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CHAPTER 12: The Locked Sketchbook
It happened by accident.
Ava had left in a rush, her heart still heavy from the conversation the night before. The sunlight had been too sharp, the hallway too narrow. She needed air. She needed space. So she ran without thinking—and left the sketchbook on the piano bench.
The one she never meant for anyone to see.
Eli didn't realize what it was at first. He'd returned to the room hours later, guided by muscle memory and the scent of lavender she always left behind.
His fingers brushed against the leather cover, soft and warm from her touch. He knew instantly—it was hers.
He hesitated.
She hadn't said anything about it. Should he ask first?
But curiosity tugged at him harder than politeness. With a cautious breath, he opened it.
Though he couldn't see, he could feel. The pages were thick, textured with paint and graphite. He traced his fingertips gently across one—a swirl of raised pencil lines. A shape. Then another. Then something sharp, jagged.
He paused.
This one was a face.
But not just any face.
His.
Drawn in shadow, sketched with haunting precision—the slope of his nose, the tension in his jaw, the scar that curved like a question mark above his brow.
There were no eyes.
Just blank, hollow spaces where sight should be. But somehow, even without them, the face looked alive. Haunted. Beautiful. And broken.
He turned the page.
Another image.
This one was different—fiery streaks, charred edges, a doorway swallowed in smoke. And in the middle of it all: a figure of a girl crouched in the corner, hands over her ears, eyes wide with terror.
Ava.
A slow chill crept down Eli's spine.
These weren't just drawings.
They were confessions.
Each page opened a door she had locked behind her silence. And now he was walking through them alone.
He snapped the book shut and gripped it tightly.
She had seen him.
Truly seen him—in ways he hadn't known were visible. And more than that, she had painted her pain beside his, mingling their memories as if they were one.
A part of him felt violated.
Another part... felt chosen.
When Ava returned, she found him still there—sitting on the piano bench, the sketchbook in his lap, his face unreadable.
Her breath caught. "Eli…"
He didn't look up. "You never told me."
"I didn't want you to see those," she said, her voice cracking. "Not yet."
"You drew my blindness. You drew your fear. And you locked it away."
"Because it scares me, Eli!" she cried. "Because you scare me. The way you feel like home and danger all at once. Because I'm afraid that if I let you see everything, you'll walk away."
He finally turned his head toward her, his jaw clenched. "And you think not knowing won't break me?"
Silence fell again, thick and suffocating.
"I didn't mean to hide you in my art," she whispered. "I just didn't know how else to hold you."
Eli stood, stepped toward her, and pressed the sketchbook into her hands. "Then next time… hold me with your hands. Not with your fear."
He walked out, leaving Ava standing there with pages full of secrets—and a heart suddenly too full to carry.
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