Chapter 3: Lines in Marble

The key still fits.

It shouldn’t, but it does.

Rae’s fingers tremble as the old metal door groans open, releasing a breath of stale air, clay dust, and memory. The scent hits her all at once earth and turpentine, faintly sweet, faintly raw. It’s the smell of her life before she became someone’s fiancée, before she started curating herself into perfection.

The studio hasn’t changed much. Same cracked windows, same streaks of sunlight pooling over half-finished sculptures and tarps. A moth drifts lazily through the still air. Time forgot this place. And maybe, that’s why she came.

She drops her bag on the nearest table, shrugs out of her blazer. Her white blouse creased from the day’s board meetings feels like armor she can finally take off. The silence settles around her like a second skin.

Her eyes fall on the far corner. A block of marble, waist-high, untouched for years. She approaches it slowly, fingertips brushing its cool surface. The last thing she’d tried to sculpt here was a bust, something soft, human, hopeful. She never finished it. The lines stopped when her life did.

She exhales. Then she picks up the chisel.

The first strike of metal on stone rings out sharp, pure. It echoes against the walls, filling the space with something almost holy. Her heartbeat follows the rhythm tap, pause, tap. Every sound feels like a release.

For a moment, there’s no father expecting her to smile for shareholders. No fiancé with the perfect tie and the perfect lies. Just her, the marble, and the memory of creation.

She loses time.

The city fades, the daylight shifts, and the marble begins to take shape, rough, imperfect, uncertain. A curve. A shoulder. A shadow of something breaking free.

Rae leans closer, sweat tracing her temple. She’s forgotten how this felt, how art demanded honesty, how it stripped you bare in exchange for peace. Every strike of the chisel pulls something buried out of her: the anger, the disappointment, the ache of everything she never said.

Her hands tremble, but she doesn’t stop.

The sound becomes a pulse. The marble begins to breathe.

It isn’t beautiful. Not yet. But it’s true.

She wipes dust off her cheek with the back of her hand. The cut on her palm stings as she grips the tool again, and she welcomes it the sharp, tangible reminder that pain is proof of life.

When she steps back at last, she sees what’s forming. Not a person. Not really. It’s more like motion captured in stone, the suggestion of someone reaching outward, half-breaking, half-rising.

Something inside her cracks open with it.

Her phone vibrates on the table. The sudden sound feels obscene in the sacred quiet.

She wipes her hands and checks the screen.

Ethan: Dinner tomorrow. Dad wants to announce the engagement date soon.

Her stomach twists. Even the words feel staged. Not “I miss you,” not “how was your day,” but a corporate update about their relationship. She types back one word Okay then drops the phone beside her tools.

A streak of marble dust clings to her finger. She rubs it absently, watching the white fade against her skin. She wonders if this is how her life looks from the outside flawless surface, fractured underneath.

Her mind drifts back to earlier that day. The meeting. The way Dane had refused to look at her.

That same man who once traced her jaw with hands gentler than air now looked at her like she was something made of poison.

She hates that it still hurts.

Rae returns to the marble, strikes again, harder this time. The sound shatters the quiet. A shard chips off and falls to the floor with a dull thud. She closes her eyes, breath heavy, shoulders trembling.

“I’m fine,” she whispers to no one.

But the statue doesn’t believe her.

Outside, the sky has turned to ash. The last light of day filters through the window, soft and gray, washing over her face and the sculpture alike. Rae sits on the floor beside her work, back against the wall, clay dust staining her palms, her knees, her once-pristine blouse.

For the first time in months, she feels alive.

Her eyes linger on the shape she’s carved. The lines are uneven. The marble is cracked near the base. But the form has strength raw, defiant, incomplete.

She doesn’t know what she’s making yet. Only that it feels like truth clawing its way out of stone.

Her phone buzzes again. A different name flashes this time.

Lila: You okay? Haven’t seen you since the meeting.

Rae types back slowly. I’m working on something.

Then she puts the phone face down and looks up at her sculpture again.

“What are you supposed to be?” she murmurs softly.

The statue doesn’t answer. But in the fading light, it looks almost alive something reaching for air. Something learning how to breathe again.

She smiles faintly, tiredly. “Maybe I’ll figure it out tomorrow.”

She stands, brushes marble dust off her jeans, and turns off the light.

As she steps into the night, the door closes with a low metallic sigh like the sound of a secret sealing itself away.

And in the dark, the unfinished sculpture waits.

Still.

Silent.

Alive.