"The night after my mom's funeral, I couldn't sleep. I went into her studio she had this whole room dedicated to painting and I just… created.
This massive abstract thing, all blacks and dark blues and angry reds. Pure grief made visual." Her voice wavered. "It was the most honest thing I'd ever painted. And I destroyed it. Tore it to pieces and threw it away because I couldn't stand looking at what I'd made."
Ethan's hand tightened on hers. "Why?"
"Because it was too real. Too raw. Looking at it meant feeling everything, and I couldn't survive feeling everything."
"And now?"
"Now I'm sitting in a car with a man I barely know, holding paint supplies, and I still don't know if I can survive feeling everything." She looked at him. "But I'm here anyway."
"That's the bravest thing I've ever heard."
"It's the stupidest thing I've ever done."
"Those are usually the same thing."
He turned down a gravel road marked with a simple wooden sign: Riverbend Nature Preserve. The lot was nearly empty, just one other car parked at the far end.
"A nature preserve?" Maya asked.
"A nature preserve with perfect light." Ethan grabbed his camera bag from the back seat. "I came yesterday, couldn't sleep after our dinner. Drove around until I found this place. I thought" He paused, suddenly uncertain. "I thought maybe you could paint something that wasn't grief. Something that was just… possibility."
Maya's throat tightened with emotion she didn't know how to name.
They walked down a trail marked with fading arrows, leaves crunching under their feet. The November air was sharp and cold, but the morning sun was warm on Maya's face. Ethan navigated the path with the ease of someone who'd walked it before, his camera swinging from his neck.
The trail opened onto a clearing by the river, and Maya's breath caught.
The view was stunning. The river stretched wide and calm, reflecting the morning sky like a mirror. Bare trees lined the opposite bank, their branches creating intricate patterns against the blue. But what made Maya stop completely was the light the way it hit the water in ripples of gold and silver, the way it filtered through the trees, making everything look touched by magic.
"Oh," she breathed.
"Right?" Ethan was watching her, not the view. "I knew the moment I saw it. This is where you start again."
"You did this for me? Found this place for me?"
"I wanted to show you how I see the world. The way you showed me how you see it through therapy, through helping people process pain." He set down his camera bag. "And maybe I wanted to see how you see it. When you let yourself create instead of just surviving."
Maya felt tears burning behind her eyes. No one had done something like this for her in God, maybe ever. Not even her mother, who'd pushed but never quite understood the depth of Maya's fear.
"I don't know if I can do this," she whispered.
"You don't have to. We can just sit here. Enjoy the view. No pressure." He pulled out a blanket from his bag, spread it on the flat rock near the water's edge. "But if you want to try, I'll be right here. Working on my own stuff. Two artists doing their thing."
Maya sat down slowly, pulling out the watercolor set with trembling hands. The paper was thick and cream-colored, professional grade. The paints were jewel-bright in their compartments.
She stared at the blank page for a full five minutes, paralyzed.
Then Ethan's voice, soft: "Paint what you feel, not what you see. That's what you told me you teach your clients, right?"
Right. Paint the emotion, not the image.
Maya dipped her brush in water, touched it to the blue paint, and made the first stroke.
It was terrifying.
The second stroke was easier.
By the third, she was lost in it.
Time disappeared. Maya painted the river, but not realistically she painted how it felt. The movement and the stillness. The reflection and the depth. Blues bleeding into silvers, unexpected touches of gold where the light hit just right.
Occasionally she heard Ethan's camera shutter, but it didn't break her concentration. They existed in parallel two artists creating, two damaged people making beauty out of their broken pieces.
When Maya finally looked up, almost an hour had passed. Her hands were stained with paint, her paper covered with something that was unmistakably hers. Not her mother's style. Not a copy or a shadow. Something new.
"Can I see?" Ethan asked, appearing at her shoulder.
Maya nodded, suddenly terrified.
He studied the painting in silence for a long moment. Then: "This is what peace looks like to you."
"I don't know if I'd call it peace"
"No, look." He pointed to the way she'd painted the water. "It's moving, but it's calm. Both things at once. Movement with direction. That's peace. Not stillness. Motion with purpose."
Maya looked at her own painting with fresh eyes. He was right. She'd painted something that was both restless and grounded, both changing and constant.
Hope, maybe. The tentative kind.
"Thank you," she said quietly. "For this. For seeing what I needed."
"Thank you for letting me see you create." Ethan sat beside her, close enough that their shoulders touched. "Can I show you something?"
He pulled up his camera, scrolled through images. They weren't just landscape shots they were photos of her. Painting. Concentrating. Biting her lip in focus. Smiling slightly at something on the water.
"This is how I see you," Ethan said quietly. "Present. Alive. Creating something beautiful out of pain."
Maya stared at the images, barely recognizing herself. She looked… content. Almost happy. Like someone who belonged in her own skin.
"I hate photos of myself," she whispered.
"I know. But maybe you'll hate these less." He zoomed in on one her face turned toward the light, completely absorbed in her painting. "You're beautiful when you're creating. You know that?"
"Stop."
"Never." He kissed her temple softly. "Paint another one. I want to see what else is in there."
So she did. A second painting, looser and more experimental. Less controlled, more feeling. And as she painted, Ethan photographed not just her, but the way light moved across water, the patterns in the trees, the beauty in the quiet morning.