Page 68 of Mine for a Moment

“Anyway, I found out something super interesting,” she says.

I raise a brow as I begin to clean my brushes. “What’s that?”

“Apparently, there’s this artist called The Muse.”

My heart stops, and my gaze cuts to hers. “Oh yeah?”

She smiles knowingly, adoration in her eyes. “Yeah. Ezra told me about The Muse when I asked about the ballerina painting in Archer’s living room, so I looked into them. I joined a couple of Muse fan groups, and I started to notice something very interesting. The Muse seems to have been traveling through Europe, painting on the walls of small mom-and-pop stores that need support. Each of those paintings then draw a ton of new customers into small towns and the stores surrounding it, and dozens of businesses that would’ve closed manage to survive. All because of The Muse. The interesting part is that they’ve been in all the same cities you’ve been in.”

I stare at her wide-eyed, unsure what to say. “That’s…that’s very interesting indeed.”

There’s something in her eyes I can’t quite decipher, and it makes my heart beat a little faster, adrenaline rushing through me. “Well, if I were The Muse, I’d start putting some of my work up for auction anonymously. Muse is clearly trying to do some good in the world, and just imagine how much money one ofthosepaintings could raise. Muse would pretty much instantly be financially independent, proving everyone who never believed in them wrong, while being able to donate as much as they’d like.”

I nod, my heart thundering in my chest. “That would never even have occurred to me,” I murmur. She’s always motivated me this way, helping me think of ways to someday turn this into a career, all the while supporting me and encouraging me not to give up. She’s always been my biggest supporter, and she was the one who gave me my first few high-quality paintbrushes. She bought them for me with her first paycheck. “Tell me. What else would you do if you were The Muse?”

She looks away for a moment, her expression unreadable. “God, I’d give the world to be The Muse,” she says, her voice soft. When sheturns to face me again, her sweet smile is back in place, but it doesn’t quite reach her eyes. “I’d follow my dreams, Serenity. All of them. I’d chase my own happiness, regardless of the consequences.”

I can’t decipher what she’s trying to say, but I know Tyra well enough to know there’s a hidden meaning in her words. “What—” I begin to ask, only to be interrupted by the sound of Archer’s voice.

“Oh, yay, you’re home early!” she says, looking up.

My heart begins to race, and my hands instantly become clammy as I stare at my screen, my entire body reacting to him, even though I can’t see him. From what I can tell, he’s standing in front of her, the back of her phone to him.

“You said you weren’t having a good day, so I brought you that lemon tart you always loved,” he tells her, and the tiny sliver of hope I’d been holding on to shatters.

“From that little bakery on the other side of town?” she asks, her whole face lighting up as she seems to reach for it, pulling a small cardboard box to her chest. “You went all the way there for me?”

“Of course,” he says, his voice soft, filled with the same affection I’d grown used to. “Do you think you’re up for a walk today? The weather is really nice, and if we’re lucky, some random strangers might let you pet their dog at the park.”

I swallow hard and wring my hands, unsure what to do or say. She always calls me while he’s at work, so I’ve never found myself in this situation before. “Hey, um, I need to go,” I say, my voice breaking. It’s clear Tyra forgot all about me the second he walked in. He’s still her whole world, like he always has been.

She looks at me and reaches for her phone. “Oh, say hi to Archer before you go!” she says, before pulling him closer and into the frame.

I watch as he realizes that I overheard their conversation, and the guilt in his eyes wrecks me. “Hi,” he says, and I inhale shakily, takinghim in. He’s wearing the navy suit I love, and he looks like he’d rather sink through the floor than talk to me.

“Hi,” I murmur, each shard of my broken heart cutting deeper as he stares at me, clearly at a loss for words. We used to talk for hours even before we ever got together, and now there’s nothing left for us to say.

“Um, well, have fun at the park,” I tell him, trying my hardest to force a smile. “And enjoy the lemon tart.”

His eyes flutter closed, but not before I see the regret in them. “Serenity,” he says, in that same way he used to, like my name is a prayer, a vow. I take one more look at him and end the call, only to be faced with the contours of his face on my canvas.

He’s moved on, but here I am, clinging to every precious memory we made. How do I forget, like he has?

Fifty-Eight

Archer

I sit down on the floor of the gallery I purchased for Serenity, every artwork I anonymously bought from her lining the walls. I managed to buy all of them except for one. This gallery is my personal sanctuary, my escape. It’s where I go when I need to feel closer to her, when I need to surround myself with our memories.

I raise my wine bottle to my lips as I stare at her latest pieces, a collection she’s named The Lovers. It’s undoubtedly us, and it brings me a small amount of consolation to know she still thinks of me. I can find myself in the silhouettes she painted, in the tulips and the silk sheets, in the still life of a forgotten breakfast in bed that includes the same heart-shaped donuts she loves so much, the entwined hands of two lovers visible at the edge of the painting, his on top of hers.

I see us in the flower fields she’s painted, eating crepes on the streets of Paris, and my arm wrapped around her in a gondola on the Grand Canal in Venice. She’s painted all of our best memories, and I’m scared she did it so she could finally get them out of her head forever.

I know my girl, and if she’s painting us with those somber colors,despite the happiness attached to each of those memories…it’s because she’s trying to move on. With each finished painting, she’s probably getting closer to forgetting me, until one day, her paintings will no longer feature me.

I took her to all of those places to help her tick things off her to-do list, but if I’m truly honest with myself, I also did it because I knew it was Theo she wanted to make all those memories with—and I wanted it to be me.

Except, in the end, it’s still him she chose.

---