The gallery was silent.
The exhibition had ended hours ago.
The lights dimmed. The walls echoed only their breathing.
Heian stood alone before the canvas.
Still just her name.
He had painted nothing else.
He waited—as he did every night since the opening—for her return.
But she never came.
Until a letter arrived.
No stamp. No signature. Just a folded parchment slipped under the gallery door.
He opened it with fingers that had memorized her shape.
It read:
---
Heian,
I walked past your gallery tonight.
I saw my name.
And I realized I don't need to see my face beneath it.
You painted me into something unholy.
And I let you.
But I'm choosing now—choosing something you never offered me.
Silence.
Not the kind that comes after moans or tears.
The kind that isn't yours to hold.
You once asked if I survived you.
Here is my answer:
I outgrew you.
Don't try to find me.
I'm not running.
I've just stopped walking in your direction.
No more altars.
No more ropes.
No more red.
I've started painting again.
In blue.
And I'm not using my body this time.
Goodbye,
Liora
---
Heian folded the letter.
He didn't weep.
He didn't rage.
He simply stared at the canvas.
And for the first time, he dipped his brush into blue.
But his hand stopped midair.
He left the stroke unfinished.
A single mark.
Incomplete.
A ghost of what could've been.
Because sometimes, the truest love story—
—is the one that ends without applause, without reunion.
Just a silence that finally belongs to her.
——
THE END