He Paid Five Million to Cut Ties, Then Came Crawling Back Chapter 07

He Paid Five Million to Cut Ties, Then Came Crawling Back Chapter 07

Kingswell was quiet. The good kind of quiet.

Graham found me an apartment across the hall from his.

My hand finally got proper treatment.

The rehab was brutal. Every session felt like learning to use my hand all over again while pushing through shattered glass.

But Graham was always there.

He ran my sessions himself, walking me through every exercise, never rushing.

When the pain brought me to tears, he’d awkwardly press a tissue into my hand like he’d never comforted anyone before.

He called it his job. Said I was his patient and that was that.

I knew better.

One night, the pain woke me. Graham was still in the chair beside my bed.

He had an art book open in his lap, one filled with works by my favorite painter.

The lamp cast a soft glow across his face. He looked different like that. Unguarded.

“Why do you do all this?” I asked.

He closed the book and looked at me. “Because I missed my chance once. I’m not doing that again.”

—

“Senior year,” he said. “I wrote you a letter. Asked you to meet me at the art studio after school.”

I never showed up.

He waited the entire night.

“I found out later,” he said. “You were at the hospital that night. You’d saved Bennett.”

His voice dropped. “I’ve thought about it a thousand times. If I’d said something sooner, even just one day sooner, would everything have gone differently?”

I stared at him.

I never got a letter.

Then it hit me.

That afternoon, Bennett had called me in a panic. Someone had cornered him. I’d grabbed a handful of papers from my locker on my way out, shoved an envelope into my pocket without looking, and ran.

The letter never made it out of that pocket.

One envelope. Eight years.

“That was a long time ago,” I said.

“No.” He shook his head. “For me, it’s just starting.”

He reached over and took my good hand.

His hand was warm. Steady.

—

“Let me be here for you, Maren. That’s all I’m asking.”

I looked into his eyes and found something I hadn’t seen in anyone in a long time. Certainty.

Something shifted in my chest.

I didn’t say a word. I just held on.

The weeks slipped by.

My hand improved. Slowly at first, then faster than anyone expected.

It would never be what it was. But I could hold a brush again. I could make lines that meant something.

Graham turned his study into a studio for me.

He said he wanted to watch me paint again. Said it like it was the only thing he’d ever wanted.

I painted my first piece.

A sunflower. Wide open, drenched in light.

I gave it to Graham.

He hung it in the center of his living room wall.

He told me it was the best gift anyone had ever given him.

For the first time in years, my life didn’t feel like something I was just surviving.

Then I saw Bennett on TV.

—

A business news segment.

He was thinner. He looked like a ghost of himself.

The host leaned in. “You’ve been pouring everything into a company called Vale & Ashford Studio. Can you tell us why?”

Vale & Ashford.

My name. His name.

He’d called it our baby once.

Bennett looked at the camera, his eyes empty.

“Because I lost someone,” he said. “And this is the only way I know how to tell her I’m still waiting.”

A dull ache flared in my chest. I let it pass.

“There are also reports that you’ve been searching for a specific piece of art, an unfinished sketch by a young painter. Word is you’ve spared no expense. Is that true?”

Bennett didn’t answer right away.

“Yes,” he said. “That painting means more to me than anything I have.”

“Can you tell us about it?”

“It’s called Shattered.”

I turned off the television.

Graham was standing behind me. I hadn’t heard him come in.

—

“You okay?” he asked.

I shook my head. “I’m fine. It’s just pathetic, honestly.”

He’d shattered everything with his own hands, and now he was out there searching for the pieces.

Funny how that works.

“He won’t find it,” Graham said.

I looked at him.

He disappeared into the study and came back holding a frame.

My line sketch of Shattered. Framed behind glass.

I couldn’t breathe.

“I bought it from the gallery before they took down the exhibition,” he said. “I wasn’t going to let them keep it”.

“I always thought whoever made this had to be one of the strongest people I’d ever meet.”

“You were never broken, Maren. Not where it counts.”

My vision blurred. Not from pain this time.

This man had been putting me back together piece by piece, so quietly I almost didn’t notice.

I closed the distance between us and held on.

“Graham, thank you.”

—

His voice was a low murmur, right against my ear.

“You never have to thank me, Mrs. Calloway.”