*Camille*

Blood is harder to remove from silk than wine.

I learned that at 3:27 a.m. on a Tuesday—watching crimson bloom across the lyric I’d just stitched into the jacket lining: I want you to want me.

The needle slipped again, punishing me for pairing merlot with midnight sewing sessions.

Outside my Brooklyn studio, thunder growled like my mother’s voice in my memory:
"Ton père t’a laissée avec des cicatrices, pas du talent."
Your father left you scars, not talent.

I sucked my bleeding fingertip, the iron tang mixing with cheap wine. The jacket was supposed to be my breakthrough piece for Fashion Week—raw seams exposed, lyrics embroidered into wounds trying to heal. Just like me since moving from Paris to New York three months ago, chasing a ghost.

My father’s approval. Or at least what he left behind.

The MatchUp notification blinked under fabric scraps. Another ping. I tapped it, squinting at the name, trying to remember who I’d swiped right on weeks ago—some forgotten impulse that now felt oddly fated.

Daniele.

Not just the jawline. Not just the leather jacket seemingly salvaged from a lifetime of fights and heartbreaks.

It was the tattoo peeking from his collarbone—red lips parted in a permanent kiss, cursive script beneath:

Mon premier amour.

My breath caught. That phrase lived in the cracks of my childhood—whispered by my mother over yellowed Parisian postcards from my father, before he left. Before I learned some love stories were just pretty lies stitched over abandonment.

His message was already waiting:

So you’re the artist.

Those stitches look like musical notes.

I rolled my eyes, fingers moving fast:

You play music or just stalk creative women at 3 AM?

His reply came instantly:

Guilty. But mostly I bleed music.

Lately it’s all noise though.

I traced the scar on my thumb—the one from the night I tried to sew the hem of my mother’s dress after she didn’t get out of bed for three days straight. I didn’t know how to thread a needle properly. I just wanted to help. To fix something. To make her look like herself again

Maybe you’re listening to the wrong people

I typed.

Maybe I’m waiting to hear the right one,

He fired back.

Outside, the storm softened. My fingers hovered, then flew:

Prove it. What’s the last song that wrecked you?