to see you’re using your day off wisely.”

She focuses on me, totally unaware of her surroundings. No oooing and ahhhing over the apartment or the work Patrick’s put into it the way Chase did. I realize now that he did it to put me at ease. Either Miranda doesn’t see how nervous I am or she doesn’t care. It’s anyone’s guess which one.

I look down and feel a flush creep across my chest. I’m not wearing pants. My legs are covered in paint. “I was just—”

“I’m a gallery owner, Cari—I know what you were doing.” She waves a hand at me that’s meant to shut me up. “Well, let’s see them.”

My paintings. Right. She’s here to see them.

“Okay,” I mumble, rubbing my hands over my bare legs. “Do you think I can—”

“Put on clothes?” She finishes for me before giving me a vague shrug. “You’re not the first artist I’ve shown that works naked.”

I’m not naked. I’m wearing a shirt. And underwear. But now doesn’t seem to be the time to split hairs or catch a case of modesty. “This way,” I tell her, leading her across the living room, past the kitchen to my room. When I push the door open, it’s like I’m seeing the space for the first time. Like it’s Patrick beside me, showing me the room, giving it to me without so much as a twinge of regret. And even though I know how hard he worked on it, I take it.

Because that’s how it is.

Patrick gives and I take.

“Excellent light,” Miranda says to herself, her artistic eye drawn around the room. I watch them drift a sense of pride swelling in my chest, and I open my mouth to tell her how hard Patrick worked on it, but it snaps shut when her gaze lands on the painting Chase gave me.

“I—” I start to explain, but she cuts me off completely.

“I suppose we should get it out of the way—I saw the video.” She tells me, her gaze finally moving past the painting to rest on me. “It was in my inbox this morning when I checked my email.”

“Oh...” I knew it would happen. I did—I’d just hoped that I’d have a chance to tell her first. Explain. But of course, James sent it to my boss. My friends. Patrick. Anyone who cared about me. Any way to hurt me. “I see.”

“Do you?” she says. A small smile touches her mouth, and I can’t tell if she’s angry or amused.

She came here to fire me, face to face. She came here to tell me how disgusted she is by me. She came here to tell me I’ll spend the rest of my art career doing reproduction work in some sweatshop somewhere, or those god-awful landscapes they hang in hotel lobbies and model homes. A week ago, I wouldn’t have dared to hope for even that much. A week ago, I was content with making her coffee and placating temperamental artists.

Now, I want more. Knowing I’ll never get it is killing me.

“Yes, I went out with Mr. Chase but we never—that wasn’t...” I feel like I’m going to pass out. When Miranda starts laughing, I can actually feel myself tipping over.

“I know that’s not Chase in the video,” she says, wiping tears from her eyes even though she’s still laughing. “Whoever it is, the poor guy can’t fuck his way out of a paper bag—Chase is imminently more skilled than that.” She looks at me like a horrible thought just occurred to her. “Tell me that it’s not Patrick.”

“What?” I squeal, shaking my head. “No—” I can feel my chest heating again. “It’s not Patrick. He would never do something like that.” I stand there, stunned and stupid. “Wait—you’re not mad?”

“Hell yes, I’m mad,” she says. “I’m fucking furious.” She sits on the edge of my bed and sighs. “I’m furious for you, Cari. Not at you. Do you know who released it? Ex-boyfriend?”

A breath I didn’t even know I was holding whooshed out of my lungs. “How’d you guess?”

“It’s always an ex-boyfriend,” she says like everything is settled.

“You’re not going to fire me?”

“For what?” she says. “For being a human being?”

“Keeping me around could ruin you.” I shake my head. “I won’t stay if it means trouble for you.”

“This is art, dear-heart—not politics.” Miranda kicks off her heels and curls her legs underneath her. “I wouldn’t be surprised if this whole thing doesn’t triple my business... now, are you going to show me these paintings Chase has been mooning over or not?”

I unstack the canvases carefully, arranging them in chronological order. The first one is the painting Chase saw—the one I painted of Patrick the night he drove me home. The last is half-finished and still on my easel. I turn it around so she can see it.

I leave her to look while I go into the kitchen to root around in the fridge. Patrick is right. All we have to eat is blueberry yogurt and ketchup. I think about the grocery list we made together in the shower this morning. Suddenly, I’m not hungry anymore.

Through the doorway, I can see Miranda. She’s not sitting anymore. She’s wandering along the line of canvases, propped along the wall, stopping to hunker down every once in a while, her face close, fingertips hovering a breath above the paint, tracing the air above each brush stroke. Steeling myself, I slip back inside and sit on the edge of my bed. I want to ask her what she thinks. If I’m any good. But I don’t. I tell myself it’s because I don’t care but that’s not why.

I don’t ask because I do.

Finally, she stands. “I was married once,” she says, talking without looking at me. “We were kids. Barely twenty—too young, really but he was an artist,” she said as if that explained everything. “Gorgeous. Talented. We met at a small art school in Maine. He was there on a scholarship. I got in because my parents were rich and not above throwing their money around.” Miranda laughs, but the sound is short and bitter. “All the girls wanted him... he was perfect. And he wanted me. Loved me and I loved him back. So much I thought I’d die from it.” She moves down the line, stopping in front of the painting I did of Patrick a few months ago. He’s at his drafting table, head bent slightly. Pencil between his teeth, another one behind his ear. He has CAD machines and computers in the office he shares with Declan, but at home, he still works with a pencil. “We were married for eight hundred twenty days. And I spent every single one of them wondering why he chose me.”

“What happened?” I ask her because I suddenly want to know. I want to know how someone else screwed up because maybe someone else’s suffering will salve the gaping wound in my chest.

“I couldn’t stop wondering,” she says, still wandering down the row of paintings. “I couldn’t accept that someone so perfect could really love someone like me.” She stops in front of the painting I did yesterday morning. The one of Patrick sleeping in the sun. “It bothered me.” She shrugs before hunkering down to study the canvas in front of her. “Confused me. The more I worried it, the more confused I became. Insecure. Angry. Resentful.”

“What was wrong with you?” I say, half to myself. “Why wouldn’t he want you?”

“I could paint, but he was miles ahead of me. I was technically good but lacked the passion it takes to be exceptional.” She stands slowly and moves down the line. “The girls we went to school with were so much... better suited for him than I was. I was boring. Too reserved to be considered fun. Too severe to be considered pretty. Soon it became common knowledge in our social circle that the only reason he married me was because my parents were wealthy.” Her lips twist again, into a rueful smile. “Every starving artist needs a benefactor.”

“He left you.” It wasn’t a question, it was a prediction of the way things would end between Patrick and me. He said he loved me, but he didn’t really. Couldn’t possibly. Someday, he’d realize that, and he’d leave.

“No.” Miranda stopped walking and looked at me. “I went to my father and told him I made a mistake. That I didn’t love him anymore and I wanted to make him go away.” She shakes her head, a small humorless smile patched to her face. “He was relieved, of course. Cut me a check on the spot... even he thought Everett married me for my money.”

Everett. Everett Chase. Chase was the artist Miranda had been married to.

Before I can say anything, she continues. “I gave him the check from my father and told him he was free. He didn’t have to pretend to love me anymore. That I knew. Understood.”

“What did you understand?” I hear myself ask, even though I know.

“That someone as perfect as him could never love someone like me,” she says with a soft, sad laugh. “That he could do better. Deserved better. Was better.” She closes the space between us and sits next to me, perching herself on the edge of the bed. “You know what he did? He tore the check up and threw it in my face. He told me he loved me but couldn’t spend forever convincing me of a truth I’d never let myself believe.” Her lips twitch a quick, sad smile. “And then he left me.”

“Did it hurt,” I say quietly, gaze fixed on the painting of Patrick sleeping in the sun. “Did it hurt when he left you?”

“It still hurts,” she tells me, face aimed at the bank of windows overlooking the harbor. “I was stupid. I let other people and my own insecurities push us apart. I couldn’t believe in him. In us. I didn’t trust him to know what he wanted because what he wanted was me and I wasn’t enough. I never was.”

“But you’re friends now,” I say hopefully. “You were able to get past it.”

“We did. We are,” Miranda says, a small smile touching her lips. “Chase and I will always be friends. But we should’ve been more.”

“Maybe there’s still time.” Desperation curdles my belly. “Maybe if you—”

Miranda turns, cutting me off with a look. “Does Patrick love you?” She doesn’t ask if I love him. She doesn’t have to. The evidence of it is everywhere I look.

No.

It’s my knee-jerk response. It’s what I tell myself to keep the possibility of more at bay. The belief that I’m not worth loving. By Patrick or anyone else. Because the possibility of more carries the possibility of pain. Judgment. Rejection. I see Patrick standing over me, eyes as desperate as they are determined locked on mine.

I love you, Cari.

“Yes.” I breathe the word softly.

“Say it.”

“Patrick loves me.” Saying it out loud, it sounds like a lie. How could he, after everything I’ve done?

“Good,” she says. “Now work on believing it.”

Easier said than done. “Thank you, Miranda,” I say, standing up.

“For what?” she says, her tone telling me that she considers the subject closed. “I want them all,” she says lifting a hand toward the paintings. “I’ll send someone tomorrow to pack and bring them to the gallery.”

“Send someone?” My brow furrows slightly. “That’s my job, remember?”

“Not anymore...” She studies the paintings, tapping her finger against her perfectly painted lips. You’re fired.”

“What?” My newfound confidence wobbles on its foundation. “I thought you weren’t mad about the—that you didn’t...” I swallow the rest of my protest when she cuts me a look.

“You’re going to be far too busy painting full-time to answer my phone and fetch my coffee,” Miranda says, picking up her discarded heels. “Now, put on some pants. I’m going to buy you lunch so I can tell you about how I’m going to make you more rich and famous than my very rich and very famous ex-husband.”