Chapter 2

Someone eventually found me. A roadie, I think. He helped me into a cab and I managed to whisper my address. The ride home was a blur of shaking and cold sweats. I fumbled with my keys, my hands too weak to work properly, and practically fell into the apartment. I didn't have the strength to make it to the bedroom. I curled up on the living room sofa and passed out.

I woke up the next afternoon. My body felt heavy and useless, a familiar exhaustion that settled in my bones after I overused my ability. The sun was streaming through the huge windows of the penthouse apartment, but I still felt cold. The place was silent. Chloe wasn't home.

I managed to drag myself to the kitchen for a glass of water. My hands still trembled. Every part of me ached. I sank back onto the sofa, pulling a throw blanket over me, and just waited.

Chloe came back late in the afternoon. She walked in carrying a container of soup from my favorite deli. "Hey," she said, her voice soft and careful. "I was worried. You weren't answering your phone."

She sat on the coffee table in front of me, her face a picture of concern. "How are you feeling?"

I just looked at her. The performance was so good, so practiced. But I could see through it now. I didn't say anything.

"I brought you some soup," she said, opening the container. "You need to eat."

She was acting like nothing happened, like she didn't leave me collapsed on a stage floor. She was trying to smooth it over, to pull me back into the comfortable lie we had been living. A part of me, the weak, tired part, wanted to let her. It would be so much easier.

But then she pulled out her phone. "You have to see this," she said, her voice bright with real excitement now. "The review for Mark's show just came out."

She held the phone in front of my face. It was a music blog, one of the influential ones. The headline read: "Mark Davis Electrifies with Groundbreaking Stage Show." And below it, a picture. It was a photo of Chloe and Mark, taken after the show. He had his arm around her, and they were both smiling, triumphant. She was looking at him with an expression of pure love.

My eyes scanned the text. "The real star of the show, however, may have been the jaw-dropping light installation, a technological marvel provided by the innovative Miller Gallery..."

My breath caught in my throat. Miller Gallery. She had taken my pain, the very essence of my being that I had poured out onto that stage, and she had stamped her name on it. She used me to get him a good review, to make him a star. It was a public declaration. They were a team. I was just a tool.

I pushed the phone away. My voice was raspy, but it was steady. "You put your gallery's name on it." It wasn't a question.

She didn't flinch. "Of course. It was a brilliant marketing move. The gallery is getting calls all morning."

"That was me, Chloe," I said, the words feeling heavy and useless. "That light, that was me. It wasn't technology."

"I know," she said, her voice losing its gentle edge. It was businesslike now. "And it worked. Mark needed this. You have to understand, Liam. It's always been him."

The words hung in the air between us, cold and sharp. "What are you saying?" I asked, though I already knew the answer.

"I'm saying Mark and I are back together," she said flatly. "I'm sorry, I should have told you sooner, but it was complicated. He's my soulmate, Liam. He always was."

Soulmate. The word hit me harder than a physical blow. Ten years. For ten years, I had been a placeholder. A convenient, talented placeholder who could fund her real love's dreams. The whole life I thought we had built was a sham, a long, elaborate waiting game until she could have him back.

A hot, bitter anger rose up in me, clearing away the weakness and the pain. I stood up, my legs still a little shaky. "I'm leaving," I said. My voice was stronger now, fueled by a decade of deception. "I'm done. I'm getting my things and I am walking out that door, and you will never see me again." It wasn't just about leaving the apartment. It was a promise to myself. I was going to cut her out of me, like a poison.

Chloe laughed. It was a short, ugly sound. "Leaving? Don't be ridiculous. Where would you go?" She stood up and walked toward me, her eyes filled with a cold pity. "Who's going to take care of you? Who else even knows what you are?"

She leaned in close, her voice dropping to a vicious whisper. "You're a freak, Liam. A beautiful, talented freak, but a freak nonetheless. I'm the only one in the world who understands you. The only one who can manage you. You'd be lost without me."

The threat was clear. She wasn't just my partner, she was my keeper. The only one who knew my secret.

"I don't care," I said, my voice shaking with rage. "I would rather be lost than be your pet."

Her face hardened. She took a step back and pulled out her phone again. She didn't call Mark this time. She called the building's security. "Yes, I need assistance in the penthouse. I have an unstable individual here who needs to be removed."

She looked at me, her eyes empty of any emotion. "You're not taking anything. Everything in this apartment, you have because of me. The art, the clothes, this life. It's all mine."

Minutes later, two large security guards were at the door. Chloe's assistants were right behind them with empty boxes. They started in my studio. I stood there, helpless, and watched them take my paintings off the wall. The canvases I had poured my soul into were handled like inventory. They packed my clothes, my books, every trace of me. They were erasing me from the life I thought was mine, and Chloe just stood there, watching, her arms crossed, her expression placid. She was wiping the slate clean.