CHAPTER 20 The Last Portrait

The gallery lights had long gone dim.

The walls, once humming with voices and laughter, now stood quiet  bare except for the final exhibit that hadn’t yet been taken down.

Amara stayed behind, sleeves rolled to her elbows, carefully unhooking each frame. The soft hum of the air conditioner and the faint echo of her own footsteps were the only sounds.

This was her favorite part  the quiet after creation. The stillness that followed a storm of meaning.

But tonight, the stillness felt different.

Her phone buzzed on the table. A message.

Leaving tomorrow. Thought I’d say goodbye properly. – L.

She read it once. Then again.

The words were polite, almost formal  the kind you use when you’re trying to sound fine.

She typed, Okay. When?

The reply came instantly.

Now. If you’re still at the gallery.

Her fingers hovered over the keyboard. Then she put the phone down. No reply.

Minutes later, she heard the door open behind her.

He didn’t call her name  just stepped in, quiet, respectful, like a man entering a memory that wasn’t his anymore.

“Couldn’t sleep?” she asked without turning.

He chuckled softly. “You know me too well.”

“Old habits,” she murmured, still working on the frame.

Liam walked closer, hands tucked in his pockets, watching her. There was a peace about him now the kind that comes when you’ve run out of things to chase.

“I wanted to thank you,” he said finally. “For the project. For… letting it happen.”

She turned, meeting his eyes. “It wasn’t charity, Liam. You earned your part.”

He smiled faintly. “Still. You didn’t have to say yes.”

“Neither did you.”

That made him laugh quietly, but real.

They stood there for a while, the weight of everything unspoken filling the space between them.

“Where are you going?” she asked.

“Florence. There’s a residency program I applied for last year. Didn’t think I’d get in.”

Her lips curved. “You always underestimate yourself.”

He shrugged. “Or I overestimated what I deserved.”

She tilted her head. “You’ve grown poetic.”

He grinned. “I’ve been around you too long.”

That made her laugh  soft, genuine. The kind that cracked something open.

He took a step closer, gaze steady but calm. “I almost didn’t tell you. Thought maybe leaving quietly would be easier.”

“For who?”

He paused. “Probably me.”

She smiled sadly. “You always did prefer the easy exits.”

“Not anymore.”

Silence again  not sharp, but careful.

He reached into his jacket then and pulled out a small envelope. “This is for you.”

“What is it?”

“A sketch,” he said, handing it to her. “Something I finished this morning.”

She took it slowly, unfolding the paper.

It was a drawing of her  not as she looked now, but as she had been once. Sitting on the floor of their old apartment, painting barefoot, hair tied up messily, a streak of blue across her cheek. He had caught her mid-laugh.

The caption beneath read: “The woman who made silence look alive.”

Her throat tightened. “You still remember that day?”

“Every color,” he said softly. “Every sound.”

She looked at him, her eyes shimmering with something between gratitude and ache. “It’s beautiful.”

He shrugged lightly. “It’s unfinished.”

“Like us?” she said before she could stop herself.

His eyes lifted to hers. “Maybe. But maybe that’s okay.”

She didn’t reply. Just folded the paper carefully, like it was something fragile, something she didn’t yet know what to do with.

He looked around the empty gallery. “Do you ever think about what it could’ve been? If timing had been kinder?”

She hesitated. “Sometimes. But then I remember  we were never meant to be timeless. We were meant to be teachers.”

He frowned slightly. “Teachers?”

She nodded. “You taught me how to stop begging for love. I taught you how to see it without control. We weren’t forever, Liam. We were necessary.”

He exhaled slowly, as if the words both hurt and healed him. “You always had a way of turning pain into poetry.”

“And you always had a way of running from it until it caught you,” she said softly.

They smiled  weary, knowing smiles that carried years of memory in one shared look.

The clock on the wall read 11:47 PM. The rain outside had started again  faint, rhythmic.

He turned toward the door. “My flight’s at seven. I should”

She stopped him with a quiet voice. “Wait.”

He froze.

“Before you go,” she said, stepping closer, “let me paint you once. Just once. Not for display. Just to remember the peace.”

He blinked, unsure. “Now?”

She nodded. “Now.”

He hesitated only for a second, then pulled a chair near the center of the room.

She moved to her easel, heart racing, hands steady. The brush met the canvas. The silence between them filled with soft, rhythmic strokes.

He sat still, watching her  how her brows furrowed when she focused, how her lips pressed together when she blended light into shadow. It reminded him of the first time he saw her work, how effortlessly she turned emotion into color.

“You’ve changed,” he said quietly.

“So have you,” she murmured. “But some things stay the same.”

“Like what?”

“The way you look when you’re trying to remember what to say.”

He chuckled under his breath. “You still notice too much.”

“That’s what artists do.”

Minutes passed like whispers. The rain softened, the world outside blurred.

When she finally stepped back, her hands trembled slightly. The painting wasn’t perfect not in the technical sense but it was alive.

He stood and walked toward it. His portrait not polished, not proud. Just human. His eyes in the painting looked at peace, yet aware the way a man looks when he’s forgiven himself for the first time.

He swallowed. “That’s… me?”

She nodded. “That’s who you became.”

He stared at it for a long moment, then turned to her. “Thank you.”

“For what?”

“For seeing me  even when I didn’t deserve it.”

She smiled faintly. “That’s the thing, Liam. Love isn’t about deserving. It’s about becoming.”

He exhaled shakily. “You always get the last word, don’t you?”

“Only when it’s worth saying.”

When he finally left, dawn had begun to brush the edges of the city.

Amara stood by the window, watching his silhouette disappear into the soft gray light. She didn’t cry this time. Didn’t ache.

She just breathed  steady, grounded, whole.

She turned back to the painting, now resting on the easel. The last portrait.

It wasn’t an ending. It was a quiet acknowledgment  that some stories didn’t fade, they simply changed shape.

She picked up her brush again, signed the corner of the canvas, and whispered to the empty room,

“Goodbye, Liam.”

And the silence that followed didn’t hurt. It simply was.