Page 115 of Stalker's Toy

This is all for her.

And she hasn’t even arrived yet.

I shouldn’t have let them all in at once.

Should’ve made them wait outside in the cold until Mia got here, every last one of them.

Some random girl who’s too young to drink spills red wine on herself.

It makes her look interesting for the first time.

Two critics stand like their opinions mean something.

Someone else is livestreaming the whole thing, rambling on about how exclusive it all is.

Not without Mia, it isn’t.

My whole fucking life is leading to this night.

My perfect world for her.

Our world.

The place I finally have her the way I need to.

The gallery is an extension of my head.

A maze she can get lost in.

It’s like being inside me, if she ever wondered what that was like.

After tonight, she won’t have to wonder.

Each part is curated to fuck with her mind.

With everyone’s mind—with mine.

They’re going to call this a new direction for me.

Critics with opinions that mean less than nothing, idiots with too much money to spend and not enough taste.

It’s a new direction, but it’s all for her. I won’t even bother correcting them.

I think about her, about her reaction.

What she’ll say, what she won’t.

This is how it’s going to happen—she’ll walk in and see that the first gallery has more of her work than mine.

She’ll think it’s a mistake.

She’ll think I forgot my own name.

She’ll call Larsa and point it out and wait for me to notice it’s not supposed to be like that.

When I don’t, she’ll pretend it’s what she wanted all along.

She’ll hold a piece of my work, hers and mine, and she’ll know she owns it.

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