Chapter 10

TEN

FOSTER

If the days before I’d met Aurora were gray, those since she left were black.

My life became a series of empty moments.

After the initial shock wore off, an always-present ache remained. It gnawed at my insides.

I wandered through my apartment at night in a daze. I saw her everywhere and nowhere.

I stared at the coffee machine. I left a crumpled muffin paper on the counter. I picked at the flecks of glitter that had somehow spread to every surface of my apartment, my car, and my office.

Every fleck was a painful reminder of what I had lost.

I missed her laughter.

I missed her footsteps.

I missed the sound of her breathing beside me while I slept.

The silence was deafening.

I went through the motions at work. Every meeting blended into the next. I felt hollow, like a vital part of me had been stripped away.

I curled in on myself, because that was all I could manage to do.

Show up. Exist. Replay what I should have done differently.

All of this was my fault.

A firm pat on my shoulder grounded me, pulling me back to another meeting I hadn’t been mentally present for.

Daniel sat beside me, his smile directed at the man sitting across the table from us.

Owen Larson was smiling, too.

The looks on their faces should have encouraged me.

Owen nodded at whatever Daniel was saying. The words washed over me, barely registering.

I should have felt pride at Daniel’s newfound approval of EcoSpoon. It was at my direction that Owen had completely overhauled his pitch.

But I couldn’t.

Flavored spoons were Aurora’s idea.

She was gone, and I couldn’t find joy in anything.

I stood when Daniel stood. We took turns shaking Owen’s hand before he left.

Then Daniel and I were alone.

His eyes still glittered like they hadn’t in months. “You did it, Foster. You plucked a miracle out of thin air and managed to turn another turd into gold.”

“I’m Crude Rumpelstiltskin.”

Daniel barked a laugh. Then he really looked at me, and his smile fell. We’d hardly seen each other over the past week. And today’s meeting started as soon as I’d arrived in the office.

I imagined what I must look like through his eyes—drained, exhausted, broken.

“You look like you’re dying. No, scratch that,” Daniel said. “You look undead. Are you sick?”

“No.” But his description was pretty accurate to how I felt.

“You proved me wrong about EcoSpoon,” he said. “I thought you’d be happy.”

“I’m glad it worked out.”

“But?”

He waited for me to answer. The words lingered in my throat. If I said them out loud, I’d lose what little composure I had left.

Daniel’s expression softened further to something akin to empathy. Or pity. “Something happened with your fake wife.”

“Aurora.” My throat, my eyes, my sinuses burned as I uttered her name. “She’s gone.”

I didn’t want to talk about it. I didn’t want to relive my screw-up any more than I already did.

“What did you do?” Daniel asked, his tone gentle.

It was an accusation, no matter how kindly he said it.

And he was right.

“I did nothing. I held tight to her. I didn’t tell her I was the villain. She found out on her own. And now it’s too late.”

Intentions were irrelevant. Excuses didn’t matter. Only actions and results counted, and my action was a betrayal. The result—Aurora was gone.

The loss crushed my chest. It siphoned the energy from my muscles. It raged through my brain.

“You love her.” Daniel said.

“Yes.”

More than anything.

Daniel’s sharp eyes assessed me. “And you let her get to know the real you?”

“Yes.”

“Then it’s not too late.”

How could he possibly believe that? “Of course it is.”

“Did you explain why you did what you did?”

“I tried.”

“So no,” he said. “You let her go.”

“I didn’t let her anything.”

The look he gave me before wasn’t pity. I knew for sure because the look he gave me now definitely was.

“You did,” he said. “You don’t trust people.”

I opened my mouth to respond, but he didn’t let me.

“It’s been that way since we were kids. You see everything as a risk, so you hold back. It started with your overprotective parents.”

“I’m not risk averse.”

“Not physically, but emotionally. Sure, you’d be the first to jump off a cliff to swim in the water below, having no idea if there were sharks below or if the water was deep enough that you wouldn’t break your spine on the rocks beneath the surface. Or you see something in someone, like Owen Larson, and you’ll go all in believing in them. But, Foster, you don’t give anyone the chance to believe in you.”

That couldn’t be true, could it?

“Your parents made you afraid to truly, openly talk to people,” he said. “It took years before you told me anything deeper than your favorite color.”

Okay, I was an emotionally reserved kid.

“And then after Bertram messed with your head in college, you got so angry,” Daniel continued. “Quietly angry. You didn’t talk about it. Then, in becoming a lawyer, your habit of holding back information you deemed sensitive was reinforced. You told me you tried to tell Aurora the truth about the show. That means you didn’t tell her everything, not in a way that she would understand. It’s your special brand of self-sabotage.”

I hadn’t wanted to push Aurora away. I’d tried to do what I thought was right.

“It’s too late now,” I said.

“Do you still love her? Do you want to be with her?”

“Yes.”

“Then what are you going to do to fix it?”

Daniel was right.

I spent my life fighting to give long-shot inventors a chance to achieve their dreams. I poured all of my creativity and heart into them because I saw something worth fighting for.

And when it came to the person I cared about most—I’d given up without putting up a fight.

It wasn’t who I was.

It wasn’t who I wanted to be.

All I’d planned to fix my relationship with Aurora was the interview. That wasn’t inventive. It wasn’t enough.

I needed to give everything I had into winning Aurora back. If anything in this world was worth fighting for, it was her.

I’d tracked down Aurora’s friend Ruby at the radio station where she worked. I’d enlisted her help—possibly the most difficult step in my plan. No, the waiting, the uncertainty—those were the most difficult parts.

Everything was coming together.

Still, this interview was key, so my nerves left my leg shaking under my desk and my palms sweating.

The video call was set up on my computer, along with the filter that changed my voice and hid my face.

Anthony Keller’s professional yet eager grin filled my screen. He looked like a mix of a Ken doll and a bulldog. He’d been after an interview for years.

“Ready to begin?” he asked.

As ready as I’d ever be. “Yes.”

He pressed the button on his tape recorder.

“Shard, you’re known for your anonymity. Why did you choose to keep your identity hidden?”

“I like to let the art speak for itself. It’s not about me. It’s about the message.”

“What message is that?”

“It depends on the piece. I try to capture the essence of life—the good, the bad, the ugly.”

“Always with a playful twist. Do you consider yourself a playful person?”

I leaned back in my chair, unsure how to answer the question.

When I didn’t immediately answer, Keller said. “You must be, but you keep that part of you secret, just like your identity. Is that the case?”

“There’s freedom in not having a famous face.”

“So it’s safe to assume you’re not going to drop the filter at any point during our discussion.”

“No.”

“You’ve never given an interview before. Why now? Does it have anything to do with your winter gallery exhibition on North Pole Island?”

“Yes, actually. But it wasn’t my exhibition.”

Keller leaned forward. “Are you telling me a copycat graffiti artist is responsible?”

“No. I’m the street artist responsible for the spray-painted pieces. But the real magic of the exhibition comes from the incredible curator.”

“Oh?”

“Aurora Norey. Make note of her name. You’ll see it everywhere soon enough.”

“The curator?” Disbelief dripped from Keller’s tone.

“She selected each painting I used for a canvas. Her vision, and the atmosphere she provided, set the stage that propelled the exhibition to success. If not for her work, there would be no Selfie Claus and Moonlight. Without her, I would never have crossed from brick to canvas. Without her, there would be no interview.”

His eyes went wide. He pressed his lips together. “That’s a lot of credit you’re giving this Aurora Norey.”

“No more than she deserves.”

“It sounds like the world owes Aurora Norey a thank you.”

I owed her more. This was only the beginning.

I just hoped I wasn’t too late to make things right.