The sky was bleeding lavender when I first saw him.
I wasn't supposed to be at the gallery. My friend Sophie had dragged me there after a brutal breakup, saying something like, "Art is cheaper than therapy and better looking." I wasn’t convinced.
But then there he was.
He stood alone in front of a large oil painting—something abstract, sharp angles and lonely reds. His hands were in his coat pockets, head tilted just slightly, as though the colors had whispered a secret only he understood.
I almost didn’t notice I was staring until he turned to look directly at me.
It wasn’t one of those movie moments where the world slows down or everything else blurs into nothing. No music swelled. No time froze. What happened was simpler—and more dangerous.
He smiled.
And that was the beginning of it all.
......
“You like that one?” he asked, nodding to the painting.
I blinked, suddenly aware of how dumb I must look. “I don’t know if I like it. It feels… angry.”
“That’s why I like it,” he said. “It doesn’t pretend to be anything else.”
He was taller than I’d guessed. Dark hair, but with threads of copper catching the evening light. He wore a worn navy scarf, boots that had seen seasons, and that grin—the kind that said he saw right through people and liked what he found.
“I’m Adrian,” he said, extending a hand.
“Nina.”
Our fingers met. His grip was warm.
......
That night turned into a drink, which turned into another. And then a walk through empty city streets where everything was hushed, the buildings like sleeping giants around us.
We talked about books. About how he used to write poetry but didn’t tell anyone. About how I loved old jazz and had a weakness for caramel anything. We laughed about stupid things—like the time I’d accidentally texted my boss instead of my sister. About how he once tried to impress a girl by learning how to juggle and broke a lamp in the process.
It was easy.
Too easy.
.......
Looking back, I should’ve known: people don’t fall that fast without crashing.
But that night, under a quiet sky and streetlights flickering like nervous fireflies, I let myself believe in something again.
And Adrian kissed me like it meant something.
Like I meant something.
I didn’t know then that love could carry knives in its pockets. That one day, I’d read old messages with shaking hands, wondering how someone who once touched me like I was treasure could turn into someone who could barely look at me without venom.
But for now?
We were just two strangers on the cusp of a story.
And stories never warn you when they’re about to turn dark.
