Sebastian wasn't used to uncertainty.

He organized his life like a picture with a clear composition: gallery, collections, auctions, partnerships - everything under control, everything within limits. People came and went, leaving behind memories that were enough for one sip of wine. And yet now he stood at Emily's apartment door, paper in hand, and didn't know whether to knock.

The letter. He didn't know any other way.

This girl had knocked him off his usual axis. He could hear her footsteps long before she entered the office. Noticed her palms as she touched the frames, as if she could feel the breath of the canvas. He watched her gaze at the art, as if it came alive through her.

And he couldn't understand why, when she was near, everything inside him became alive and frighteningly fragile.

After Boston, he felt as if a trapdoor had opened between them, leading to something deeper. But just when he thought he'd stepped onto that path, the ground beneath his feet became shaky. Emily didn't ask questions directly, but her eyes-they said it all. About what she wanted to know, wanted to trust, but was afraid. He recognized it - because he was the same way himself.

He couldn't forget the way she'd looked at that painting.

"Why, if these people really love each other, does the millimeter that remains between them matter so much?"

Sebastian wanted to answer. Then, that night. But he couldn't.

Because he knew the answer.

Because that millimeter was fear. And it lived in him like a cage. Fear of loss, fear of attachment, fear of opening up to something that had already shattered him once before.

He came home alone. The light in his apartment - warm, calibrated, almost stagey - didn't warm him. An old photograph lay on the table: a woman with short brown hair leaning on his shoulder. Jacqueline. They were happy. Or knew how to portray it well.

He didn't think of her out loud. Never. Not even to himself.

And yet, next to Emily, he felt all his past fears come alive - and how everything inside him demanded not to miss this chance. Not to pass it up.

He began to write the letter. Not on the computer - by hand, like before, when the words had to come slowly, through each effort. A few lines, more of an outline:

"Sometimes I feel like I'm living between pictures, not in reality. That I'm afraid to step outside the frame. You... you're not just a girl. You're the stroke that changes the whole canvas."

He crumpled the sheet. Too pathetic. Too honest.

Instead of the letter, he walked to the window. The city lived its life behind the glass: lights, cabs, moisture on the sidewalk. It clung to its walls and boundaries, but now, for the first time, he felt them shrinking. How, with her by his side, everything was crumbling and being built anew.

He dialed her number. Dropped it. Dialed again - and left the call to go.

It rang. One. Two. Five.

Voicemail.

He listened to the beeps as a metaphor for their relationship - each next one could be an answer. Or the last.

He silently turned the phone off. A viewing of a new private collection was scheduled for tomorrow, but for the first time in a long time, he didn't care.

He just wanted to hear her say it:

- I'm here.

But for now, there was silence. The same one in which souls speak when words grow weary.