The brick on the side of the old Millhaven Ledger building was cold, porous, and tasted—if you were unfortunate enough to get a face full of dust—of a hundred years of exhaust and forgotten news.
I loved it.
I was perched on the second level of the scaffolding, my world reduced to a four-foot square of primer and charcoal. In this space, I wasn't Richard Ashworth's illegitimate mistake. I wasn't a girl hiding under an NDA with a mother whose sobriety was bought with hush money. I was just the girl with a Prussian Blue smudge on her nose and a vision of a girl breaking through a paper crown.
"Step back," Ezra called out from the sidewalk.
I leaned back against the safety rail, my heart doing a slow, steady thrum. "Is the perspective off? The eye... it feels too large."
"It's not too large," Ezra said, his voice calm and clinical, the sound of a safe harbor. He was holding his vintage Nikon, the one he'd spent three months' salary on, capturing the process. "It's jarring. Which is the point, isn't it? She's waking up. Waking up is supposed to be uncomfortable."
I looked down at him. Ezra was wearing his usual oversized flannel and a pair of beat-up Doc Martens. He was the only person in this town who didn't look at me like I was a puzzle to be solved or a threat to be managed. He just looked at the art.
"I want it to look like it's screaming," I whispered, turning back to the wall. "But silently. Like if you looked at it too long, your own lungs would start to ache."
"You're halfway there," Ezra said. He stepped closer to the base of the scaffolding, handing up a fresh bottle of water. "Drink. You've been up there for three hours, and you're starting to vibrate."
I took the water, my fingers brushing his for a second. It was a normal touch. A friend touch.
But thirty feet away, the atmosphere shifted.
The black-and-silver truck was still there. It had been idling at the intersection for three light cycles now. I didn't have to look to know that Hayes was behind the wheel. I didn't have to look to know that his grip on the steering wheel was probably turning his knuckles white.
I could feel him. It was a physical weight on the back of my neck, a low-frequency hum that made the Prussian Blue on my palette feel like a live wire.
Hayes Callahan, the Golden Boy of Millhaven, was currently playing the part of a stranger. He was the star quarterback waiting for a light to change. He was the boy who had just dumped the town's darling. He was the most visible person in this county, and yet, to everyone on the street, he had nothing to do with the girl on the scaffolding.
But I knew. I knew that every time Ezra handed me a brush, or adjusted the ladder, Hayes was dying a little bit inside. It was a sharp, possessive jealousy that we'd laughed about in the truck— 'He has the best hands in the state, Wren, why do you need him to hold the level?' —but out here, under the grey Millhaven sky, it felt heavy.
"He's still there," Ezra remarked, his voice devoid of judgment but sharp with observation.
"I know," I breathed.
"He's not very good at being a ghost."
"He's trying," I defended, though I knew Ezra was right. Hayes didn't know how to be a background character. He was built for the spotlight, for the roar of the crowd, for the center of the field. Being forced to watch from the sidelines while another boy occupied my space was a special kind of torture I'd designed for him.
I dipped my brush into the deep blue, the color of a midnight sky just before the stars come out. I needed to finish this. The mural wasn't just a portfolio piece; it was a legacy. It was the only thing I would leave behind when I finally escaped this town. I wanted people to walk past this wall for years and feel a ghost of the girl who had been too afraid to be seen.
The sun was starting to dip, casting long, skeletal shadows across the street. The light in Millhaven was always a bit bruised, a bit tired.
And then, the white SUV appeared.
It didn't idle. It didn't wait for a light. It pulled right up to the curb, its tires screeching slightly against the pavement, cutting off the path of a delivery van.
My heart did a violent, jagged somersault.
Chloe stepped out first. She was wearing a cream-colored coat that probably cost more than my first two years of college, her blonde hair perfectly coiffed, her lips a sharp, aggressive red. Behind her was her father, Mr. Sterling, a man who carried his power like a blunt instrument.
"Wren Ashworth," Chloe said, her voice carrying across the quiet street. She didn't look at the mural. She looked at me with a smile that was pure, distilled poison.
"Chloe," I said, keeping my voice flat.
"My father," she gestured to the man beside her, "is on the board of the Millhaven Heritage Society. And he was just telling the Mayor how concerned he is about the... structural and aesthetic integrity of this wall."
"It's a community project, Chloe. The arts council approved it."
"The arts council," her father boomed, his voice echoing off the brick, "didn't account for the Historical Preservation Act of 1924. This building is a landmark, Miss Ashworth. Your little 'painting' is a violation of city code. We've had a preliminary injunction signed by the Mayor's office this afternoon."
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a roll of heavy-duty red tape and a laminated sheet.
"This is a Cease and Desist order," he said, stepping past me.
He didn't just tape the notice to the wall. He took the red tape and ran it directly across the face of the girl I'd been painting. He ran it across her eyes. He ran it across the Prussian Blue sky.
The sound of the tape sticking to the wet paint was a wet, tearing sound that felt like it was happening to my own skin.
"The project is shut down," he said, turning back to me. "Effective immediately. Any further work on this site will be treated as criminal trespass and vandalism. Do I make myself clear?"
"You can't do this," I whispered. "This is my... this is everything."
"You should have thought about that before you started making yourself so visible, Wren," Chloe said. She leaned in, her voice a low, lethal purr. "I told you. I saw the way he looked at you. I saw the Columbia recruiter's email on your phone at the formal. You don't get to have a future while I'm still living in the wreckage of yours."
They turned and walked back to the SUV. The door shut with a heavy, final thud.
I stood there, staring at the red tape. The Prussian Blue was already starting to bleed into the adhesive, the color I'd worked so hard to mix becoming a muddy, ruined mess.
The truck at the intersection roared. I didn't have to look to know that Hayes had seen everything. I didn't have to look to know he was about to do something reckless.
"Wren," Ezra said, reaching for my hand.
I pulled away. I couldn't be touched. I couldn't be comforted. I was a violation. I was a trespasser.
I turned and ran into the alleyway, the smell of wet paint following me like a ghost.
I was stuck. I was trapped in the shadows of Millhaven, and the light I'd been trying to build for myself had just been taped over in red.