When she returned to New York, it was as if Emily had become a shadow of herself. Mornings began with coffee, but it no longer warmed her. The days passed amid canvases and restoration reports, conversations with artists and the noise of gallery shows, but every sound bounced off her inner emptiness like a ball off a cold wall.

Sebastian was beside her. More attentive than before, but also more silent. After Boston, there had been a strange tension between them, as if they'd crossed a line beyond which feelings hadn't solidified but had become fragile. Emily felt that the closeness they had shared had not brought them as close as she had hoped. On the contrary - it had exposed everything unresolved.

Especially Jacqueline.

The name didn't ring out loud, but it hung in the air with the weight of an untold story. Sebastian didn't say a word, but Emily noticed how he looked away when she tried to ask questions, how gently he changed the subject. Every glance at his phone, every brief silence was unsettling now.

One evening, while filling folders with the gallery archives, she found a thin, almost faded catalog, an exhibition from twenty years ago. On the first page, neatly, in a familiar slant, was written:

"For my Emily. That you may always see the world more vividly than I do. - Daddy."

Her heart clenched painfully. She ran her finger along the lines, as if she could fumble to catch a long-vanished voice.

Flashback

It was summer. Warm, sweltering, with the smell of linden and ice cream. Emily was very young - about seven years old. Her father held her hand as they walked through the halls of the art museum. He spoke slowly, as if he was afraid to spook the silence in the art galleries.

- Do you see how Monet has everything blurred? - he whispered, pointing to a watercolor landscape. - That's because he doesn't convey what he sees, but what he feels.

- And I feel he's sad," she replied, looking at the misty lily.

Her father laughed and kissed her on the top of her head.

- Art is the language the soul speaks when words are tired. Remember, little one.

The real thing

Emily sat on the floor of the archive room, clutching the catalog. The same phrase rang in her head:

"When words are tired..."

She realized why she was drawn to Sebastian. His silence spoke to her. His inner storms, unspoken in words, were native. But also dangerous. Because when she opened, he closed. And she'd lost like this before.

The night her father didn't return, she remembered every detail.

- I won't survive it a second time," she whispered into the empty room, as if someone might hear.

And only silence answered her. The letters that weren't there. Words that weren't spoken. Love that didn't know how to be loud.

She didn't go to Sebastian that night. Didn't answer his message. She lay in bed with her clothes on and stared at the ceiling for a long time, feeling the storm rising inside-quiet, without thunder, but even more devastating because of it.