Page 8 of The Beast's Hidden Rose
"If you said yes, then you'd see me. Really see me. Not just these," I gesture to the scars on my face, "but what's beneath them. What's broken inside me. And then you'd leave anyway, eventually. Better to keep you at a distance. Keep you... pure. Untainted by me."
"So you watched from afar. Created this... shrine." She gestures around the studio. "Brought me into your home under false pretenses. And then what? What was the plan?"
"There was no plan." The truth burns as it comes out. "Just... having you here. Seeing you every day. It was enough. It had to be enough."
She shakes her head slowly. "How can you claim to... care for me when you don't even know me? The real me, not this version you've created on canvas."
The words cut deeper than they should. "I know more than you think," I say, moving to a cabinet and pulling out a sketchbook. I hand it to her, watch her flip through pages of observations. "You take your tea with honey but no milk. You hum when you're concentrating. Always the same tune, though I don't recognize it. You're kind to spiders—you catch them in cups and release them outside rather than killing them. You touch the spines of books before opening them, like you're greeting an old friend."
She looks up from the sketchbook, something shifting in her expression. "Those are observations. Details. Not knowing."
"Then tell me what I don't know," I challenge, stepping closer still. "Tell me who Iris Moreno really is."
Her eyes search mine, looking for something—sincerity, perhaps. Or madness. "Why should I? Why should I give you anything after... this?" She gestures at the paintings again.
"Because I've shown you everything," I say simply. "Every dark, twisted part of me is on these walls. No more secrets. No more hiding." I take another step, close enough now that I can smell her shampoo, see the small pulse jumping in her throat. "Your turn."
She doesn't back away. Something has changed in her stance, in her eyes. The fear is still there, but it's tempered with... curiosity? Challenge?
"I should leave," she says. "Pack my things tonight and go."
"You should," I agree, though the thought tears at something vital inside me. "It would be the sensible thing to do."
"But you don't want me to." Not a question.
"No." I reach out, not quite touching her but letting my hand hover near her face. "I want you to stay. I want you to see all of me, and decide anyway."
"Decide what?" Her voice has dropped to a whisper.
"If I'm a monster you should run from, or something else."
She's silent for a long moment, studying my face, my eyes, the scar that twists down my cheek. Then, slowly, deliberately, she raises her hand to meet mine, our fingers not quite touching in the charged space between us.
"You've been watching me for years," she says, and there's a new quality to her voice—something contemplative, testing. "Making assumptions. Creating versions of me on canvas. But you don't really know what I want."
The statement hangs between us, a challenge and an invitation. My heart hammers against my ribs with painful force.
"Tell me," I say, voice rough with need. "Tell me what you want, Iris."
Her eyes never leave mine, dark and unreadable. "Maybe I don't know either. Maybe that's why I'm still standing here instead of running." She takes a deep breath. "But I know I've never felt seen the way I do when I look at these paintings. Like you've been looking at parts of me no one else bothered to notice."
My breath catches. Of all the responses I imagined to this moment—fear, disgust, flight—this wasn't among them. This quiet consideration, this weighing of madness against connection.
"I should be terrified of you," she continues. "You've upended my life, manipulated my circumstances, invaded my privacy in ways that are..." she shakes her head, "...completely beyond normal boundaries."
"I have," I acknowledge. No excuses.
"And yet." She laughs softly, incredulously. "I'm still here. Trying to understand why this doesn't feel as wrong as it should."
Hope flares in my chest, dangerous and unwelcome. I crush it down. "Don't mistake fascination for acceptance, Iris. Don't confuse shock with forgiveness."
"I'm not a child," she says sharply. "I know what I'm feeling, even if I don't understand it yet."
We stand there, suspended in the moment, surrounded by images of her created through years of obsessive devotion. The storm continues to rage outside, but within the studio, a different kind of tempest builds between us.
"If I asked you to stop," she says finally, "to destroy these paintings, to never paint me again without permission—would you?"
The question cuts to the heart of everything. Would I? Could I?
