Chapter 4 4

I woke up to the steady, rhythmic beeping of a machine. The sterile white ceiling of a hospital room swam into view. A doctor told Kaleb I had something called Takotsubo cardiomyopathy. Broken Heart Syndrome. My body had physically given up, my heart failing under the weight of extreme emotional trauma.

For two days, I was a ghost. I stared at the wall, refusing to speak, refusing to eat. The wound in my soul had become a physical, life-threatening reality.

On the third day, a massive, ostentatious bouquet of flowers arrived. Kaleb intercepted it. The card was from Kurt.

"Heard you weren't well. Try not to overreact."

Kaleb didn't say a word. He walked the entire arrangement down the hall and dumped it, vase and all, into a red biohazard bin, right in front of the stunned delivery boy. When Kurt called, Kaleb answered only to promise him a violent end if he ever came near me again. Kurt, I later learned, had scoffed at the "melodrama."

Kaleb sat by my bed for hours, his voice a low, steady anchor in my sea of nothingness. He told me his friend, an acclaimed architect named Ethan Hayes, had seen photos from the showcase online.

"He didn't care about the proposal, Kat," Kaleb said, his voice soft. "He called me because of the gown. He said the design was 'achingly beautiful,' a 'masterpiece of sorrow and strength.' He said, 'Whoever made that dress has a soul more powerful than they know.'"

For the first time since I collapsed, a single, hot tear rolled down my cheek. My talent. Someone had seen my talent, not my pain.

That night, after Kaleb left, I saw my sketchbook on the bedside table. My hand, trembling and weak, reached for it. I picked up the pencil.

With a surge of something that wasn't quite strength, but wasn't despair either, I drew a single, jagged, angry line across a blank page. It wasn't a design. It was a declaration. An act of survival.

When Kaleb came back the next morning, I looked at him. My eyes were hollow, but for the first time in days, they were clear.

My voice was a raw, broken rasp. "Take me away, Kaleb," I whispered. "I want to go somewhere he can never, ever find me."