There was a time the house smelled like oil paint and lavender.
Like soft steamed rice and roasted tomatoes bubbling over on the stovetop, jasmine tea on the windowsill, and the faint scent of sandalwood on his mom when she bent down to kiss his forehead. Light poured through cotton curtains like warmed honey, spilling over half-finished canvases and paper-strewn floors.
And in that little world, footsteps meant love. Little socked feet would race across the polished floor, arms flung wide, and she'd catch him mid-air, laughing and spinning in the air with him.
"Look at you," she whispered every time, lifting him off the ground with a little twirl. "My little doodlebug."
Damien had been eight. Maybe nine. Still too young to realize that even warm things can go cold.
She painted on anything that stayed still long enough—sunflowers blooming bright across the laundry door. Orange koi fish curling in motion in the bathroom corners. Murals appeared like magic while his dad was at work. She called it "their secret garden." He called it home.
Damien had his own tasks: picking the color of the sky that day, refilling her paint cups, and passing her brushes in the right order—"Thin ones for sighs, thick ones for stories." She hummed old film tunes as she worked and sometimes made up her own lullabies when the wind rattled the shutters.
And when thunder scared him, she'd hold his hand and press it flat against her sketchbook.
"Art will never leave you, baby," she'd whisper against his ear. "Not like people."
He hadn't understood what she meant. Not then.
But maybe she'd already been thinking about leaving.
It started small. Tension that even a child could sense.
His father would come home and stop cold at the sight of her fresh work—her new wall painting, a cluttered table full of brushes, and the mess of color.
"This again?" he'd mutter. "Do you ever do anything useful?"
She'd laugh it off at first. But Damien caught how her hands flinched and how her shoulders stiffened. He started watching his dad more closely—noticed the disgust on his face whenever she spoke too softly or smiled too long. How quick he was to snap if Damien picked up a crayon instead of a calculator.
"She's filling your head with fantasies," his father said once, when he caught him drawing instead of doing math homework. "She'll ruin you like she ruined herself."
Damien started drawing in secret.
Then one day… she was gone.
No note. No goodbye. No last hug.
Just… gone. Like her art.
Ripped down. Scrubbed out. Burned. Trashed.
He waited that first night. Kept the hallway light on. Left the front gate unlocked.
She always forgot her keys.
He even set out a glass of water beside her favorite paintbrush—like a trail. A call home.
But the house stayed dark. Dead. Quiet.
His father said nothing. Just walked past him, coat dripping rainwater, and locked the studio door with a hard clack—like sealing a grave from the inside.
Damien didn't know what hurt more: the sound of the key turning or the knowledge that his mother's sanctuary was now forbidden ground.
He never saw what happened inside. But the next morning, the backyard trash bin was still smoking. Ashes clung to the grass like snow.
Pages. Canvas fragments. The smell of something chemical and burned.
The house no longer smelled like anything. Not food. Not warmth. Just bleach. Just dust. Just the thick, stale quiet of something that had been burned and abandoned.
He didn't eat much. When he did, it was cold leftovers. Bland, lifeless, like everything else. Whenever he asked for "Mom's rice and grilled tomato." His father slammed the plate down harder.
"Eat. Or starve."
His father's voice always came sharp, like splinters. He paced in circles like the floor owed him answers. "You want to end up like her? Useless. Dreaming?"
He spat the word like it was poison.
"She wasted her life on colors. Fantasies. You think she gave a damn about this family? No—she wrecked everything. You want to follow that?"
Sometimes, Damien wondered if his father hated her art because she had seen through him. Maybe she'd found out something—something about the business he pretended was clean. Maybe she'd threatened to speak up. Maybe that's why…
Maybe that's why she vanished.
And maybe that's why his father hated that Damien could draw too. Because it reminded him.
No one came asking. Not the neighbors. Not the school. Not when the man of the house smiled and said she was off chasing galleries in Rome.
His father always claimed she was away—on art trips, exhibitions, and "a well-earned vacation after years of homemaking." Then it became "abroad," then "pursuing her career." The story changed. But it never ended.
And when they turned to Damien?
He'd nod. Smile. Say she was in Rome. Or Greece. Or somewhere warmer than here.
And somehow, everyone stopped asking. Maybe because his dad was powerful. Or maybe because people preferred a clean story over a complicated truth.
Teachers asked once or twice, but his father smiled, waved a donation slip, and suddenly nobody pushed further. People like him didn't get questioned.
Damien knew better. But he stopped asking too.
Sometimes Damien cried at the table—silently, quickly, so the tears wouldn't drip onto the plate.
He didn't talk about it. Not to teachers, not to friends. People asked, sure. He told them she was abroad. Artsy. On some long, beautiful trip.
The lie got easier with time.
At night, he'd cry himself to sleep—muffling the sound with his pillow. His eyes would swell shut, but he didn't care.
On the worst days, when his father shouted at him for being second instead of first, Damien curled up with what little he had left of her—her old scarf, some torn paint labels, and a worn graphite stick. And the sketchbook.
He found it by accident, days after she disappeared.
She had vanished when he was nine. For the next nine years, he stayed—trapped in that quiet house, pretending not to break.
The sketchbook was curled and water-damaged, wedged behind a broken floorboard like the house itself had hidden it for him.
Her signature still bled at the corners.
His hands were shaking when he opened it. He touched the pages like they might vanish. As if tracing what she'd once traced might bring her back—not just as a memory, but as someone who had truly seen him. Not just as a son. But also as something beautiful, just like one of her masterpieces.
His father never stopped being cruel. Every mark less than perfect was a sin. Every moment not spent in textbooks, a waste.
"Look at James's son—he's building a rocket in 10th grade. A damn rocket, Damien. And you're still scribbling like a damn pre-schooler," his dad barked. "You think doodles will feed you? Will they fix this family? Will they bring your mother back?"
That last one hit deeper than any insult.
Damien stepped forward, voice cracking, "Don't talk about her like that—"
SMACK.
A flash. His cheek exploded with pain. He stumbled back, lip split and swelling.
His father just straightened his sleeves and walked off, still fuming.
Damien stood alone in that empty house. A coppery taste on his tongue. A pressure behind his eyes he didn't dare release.
He clenched his jaw. Curled his fists. Nails digging deep into his palm until it hurt enough to feel like armor.
And he studied harder. He stayed top of his class every year.
Not because he wanted to. But because he had to.
It was survival.
A desperate, twisted hope:
Be good enough. Be perfect. Maybe she'll come home. Or… if not, maybe he could find her one day. Maybe he'd be rich, powerful, and successful—and show her his drawings. The ones he never stopped making.
The ones she would've loved.
But that fantasy shattered when his father's shady business finally struck gold and started to take off.
"Consulting," he called it.
But Damien heard things—half-whispers behind closed doors, names swapped for numbers, unregistered briefcases, and forged signatures. Shiny spreadsheets to cover rotting foundations.
Damien didn't ask questions. But he knew.
Even his suits cost more than their fridge. His words weighed more than the law
And as the money came in, so did the expectations.
"You're going to Wexford Business School," his dad announced, sliding a brochure across the table. "You'll shadow me. Learn the ropes. The company will be yours one day."
"I want to apply to Westridge," Damien said, voice low but steady.
He was eighteen, and his hands were still too small for a suit.
His father didn't even look up from his whiskey glass. "Westridge? What is that—a clown college?"
"It's an art school."
SLAM!
The glass hit the table hard enough to crack. Damien didn't flinch. He was used to loud noises by now.
"I will apply," Damien added.
It wasn't rebellion. It was preservation. If he didn't protect this one thing, there'd be nothing left of him at all.
That was the first time his dad stood.
He grabbed Damien's collar—tight, knuckles white—and shook him like a broken vending machine. Damien's eyes clenched shut, bracing for another slap.
"You ungrateful little shit. After everything I've built?"
The sketchpad was on the side table. Damien had been careless. Just one second too long.
His father snatched it up. Flipped it open.
And paused.
"Don't—" Damien started.
RIIIIIP.
The sound of tearing paper echoed like a gunshot.
Then came the pencils—snapped in half. The charcoal tin—the one with her carved initials—was hurled into the bin. A few pages crushed under heel. Ink smeared, watercolors ruined.
"If you want to rot with her ghost, go ahead, far from my sight," his father spat. "Not under my roof."
Damien didn't cry. But his teeth were clenched so hard, his lips flushed white.
It wasn't just the sketchbook. It was his heart. His hope. His mother's memory.
"You're still holding onto her lies?"
Damien said nothing.
"No business, no money," his father growled. "Go ruin yourself, but don't expect a dime."
"…Fine," Damien whispered, voice cracking. "Then I'll go."
And he watched. He learned.
Never show them what you love. Never give them something they can break.
Even now, years later, he still doesn't.
He never leaves the sketchbook in the open. Not on his room shelf. Not in his bag's front pocket. Always hidden. Wrapped in old clothes. Tucked behind drawers. Inside zipped linings.
Because that sketchbook isn't just paper. It's a wound. A memory. A precious life source.
Proof that she existed.
He moved out the moment he could.
Eighteen, working late shifts at a cafe, taking commissions under the table. Renting a tiny apartment with walls thin enough to hear next-door arguments and laughter. But it was his.
No shouting. No more slammed doors. No rice thrown at the walls for daring to taste like hers.
Peaceful.
And for once, he could make rice and grilled tomatoes again. It didn't taste the same. But it didn't have to.
And yet… the habits never left.
He still drew under blankets sometimes. Still flinched when someone walked behind him while he sketched. Still never showed his art unless he had to.
He doesn't talk about his family. Ever.
Once, in high school, a kid asked where his mom was.
He smiled and said, "She's just… artsy. Wandering spirit, y'know?"
Because the truth? It cracked things. Made him feel too close to that boy again—crying in silence, clutching a sketchbook like a lifeline.
So Damien became the fun one. The forgetful one. The late one. The clumsy one.
The one who forgets even his own class. Who was clumsy. The one who showed up to class with bed hair and a grin, acting like he hadn't just poured his whole heart into a piece the night before. A piece he thinks—no, hopes—his mom would've loved.
Because if he ever got too serious—if he let himself be cold, intense, and terrifying like his father—he's scared people will run. Just like she did.
And Damien doesn't think he can survive being left alone again.
But somehow… his silly, chaotic ways became something warm. Something of his.
Even after years passed, the sketchbook stayed hidden. So did the silence—until, slowly, others found their way into it.
Joanna teases him for his color choices—"Neon pink? Seriously, Damy?"—but she always watches him work like she sees more than lines.
Isabelle punches his arm after he says a dumb pun, but she never moves away when he leans close.
Samuel calling him "too much" when he triple-texts dumb memes at 2 a.m.
Jasper rolls his eyes and sighs, "You're a disaster," but never tells him to stop being the way he is.
Even Lilith, quiet and careful, always saves a seat for him when he slips in late. Never scolds. Just offers him her extra muffin without a word.
They gave him something his father never did.
Not just approval. Not just attention. But love. Uncomplicated. Unchanging. Real.
He keeps his past locked away. But with them? He feels… okay.
Even if they don't know what he's been through.
And that sketchbook? Still hidden. Still sacred.
But sometimes—on the quietest nights—He opens it. Traces her lines again. Breathes in the faded scent of old paper and lavender. And whispers:
"I'm still drawing, Ma."