The days between accepting the job and my first day at Blackwood Press were strange, liminal spaces. The frantic terror of impending homelessness had subsided, leaving a calm I wasn't accustomed to. For the first time in months, I could breathe without feeling like the air was a debt I couldn't repay. The signed contract sat on my kitchen table, a tangible anchor in the shifting tides of my life.
With survival secured, a new, quieter task presented itself. My apartment, my blank canvas, was still cluttered with the relics of a previous civilization. It was time for an excavation.
I started with the living room. The way the sofa was angled towards the window, the placement of the bookshelf, the single, sad-looking plant in the corner—it was all Sera's design. She had a flair for arranging spaces, just as she had a flair for arranging people. I had always deferred to her judgment.
I spent an entire afternoon moving furniture. I pushed the heavy sofa against the opposite wall, creating a cozy nook instead of an open, performative space. I sorted through the bookshelf, packing away the trendy thriller novels Sera had devoured and leaving only my own worn paperbacks of classic literature and design theory. Each change, no matter how small, felt like a quiet declaration of independence. I was redrawing the blueprints of my own home.
In the back of a closet, tucked behind a stack of old college textbooks, I found a cardboard box sealed with dusty tape. I knew instantly what it was. Our photo box. A place where we dumped years of printed memories, promising we'd organize them into albums one day. We never did.
My first instinct was to throw the entire box away, to not let the past poison the fragile peace of my present. But a deeper, quieter curiosity stayed my hand. To truly build something new, didn't I first need to understand the ruins I was building upon?
I sat on the floor, cut the tape, and lifted the lid. The top photo was of the two of us at college graduation, beaming in our caps and gowns, our arms slung around each other, the world a limitless promise at our feet. The image sent a familiar pang through my chest, but it was duller this time, more ache than stab.
I sifted through the years. Us on a cheap beach vacation, covered in sand and laughing. Us painting these very apartment walls, splattered with white paint, looking exhausted and happy. Us at countless parties, concerts, and quiet nights in. In every photo, Sera was a blaze of light, her smile wide, her energy pulling the camera's focus. And I was there, by her side, smiling softly, my presence a steady, quiet harmony to her loud, vibrant melody.
I saw the evidence of a deep and genuine friendship. It was a reminder that our story wasn't a simple tale of a villain and a victim. It was more tragic than that. It was the story of something beautiful that had somehow curdled and died.
Near the bottom of the box, I found a photograph that was different. It was a candid shot, taken by Sera, of me. I was sitting at my old desk, light from the window illuminating my face, completely absorbed in sketching. I wasn't looking at the camera. A small, focused smile played on my lips. I looked content. I looked… complete. In that moment, captured through her lens, I was not her moon. I was my own star, burning with my own quiet fire.
She had seen it. At some point, she had seen that independent, self-contained person in me. She had seen the architect, not just the friend. The knowledge was a complex, unsettling revelation. It shattered the simple narrative I had constructed in my head, the one where I was always just her follower. If she had seen that in me, what had changed? Why had our dynamic shifted until it broke?
The question was a new door opening in my mind. My journey until now had been about escape, about survival. How do I get away from this pain? How do I pay the rent? But now, with the immediate danger passed, a new question began to form. Not how, but why.
I packed the other photos back into the box, but I kept that one candid shot. I walked over to my desk and propped it up against the wall. A few days ago, at the end of Chapter 9, I had decided to buy a frame for the first piece of art I would create. Now, I placed this old photo next to that imaginary, empty frame.
My past self, seen through the eyes of the friend I had lost. And my future self, represented by a space waiting to be filled with my own work.
They weren't in opposition. They were a continuum.
I realized then that moving on wasn't about erasing the past or pretending it didn't happen. Perhaps it was about understanding it, about excavating the ruins not to rebuild the same fallen temple, but to salvage the strong, beautiful stones and use them to build something new, something that was entirely, and finally, my own.