Chapter 2: “It’s You Again”

The gallery was hushed in that particular, studied way - as though the walls themselves disapproved of volume. Every step on the polished concrete floor echoed faintly. Spotlights tracked brushstrokes. The air smelled faintly of cedarwood, linen, and the slightly metallic tang of white wine.

Mira Laurent had been there for ten minutes. She stood in front of an abstract canvas - pale blue bleeding into rust and ivory - her expression one of composed interest. A thin, expressive line arched across the painting’s center like a wound someone hadn’t tried to heal. The placard below it read:

“The Impossibility of Silence — oil on linen — 2021”

Mira’s eyes narrowed. A typo. Silence was misspelled. The ‘e’ and ‘n’ transposed. Her jaw tensed - slightly. Not enough to be seen, only enough to be felt. She reached, without thinking, into her small structured clutch for her red pen. Then remembered where she was. She let her fingers rest on the smooth leather instead.

Her date was beside her - young, clever, sharply dressed. He wore a blazer with a Mandarin collar and used the word “liminal” unironically. He was explaining the artist’s early work with quiet confidence, unaware Mira had stopped listening somewhere around “spatial tension.”

She nodded once. Sipped her wine. Her mind was elsewhere. Again.

She wasn’t tired, exactly. Just ... depleted. The way she got after too many hours in rooms where people tried too hard. She could do this - wear the silk, say the right things, tilt her head at the right angles - but none of it touched her.

Harper arrived four minutes late and full of apology. Her hair was windblown from the walk from the uber she just farewelled. She had on a floral blouse half-tucked into black jeans, a worn denim jacket over the top like armor. And glasses - big, round, functional - the ones she usually wore at home when no one could see her. She’d forgotten they were on until her date looked at her like she’d brought a backpack to the opera.

“You’re wearing glasses,” he said, not unkindly - just puzzled.

Harper flushed. “Yeah. It’s kind of a face thing I do sometimes.”

He blinked. She tucked her hair behind one ear, the blush traveling to her neck. “Sorry I’m late. The uber stopped for a guy playing violin and I’m the only one who clapped, so I had to sit there longer than you’d think.”

He stared at her for a moment. Then nodded once, like processing a foreign dialect. They walked in together - not touching.

The gallery was beautiful, she had to admit. Quiet. Golden lighting spilling over everything. But the walls felt a little too white, the patrons a little too still, like maybe they weren’t here to enjoy art so much as prove they could interpret it.

Harper leaned in and whispered to her date, hoping to break the ice, “This place smells like cedar and social anxiety.”

He didn’t laugh. He offered a small, polite sound of acknowledgment. Great. She thought to herself. Another one who’s full of himself and his own importance. Just once I’d like to meet someone who flinches at the word ‘intimacy’ and laughs at their own sneeze.

Harper blinked at a painting shaped like a bruise and sighed internally. She adjusted her glasses and stared harder at the painting. Maybe it would start to make sense if she blinked long enough.

Mira moved through the exhibit with deliberate grace, one hand lightly clasping the stem of her second glass of wine. She had left her date behind a few rooms ago - he had taken a sudden interest in a sculpture described as “an interplay of absence and form” and began quoting Rilke with such satisfaction Mira didn’t have the heart to stop him.

She stepped into the next gallery space, and for a moment, stood still in front of a sprawling canvas - black on white, minimal, aggressive. Someone behind her said it reminded them of a scream being choked in a museum.

Then she heard it. A voice. Not loud. Just clear. Lightly exasperated. A familiar rhythm of sincerity colliding with sarcasm - spoken more to herself than anyone else.

“ ... I mean, is this one supposed to be sad? Or is it just allergic to color?”

It wasn’t the words that made Mira’s lips twitch - it was the delivery. The same dry, breathless cadence that had stuck in her mind like the aftermath of a strange and wonderful dream.

She turned her head slightly. Didn’t smile. Not yet.

Harper didn’t notice her until the next turn.

She’d been dragging her date toward what she hoped was a gift shop or at least a water station when she rounded a corner too quickly and nearly collided with someone standing far too still.

It was a woman. Tall. Maybe an inch taller than herself, and Harper thought her height was one of the things she had going for her at 5”9. But additionally, the woman was wearing heals and she wasn’t. It added to their difference in height.

The woman was composed. Draped in soft charcoal linen and gold earrings that caught the light like punctuation. She was facing the painting - but looking at Harper.

Harper froze. Her brain shorted out for half a second. “Oh,” she said. Then, with a crooked grin: “Hey. It’s you again.”

Mira raised a brow. The corner of her mouth tilted - not quite a smile, but the idea of one. “Apparently we share taste in overpriced wine and questionable men.”

Harper’s laugh was too loud for the room. She winced, then tucked her hair behind her ear in that same habitual flick Mira remembered.

There was a beat of silence.

And in that moment, without realizing it, they both looked at each other - really looked. Not in the way strangers do. Not in the way women scan each other to assess threat or style or status. This was slower. More curious.

Mira took in the denim jacket, the floral blouse beneath it, the glasses - thick-rimmed, slightly fogged near the edges - and felt something gentle press against her chest. She’s cute. The thought startled her, and then settled like it belonged there.

Harper stared at her, shameless for a heartbeat. God, she’s stunning. She still couldn’t place the accent. Some type of European? Her eyes, beneath lush manicured eyebrows were green, but too vivid to be just green - were watching her now with a quiet intensity that made Harper’s stomach flutter like a caught note.

And just like that, the world tilted again - the gallery, the dates, the art - all blurred at the edges.

They parted - slightly awkwardly, and with little desire to do so - like people who weren’t sure if they’d just bumped into the past or the future.