Divorced on a Dare

1 The ink on our divorce decree was barely dry when Garrett told me to take off my wedding band. "Rory says if I’m playing a bachelor, I need to look like one." He had lost a stupid bet at an upscale lounge three weeks ago, and signing dissolution papers was his forfeit. I pulled the platinum band from my finger and dropped it into his palm. But instead of pocketing it, Garrett closed his fingers around my wrist, pulling me toward him with an easy, dismissive smirk. "Don’t look like someone just died, Norrie. In thirty days, it goes right back on your finger. You're acting like this is real." I gave him a faint nod, turned, and went back into our bedroom to slide my passport into my leather tote. On my phone screen, a text message lit up the dark glass. Did you lock down the date to leave the country? I tapped out a reply with steady fingers: Locked down. I'm not changing my mind this time. When Garrett came home later that evening, I was sliding the final court paperwork into a manila folder. He walked through the foyer carrying an extravagant bouquet of blush-pink peonies. He brushed right past me toward the kitchen island without offering them. "Find me a card, will you?" I slid open the credenza drawer. Tucked beneath the utility bills were a few leftover embossed blank note cards from our wedding stationery six years ago. Thick cream cardstock with our embossed initials at the top. Garrett took one without looking at the monogram, pulled a Montblanc pen from his tailored jacket, and leaned over the marble island. Standing beside him, I watched his sprawling, confident scrawl take shape across the paper: To Miss Rory Miller—hope winning tastes as sweet as you look. At the bottom, he drew a playful little lopsided smiley face. Rory was twenty-two, a VIP cocktail waitress he had befriended six months ago at a private members' club downtown. He called her his "little sister," an honorary title that somehow gave him license to play by an entirely different set of rules. They were obsessed with games—dares over who could finish a double pour of bourbon faster, wagers over who could provoke the most scandalous reaction from the room. A month ago, Garrett finally lost. Rory’s prize was simple: Garrett had to live as a legally single man for thirty days. No strings. No marital ties. A total reset. He had walked into our home that night with uncontested no-fault divorce forms, practically laughing as he nudged the pen into my hand. At first, I told myself he would come to his senses. That somewhere between the initial filing and the final hearing before the county clerk, he would look at what he was doing and pull back from the ledge. Instead, he showed up at the courthouse twenty minutes early this morning, looking crisp, impatient, and thoroughly amused. When the clerk stamped the certified copies and slid them across the counter, Garrett didn't even read the decree. He pulled out his phone, snapped a picture of the court seal, and sent it straight to Rory. "Hey, look at this," Garrett said, holding up the cream card he’d just scribbled on. "Is the handwriting crooked?" I shook my head. I pulled the zipper shut on my document sleeve with a sharp, clean sound. It was only then that his gaze drifted downward, catching sight of the rolling hard-shell suitcase standing near the entryway bench. His brows pulled together. "You're actually packing?" "I’m staying somewhere else for a few days." "Probably for the best," he said after a brief hesitation, his expression relaxing back into careless convenience. He reached out and kicked the suitcase an inch further from the baseboard with the toe of his designer loafer. "Saves you from sitting around the penthouse overthinking everything. It’s only four weeks, though. Don’t pack half your closet." I knelt on the floor to adjust the straps inside the luggage, keeping my head down. Garrett stood above me for a moment, the silence thick and heavy. Then, his hand dropped toward my shoulder. I thought, for a fleeting, foolish second, that he was reaching down to help me up. Instinctively, I placed my palm into his. Instead, his fingers tightened around my left ring finger. His thumb caught the underside of my engagement ring—the four-carat cushion cut—and began wrenching it forward. "Take this off first." The platinum setting caught on my knuckle. He didn't ease up; he yanked it with a careless tug that dragged a sharp, stinging welt of crimson into my skin. "If Rory sees you wearing that around town, she’ll say I’m cheating the terms." I swallowed down the sharp burn of pain, stopped his hand, and twisted the diamond off myself. Garrett took it without a second glance, shoving the ring into the pocket of his slacks right beside his key fob. Right on cue, his iPhone buzzed against his thigh. He answered on speaker. Rory’s breathy, teasing voice spilled through the speakers, complaining that he was already late and her flowers were going to wilt before he even arrived. Garrett let out a low, indulgent chuckle. He grabbed the peonies from the counter, already turning toward the door. With his hand on the brass handle, he paused and glanced back over his shoulder. "Be back before the end of the month, Norrie. I'll hold onto your ring until then." The heavy front door clicked shut. I stayed on my knees on the hardwood floor for a long time, my fingers digging into the edge of my open suitcase, waiting for the trembling in my chest to subside before I finally forced myself to stand. On my phone, the text thread was still open. A friend of mine—someone who had watched my life from a respectful distance—was flying out to Bern, Switzerland, in seven days for an extended corporate residency. He had asked if I needed an escape. A chance to breathe somewhere far away. I held my passport flat on the dining table, snapped a photo of the photo page, and sent it over. Beneath the image, I typed a single line: Book me a one-way ticket, please. The following morning, the apartment felt cavernous and dead. I walked from room to room, systematically separating what belonged to me from what belonged to the life Garrett had manufactured. Garrett had bought me an absurd amount of fine jewelry over the years—Cartier cuffs, diamond tennis necklaces, Van Cleef pendants that took up an entire built-in mirrored cabinet in our master walk-in. I didn’t touch a single velvet box. Instead, I reached down to the very bottom shelf and pulled out an old, scuffed cedar box. Inside were a few yellowing photographs of my parents, my expired high school student ID, and an old Amtrak train ticket, the paper thin and worn soft at the folds. The year my parents died in a commuter plane crash, I was eight years old. My uncle had arrived from Atlanta with an empty smile and an eye on their life insurance payout, packing me into his station wagon before I even had the chance to say goodbye to Garrett. Garrett and I had known each other since second grade. I remembered the afternoon he raced after me across the schoolyard, tripped over a cracked curb, and cracked his forehead against the concrete steps. The scar healed into a faint, pale crescent just above his brow. For months afterward, I felt so guilty that I saved half my lunch snacks for him every single day. He used to point to the mark with a proud grin, swearing that no matter how tall we grew, that scar would ensure I’d always pick him out in a crowd. Down in Georgia, my uncle’s house was never a home. They had their own two children. Every meal felt like a transaction; I learned early on to read the twitch in my aunt’s jaw before daring to take a second dinner roll. By the time I was diagnosed with severe clinical depression at seventeen, my uncle simply stood in the doorway of the clinic holding the medical invoices, sighing loudly about how exhausting it was to raise someone else’s broken kid. It was on a sweltering Tuesday afternoon that Garrett showed up at their suburban curb. He was standing beneath the live oaks, an oversized backpack slung over one shoulder, still wearing the faded navy track jacket from our old hometown. I had sprinted down those front steps and thrown myself into his arms, sobbing so violently that I couldn't form words. Garrett hadn’t rushed me. He had just wrapped his arms around my shaking frame, his hand rhythmically patting my back. “I’m taking you home, Norrie. I’ve got you.” He was barely nineteen himself back then. To buy that train ticket and drag me back north, he had pleaded with his own parents and spent an entire agonizing evening kneeling on my uncle’s living room rug, promising to assume legal responsibility for my living arrangements. That faded Amtrak receipt was the ticket that had carried me out of the dark. After college, I married him. At the altar, Garrett’s hands shook so violently that he fumbled the platinum band twice before sliding it onto my finger. I had whispered through my veil, teasing him for being nervous, and he had looked at me with rims of red around his dark eyes, whispering that he was just terrified it was a dream—that he could finally look at me every morning for the rest of his life. Now, standing in our minimalist, museum-like apartment, I realized he had forgotten every single piece of it. I left the train ticket lying flat on the glass dressing table. I took only the photographs of my mother and father, tucked them into my purse, and closed the wooden box forever. The afternoon before my flight, Garrett had a courier deliver a custom three-piece tuxedo to the penthouse, accompanied by a text instructing me to press the lapels, steam the trousers, and hand-deliver it to the private lounge downtown. I texted back immediately, telling him my luggage was already packed and he should hire a messenger service to run it over. Within thirty seconds, my phone rang. Garrett’s voice was clipped, grating with irritation. "Does a messenger service know which silk pocket square I like with that jacket, Nora? Does a stranger know which cufflinks go with French cuffs?" He exhaled a sharp breath into the receiver. "You're flying out to see your little friend tomorrow anyway. Bring the garment bag over tonight. We'll have dinner together before you go." A dinner invitation from him had become a rare, precious currency over the last two years. I stared at my locked suitcase standing by the front door. Slowly, I hung the charcoal wool suit onto the portable steamer, smoothed the fabric with careful, mechanical strokes, and zipped it into a protective nylon garment bag. When the elevator opened onto the penthouse floor of the lounge, the music hit me like a physical wall. Beside the heavy double doors of the private VIP room stood an oversized chalkboard easel adorned with silver balloons. In elaborate, looping script, someone had written: CONGRATS TO G ON HIS OFFICIAL FREEDOM! I stood in the entryway holding his garment bag, the nylon cold against my wrist. Someone near the bar caught sight of me and whistled toward the leather banquettes. "Look who’s here! The delivery service arrived—and she brought the boss's new threads!" Garrett was sprawled in the center of the deep velvet sectional. Rory was draped across his chest like an expensive accessory, wearing a micro-mini dress, her fingers playfully smudging a dollop of white buttercream icing onto the corner of his lips. When she saw me standing under the amber club lights, she didn’t shift an inch. She simply raised a manicured hand and waved lazily. "Hey, Nora! Just hang the bag over the coat rack and come take a photo for us." Before I could answer, an iPhone was shoved into my hands by one of Garrett’s business associates. I looked down at the bright camera screen. In the viewfinder, Garrett didn’t pull away. Instead, he slid his hand casually around Rory’s bare waist, pulling her flush against his side. Behind them, a tiered bakery cake gleamed under the track lighting, decorated with the exact same mocking phrase: Cheers to Being Single. "Hurry up, Norrie," Garrett called out, laughing, entirely at ease. "Take the shot." I turned, set the phone face down on the nearest cocktail table, and took a step back. "Ask someone else." Rory’s glossy pout flattened. Around the lounge, the raucous laughter died into an uncomfortable, low murmur. Garrett’s arm fell away from Rory’s waist. He stood up, smoothing the front of his designer shirt, his jaw tightening as he walked toward me. "What is your problem tonight?" I extended the garment bag toward his chest. "Your clothes are here. I’m leaving." He didn’t take the hanger. Instead, his fingers locked around my wrist, pulling me firmly toward the corner booth. "We said we were getting dinner. Sit down for twenty minutes." A mutual friend slid a coupe of champagne in front of me, nudging my shoulder with a forced grin. "Come on, Nora. Toast the guest of honor. Say a few words for the man of the hour." Rory leaned across the low table, her eyes glittering with feline amusement as she cut in. "Not a birthday toast, guys! We're celebrating my victory. He lost fair and square." She reached out with a mock-pitying tilt of her head, her manicured nail lightly tapping the pale, bare indentation on my left ring finger. "Look at that—she even took the ring off without putting up a fight. You really keep your husband on a short leash, don't you, G?" Garrett merely chuckled, reaching out to playfully tousle Rory’s highlighted hair. "Alright, Rory. That's enough out of you." I pulled my wrist back from Garrett's grip. The champagne remained untouched. As I shifted my weight, the tip of my right index finger—blistered pink from a burst of hot steam while pressing his tuxedo collar an hour ago—brushed against the cold condensation of the crystal glass. A sharp jolt of pain shot up my arm, and I flinched, pulling my hand into my lap. Garrett noticed. He caught my hand, turning my palm over to examine the raw, red skin. "How’d you do that?" I opened my mouth to speak, but Rory instantly rattled the ice in her highball glass, her tone teasing and sharp. "Uh-uh, Garrett! Rules are rules! It’s not your job to play the doting protector to your ex-wife tonight. Penalty for breaking character!" Garrett's fingers loosened. Without another word, he let my hand fall back to my knee. I tucked my fingers deep into the cuff of my cardigan, stood up, and looked directly at him. "I'm leaving now." This time, Rory slid off the leather seat, scooping up a heavy leather dice cup from the table, stepping directly into the narrow corridor between the banquettes to block my path. "Since you’re already here, Nora, why not roll a round with me?" Instinctively, I took a step back. "No." "Come on," Garrett interjected from the sofa, leaning back against the velvet cushions with a wave of his hand. "What are you scared of? Play one round." Rory grinned, setting two ivory dice on the lacquered table, sealing off any graceful retreat. "Simple high-low," she purred, her eyes dancing with calculated malice. "One throw. Winner gets to claim any single item they want from the loser." A cold knot tightened in the pit of my stomach. Garrett reached over, his heavy hand resting reassuringly on my shoulder, his voice dropping into that familiar, dismissive hum. "Relax, Norrie. Rory’s obsessed with designer bags and vintage watches. If you lose, let her pick out some piece of jewelry from your walk-in closet tomorrow. You don't even wear half that stuff anyway." He was right about that—I had never cared about the six-figure baubles he used to placate me after his late nights. Thinking it was the fastest way to get out of that suffocating room, I gave a brief, reluctant nod. The dice rattled fiercely against the leather cup, a sharp, violent clatter that echoed over the house music for ten agonizing seconds before Rory slammed the cup down onto the wood. "High!" Rory called out instantly. The cup lifted. A five and a six. Eleven. I didn't even need to touch the cup. I had lost. Rory didn't hesitate. Her hand didn't reach for my designer purse or the diamond studs in my ears. Instead, her index finger rose, pointing straight at the hollow of my throat. "That pendant," she said, her voice dropping into pure venomous delight. "I like it. Hand it over." My breath seized in my lungs. My hand flew up, clutching the small, delicate gold-and-enamel locket resting against my collarbone. "No," I whispered, stepping backward. "Not this." Rory’s expression soured in an instant, her eyebrows shooting up in theatrical disgust. "Are you serious right now? You're going to welch on a bet in front of everyone? Where's your dignity?" Around the booth, the low hum of conversation withered into pointed, judgmental stares. Several of Garrett’s business associates shook their heads, murmuring about poor sportsmanship. "This belonged to my mother," I said, my voice shaking as I addressed the room, my fingers white-knuckle tight over the gold. "She died when I was eight. I don't have anything else of hers left. You can come to the penthouse tomorrow—take the Cartier cuffs, take the diamond chokers, take whatever is worth fifty thousand dollars. But not this." Rory let out an ugly, mocking laugh. "You should have set your conditions before the dice hit the felt, sweetheart. A bet is settled on the table. You don't get to swap out the prize because you're feeling sentimental. I want that necklace. Give it to me, or else what's the point of playing games with you people?" She took an aggressive step forward, her chin tilted up, demanding her trophy. Desperation clawed at my throat. I turned my head toward Garrett, looking directly into the eyes of the boy who had once promised to protect me from the entire world. He knew the history of this piece. He knew that when my aunt had threatened to sell my mother's heirlooms, I had slept with this locket hidden beneath my tongue for three weeks. He would stop her. He had to. Garrett looked at me from the shadows of the booth, his expression completely blank, his tone chillingly flat. "Take it off, Nora." The air left my body. The room tilted. Rory didn't wait for me to unhook the clasp. She lunged forward, her acrylic nails snatching at the delicate chain. I instinctively jerked back, but she yanked hard, the fine gold links dragging violently across my neck, slicing thin, burning lines into my skin until tiny beads of blood welled up along my collarbone. I didn't feel the sting. I couldn't tear my eyes away from Garrett’s face. Garrett sat there, swirling the amber liquid in his rocks glass, completely detached. "You can always win it back on the next roll, Nora. Don’t be so..." Snap. A crisp, terrible sound broke through his words. The fragile vintage enamel hit the hardwood floor, followed immediately by the crack of brittle, eighty-year-old porcelain shattering beneath the impact. "Oh, oops," Rory said, stepping back with an exaggerated gasp that didn't reach her eyes. "My hands are totally butter tonight! God, that vintage junk is fragile—it shattered into like eight pieces. Gross. It looked tacky anyway." She turned on her stilettos, purposefully kicking a fragment of blue enamel across the floorboards as she strutted back to the sofa. The VIP room was tomb-silent. My knees hit the floor. The wood was sticky with spilled tonic and champagne. With trembling, numb fingers, I began crawling on all fours, gathering the splintered bits of gold, the torn photograph inside, the shards of colored glass. The final, largest shard rested inches from the polished leather of Garrett’s shoe. He sighed, leaning forward, extending a hand downward. "Here, let me—" "Don't touch it!" I screamed. The sound tore out of my throat, raw and animalistic. Garrett, a man accustomed to sycophants and gentle deference, recoiled instantly. The faint flicker of guilt in his dark eyes vanished, replaced by an icy, defensive fury. His voice dropped into a venomous register. "Check your attitude, Nora. You're making a scene over absolute garbage." I didn't look at him. I carefully folded the broken remnants into my linen handkerchief, gathered my purse from the floor, stood up, and walked toward the exit without another word. Behind me, the violent crash of a low table being kicked over echoed off the walls. "G, hey, man," someone’s voice floated through the heavy doorway, hesitant and awkward. "Maybe go after her? She looked... pretty destroyed." Garrett’s reply was loud, cruel, and completely unrestrained, carrying effortlessly through the hallway: "Let her walk! I'm already divorced from the bitch—she can die in a ditch on the side of the road for all I care! I’ve spent ten years treating her like porcelain, catering to every pathetic little mood swing, and this is how she acts? Ruining my night over a piece of dead-people trash?" He let out a harsh, bitter laugh. "Let her run. Where the hell is she gonna go? She has no parents, no family, and not a single real friend in this city. I’m the only lifeline she’s ever had. Give her seventy-two hours. She’ll come crawling back on her knees, begging me to take her back." I kept walking. My spine remained straight. My feet carried me down the carpeted corridor, into the elevator, and out into the biting night air. I didn't shed a single tear. It was over. Not just the marriage, not just the thirty-day bet. The boy who had stood under the live oaks in Georgia was dead. Back in the quiet mausoleum of our apartment, I transferred the broken shards of the locket into a small velvet drawstring pouch and tied it securely around my neck, resting against my skin. Then, I sat down in the center of the dark living room, staring at the empty expanse around me. A profound, suffocating void settled over my chest. Thirty years on this earth, and I had managed to hold onto nothing. Not my parents. Not my home. Not even my dignity. I was completely, utterly useless. The tears finally broke, silent and burning, tracking down my jaw. A familiar, dark whisper crept up from the back of my mind: Why didn't you board that plane with them? If I had been in seat 14B, I would be with them right now. I wouldn't have been dragged off by an uncle who only saw an estate check. I wouldn't have handed my entire soul over to a boy who would eventually grow bored of holding it. I wouldn't be a piece of discarded driftage, washed ashore and kicked aside. My hands shook as I unlocked my phone. I opened the messaging thread and typed out a short message: I canceled my seat. I'm not going to Switzerland. Have a safe flight. I left the phone face-up on the marble floor outside the master bathroom, walked inside, and shut the door behind me. I sat on the cold porcelain tile of the shower stall. I didn't want to see the morning sun. I didn't want to pack another bag. I didn't want to exist in a world where every step required proving my right to occupy space. In the medicine cabinet above the sink, the amber prescription bottle sat waiting. Beside it lay the small grooming razor I used for my eyebrows. Either one would be enough to finally let me rest. Then, through the heavy bathroom door, my ringtone began to scream. Not a single text chime. A phone call. Over and over again, the vibration rattling against the floorboards with frantic, relentless urgency. I pulled myself up using the chrome towel bar, opened the door, and answered the call. My vocal cords were so swollen from crying that my voice came out as nothing more than a dry, sandpaper rasp. It took me two attempts just to shape his name. "...Adrian?" On the other end of the line, the background noise was a violent rush of wind and the hum of an engine pushed to its limits. Adrian Campbell’s voice sounded taut, breathless with an edge of terror I had never heard in him before. "Nora? Did something happen? Did your plans change?" I leaned my temple against the cold drywall. "No." "Then why did you cancel the ticket?" "Because..." A shudder rattled my ribs. "Because I'm just so tired, Adrian." The exhaustion of ten years of shrinking myself to fit into Garrett’s shadow spilled through that single syllable. Silence fell over the line. For nearly thirty seconds, there was only the frantic roar of tires tearing down the asphalt and the ragged sound of his breathing. I thought he was going to hang up—that like everyone else, he had realized I was too broken to bother saving. My grip tightened around the glass casing of the phone. Then, his voice came through the receiver, impossibly soft, stripped of all corporate armor. "Let me take care of you, Nora. You don't have to be tired anymore." The breath caught in my throat. The razor on the sink, the amber bottle—the entire dark pull of the bathroom evaporated into the quiet certainty of his voice. My fingers trembled against the screen. In a voice so quiet it barely disturbed the dust motes in the room, I whispered: "...Okay." Adrian arrived faster than should have been humanly possible. He must have broken every speed limit in the county, his sedan screeching to a halt at the curb before our call even officially disconnected. He came up the elevator, grabbed my suitcase with one hand, took my freezing wrist with the other, and practically carried me down to the car. He had already rebooked our flights, rerouting us onto a red-eye that departed within the hour. The entire thing felt less like a departure and more like a staged extraction. Adrian Campbell had been a scholarship recipient I sponsored seven years ago. Right after Garrett and I married, I had received three lucrative offers from contemporary galleries in New York and Chicago. Garrett had rejected every single one on my behalf. He told me the art world was a cesspool of predators and cutthroats, that the stress would trigger my depressive episodes, and that his wealth was more than enough to keep me safe. He told me my only job was to stay home, stay beautiful, and let him provide. For the first two years, I lived in that gilded cage. Breakfast served on bone china, afternoons spent wandering through our four-thousand-square-foot sanctuary, completely insulated from reality. Boredom drove me online. I stumbled upon a grassroots non-profit portal that connected individual donors directly with low-income, first-generation college students fighting to stay enrolled. My heart ached reading their stories. With Garrett’s black card sitting idle in my purse, I quietly began funding a dozen students at once. Over time, most of them drifted away. Some fabricated financial emergencies; others stopped updating their transcripts once the checks cleared. Only Adrian was different. He had the hardest background of them all—an orphan from an industrial town in Ohio, working graveyard shifts at a distribution center since he was sixteen just to keep a roof over his head. Yet he was relentlessly, fiercely honest. He never asked for an extra dime; if a semester's textbook grant had forty dollars left over, he wire-transferred the change back to my donor account. Every three months, he sent detailed, beautifully formatted reports of his grades, scanned copies of his academic honors, and short, polite summaries of his life. I watched him graduate with top honors in computer engineering, watched from afar as he co-founded an enterprise logistics software firm with two classmates from his dorm. On the day of his commencement, he was selected as the class valedictorian, his startup already backed by major venture capital. He had sent me an invitation to sit in the family row. I had declined, and shortly after, I closed the donor account entirely. My father had once told me: When a person is down in the dirt, offer both hands. When they reach the summit, step out of the light so they can cast their own shadow. I never expected to see him again. Until six months ago, in the executive boardroom of Garrett’s private equity firm. Adrian was there leading a high-stakes acquisition meeting; I was there dropping off a warm, braised-beef lunch I had spent five hours preparing for Garrett. The meeting had gone poorly. Garrett had failed to secure the majority equity split he wanted. Furious, he had stormed out of the boardroom, caught sight of me standing by the reception desk with a glass container of soup, and backhanded the bag off the counter in a childish fit of temper before storming into the private elevator. The hot broth had shattered across the polished Italian marble, splashing dark grease across the hem of my cream silk skirt. The assistants had stared; the silence was agonizing. That was when the double doors swung open, and a tall man in a bespoke charcoal suit walked out. He didn't look at the staring staff. He walked straight toward me, knelt on the filthy marble floor, pulled a crisp linen handkerchief from his pocket, and gently began dabbing the broth from my skirt. Then, he tilted his head up, his dark, striking eyes searching mine with a quiet, fierce intensity. "Your husband has a terrible temper, Nora." That was the first time we met face to face. In the months that followed, our business paths crossed occasionally at industry galas, and we quietly restored our digital connection. The morning Garrett officially booked the private lounge to celebrate his thirty-day divorce bet with Rory, Adrian had sent a simple text: How are you holding up, Nora? I had answered with rare, unvarnished honesty: Not well. We're finalizing the divorce today. I don't really know where I belong anymore. He had replied: Get out of the city. Go somewhere with mountains and air. A bird kept in a cage too long forgets how the wind works, I told him. Even if the door opens, she doesn't know where to fly. That was when Adrian made his offer: I have a three-week operational audit in Bern next week. The Aare River is clear this time of year. Come with me. I hadn’t dared to say yes. Not until Garrett took my mother’s locket and let it smash on the floor. By the time the transatlantic flight leveled off at thirty-five thousand feet, my eyes were swollen shut and my head was pounding with a dull, sickening ache. Adrian adjusted the overhead air vent, draped a soft cashmere blanket over my trembling shoulders, and flagged down a flight attendant to order a pot of chamomile tea with honey. When the tray arrived, he pressed the warm porcelain mug into my hands. Then, like a magician producing treasures from thin air, he reached into his leather briefcase and pulled out a thick stack of glossy international publications, setting them gently on my tray table. Current issues of Artforum, Frieze, and heavy, limited-edition monographs on contemporary European oil painting. "In case you can't sleep," Adrian said, his voice a low, steady anchor in the dim cabin. "You majored in fine arts before the world got loud. These are the best issues from the last two years. I thought you might want to see what people are creating." He offered a reassuring smile. "I have some operational spreadsheets to clear through. If you need anything—tea, water, or just quiet—tap my arm." I nodded, clutching the warm mug. Adrian turned to his laptop. The blue light from the monitor illuminated the sharp, clean planes of his jaw, the effortless precision with which his long fingers moved across the keyboard. He looked every bit the formidable, untouchable tech founder the trade magazines wrote about. Yet, sitting beside him, the cold knot in my chest began to loosen. I took a small sip of the hot tea, feeling the warmth spread slowly down into my limbs. I cracked open the top art journal. Vibrant, audacious splashes of cobalt, ochre, and vermilion spilled across the glossy pages, flooding my vision—a world that had been drained of all color for ten years suddenly bursting back into light. Five minutes before the captain announced our descent into Zurich, I pulled out my phone, navigated to Garrett’s contact, and hit Delete. Then, I added his number to the permanent block list.