Entangled Affair
In Paris, Ava stood silently at her exhibition, gazing at a painting she hadn’t meant to display.
It was him.
Damien, bathed in golden light, shirt slightly open, face buried in his hands on the edge of a bed. She’d painted it from memory—the morning after they made love. Before everything unraveled.
An American couple nearby lingered.
“He looks like he’s in love,” the woman whispered, “and breaking.”
“Maybe he was,” her partner replied.
Ava was unable to breathe. She ventured outside into the frigid Paris night, holding her chest as if she could push the pain back within. She wanted to go back. To ask why he let her go. Why he didn’t fight for her.