**CHAPTER 4: UNSPOKEN (ART SERIES)**
**Trigger Warnings:** Depictions of self-harm metaphors (artistic context), emotional breakdown
*1. The Breaking Point*
The gallery owner's card sat on Lena's desk for three days before she touched it.
Mara Singh, Curator – "Tell Raw Stories" scrawled in gold foil.
Lena crushed it in her fist. Uncrumpled it. Crushed it again.
Her studio walls glared back at her—blank except for one half-finished sketch: a self-portrait with her mouth sewn shut. She'd abandoned it when the thread in the drawing started looking too much like *his* hands.
At 3 AM, she stormed into the kitchen, grabbed a hammer from the junk drawer, and brought it down on an old ceramic bowl.
The sound was glorious.
*2. The First Piece*
Shards littered her worktable. Lena pressed a jagged piece into the canvas, watching the fabric pucker like skin around a wound. She glued it in place, then another, and another, until the outline of a body emerged—faceless, fragmented.
She mixed acrylics with salt and her own dried blood from earlier cuticles. Painted between the cracks.
When dawn came, she stepped back. The figure seemed to scream without a mouth.
She titled it: *"What You Took."*
**3. The Invitation**
Mara arrived unannounced, trailing the scent of clove cigarettes. "Christ," she breathed, staring at the shard-piece. "It's like you bottled violence."
Lena handed her a note:
*It's not violence. It's the aftermath.*
Mara's grin was all teeth. "I want twelve of these for the 'Unspoken' exhibit next month."
Lena shook her head, wrote:
*I don't do pretty art.*
"Good." Mara pointed to the blood-streaked palette. "The world doesn't need pretty. It needs *this*."
**4. The Process**
For weeks, Lena worked like a woman possessed:
- Melted her childhood jewelry (gifts from *him*) into molten droplets for *"First Time, Last Time."*
- Drenched a wedding dress from Goodwill in black ink, titled it *"Invisible Stain."*
- Saved the cruelest piece for last: a mirror shattered and reassembled with epoxy, the cracks filled with red resin. *"How You See Me."*
Michael texted once: *Saw Mara's promo. Your work looks… intense.*
She replied with a photo of the mirror piece. He didn't respond.
*5. The Revelation**
The night before the exhibit, Lena dreamt of hands—not just *his* or Michael's, but hundreds, reaching from the walls of her studio. She woke gasping, grabbed a scalpel, and carved a single word into the side of *"How You See Me"* where no one would notice:
NO.
A secret rebellion. A boundary etched in steel.
Why This Chapter Matters:
- **Art as Catharsis:** Lena stops internalizing pain and *externalizes* it violently.
- Control:She decides who sees her trauma (Mara) and who doesn't (Michael).
- **Foreshadowing:** The hidden "NO" hints at her future confrontation with her first attacker.