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She looks down at the page, and it feels like she’s seeing more than just the art.

Her gaze drops to my forearm and the faded script.

“What’s the tattoo about?”

I follow her eyes. “Lyrics,” I say. “Old ones.”

She nods but doesn’t ask what they represent to me. Maybe she’ll assume they’re simply lyrics from a band mymother loved, and not the most important nugget of wisdom she passed to me before she died. She glances back at the drawing. “You made me look kind.”

“I draw what I see.”

She lingers, her hand still near mine. The kids are noisier now. Junie’s crying over a lost toy, and Matty’s laughing too loud, but we’re both distracted and still. I can’t take my eyes off her.

She taps her finger gently beside the corner of the page. “Do you think you see the truth?”

I’ve never doubted that I do. The truth rests in the moments when people let their masks slip. “I try,” I say, and before I can think about it, I reach up and tuck a strand of hair behind her ear. It’s a small gesture. Barely a touch. But it lands like thunder in the quiet between us.

Her lips part like she might say something, but she doesn’t.

Grace looks at me, and for a beat, I get lost in her eyes. They’re hazel, flecked with gold, like the sun hit dried leaves and made something new. They seem deeper now than they did when she walked in. They’d be complicated to paint, and I like complicated.

My heart beats erratically as she scans my face, searching for something.

When she finally turns away to rejoin the chaos, I let out a long breath that must have been trapped in my chest by anticipation. I don’t feel like drawing anymore, so I stare at the page, finding my sketch so much less impressive than the real thing.

Representing the wholeness of people in a flat sketch is always a challenge, and Grace doesn’t suit black and white. She needs color—something vibrant and textured to bring her to life.

I grab my phone, which is resting on the arm of the chair, and type her name into a search engine. Grace Murphy.

There’s a pause, then a flood of professional headshots, magazine banners, red carpet snapshots at industry eventswhere she’s clutching engraved glass trophies with glittering eyes and scarlet lips, and dresses that hug her form like they’re there only to worship her.

Her smile in those shots is polished and practiced, but there’s something bright behind it, too, something undimmed. And a forced undertone like she doesn’t know what she’s doing there.

I scroll past bios and accolades until I find a link to one of her old articles.

The headline reads:Which vibrator should you invest in this season?

I click.

It starts with a joke. Smart. Dry. Something about ROI and orgasms. I snort into my sleeve, startling Matty, who’s still quietly coloring his unicorn. The piece isn’t smutty. It’s sharp and witty. Grace wasn’t writing to shock anyone. She was writing because she could hold attention. At least, it seems that way. She’s playful with structure and brilliant with rhythm, like the words themselves are aware of how clever they sound but still wear the joke lightly.

I read another:The Unspoken Politics of Office Cake Culture. It’s surprisingly touching. She manages to make humor out of isolation and insecurity without making anyone the punchline. It’s personal without being confessional, and woven through it all is that voice, that rhythm, that warmth and confidence she carries even when she’s writing about things that should be cold.

Another article pulls me in:How office romances can catapult your career.And there it is again. The grit. The weight beneath the wit.

I shift forward in the chair, and it groans like it wants to eject me for giving it indigestion, elbows on knees now, phone gripped a little tighter. Grace is funny, for sure, but she’s also angry in the right places. Thoughtful. She sees life the way I try to draw people: whole, complicated, flawed, and broken, but beautiful. Worth the ink.

Her photo is beside the byline. That same face I sketched. I glance at my pad again.

I captured her shape.

But not her voice.

Not yet.

7

GRACE