Page 84 of The Ache That Stayed

She rolled her eyes.

Two collections dominated the space. On the left—portraits. On the right—abstract. Even at a glance, they didn’t belong together. And yet… they did.

We started with the abstracts. The pieces stretched across the wall—harsh strokes, layered textures, colours that didn’t sit well together but refused to separate. Red dragged through black.

White scraped thin like a mistake that had been erased and painted over too many times.

It wasn’t pretty. It wasn’t meant to be. It felt like… a secret trying to claw its way out.

My stomach flipped. I stepped back, folding my arms unconsciously. This felt too close to home.

Ritu loved them immediately

“See this?” she said, pointing at a large canvas—violent streaks of red dragged through black, like a wound had been torn open and stitched back wrong.

“This. This goes in the hallway.”

“It’ll scare your guests.”

“Good.”

I hummed, but my attention drifted. The textures were aggressive. Layers built and scraped away. Nothing soft about them. Nothing forgiving.

“You’re not even listening,” Ritu said.

“I am.”

“You’re not.”

“I am,” I repeated, quieter this time.

But I wasn’t.

My gaze had shifted to the portraits.

Ritu’s phone buzzed. She glanced at the screen and groaned.

“Sanjoy. If I don’t answer this, he’ll assume I’ve been kidnapped.”

She squeezed my arm and stepped away toward the reception area, already answering the call as she moved toward the door.

And just like that—I was alone.

I moved toward the portraits without meaning to—faces rendered in sharp, almost clinical detail. Every brushstroke deliberate. Eyes that followed you if you stood too long in front of them. Too precise. Too knowing. Uncomfortably so.

Every detail captured with an accuracy that didn’t feel artistic—it felt invasive, like the artist hadn’t just seen their subjects.

They’d known them.

One in particular held me in place.

A woman, mid-thirties maybe. Her face was calm. But her eyes—there was a dissociation in them.

It wasn’t fear or sadness. It was a stillness harder to name. As though she was trying to bury a truth she couldn’t afford to feel.

Her lips were slightly parted like she was about to confess.

Or had just been told a secret she couldn’t repeat.