Maya's POV
"Show me the scar."
I had been tracing my fingers along James's shoulder for the past ten minutes, feeling the raised tissue that cut across his skin like a map to somewhere I could not reach. We were back in the hotel room, tangled in sheets that smelled of salt and something uniquely him.
"It is not much to look at," James said, his voice rough with exhaustion. But he shifted so I could see it better in the pale light filtering through the curtains.
The scar was about three inches long, jagged and white against his tanned skin. It looked old, the edges softened by time. I ran my finger along it again, and James shivered under my touch.
"How did it happen?" I asked, though he had already told me briefly on the beach. I wanted to hear it again. I wanted to memorize every detail of him before morning came and erased this night as though it had never existed.
James was quiet for a moment, his chest rising and falling beneath my palm. When he spoke, his voice carried a weight that made my heart squeeze.
"I was twelve," he began. "My father took me sailing. He loved the water, loved teaching me about navigation and wind patterns and all the technical aspects of sailing. But I was terrified."
"Of the water?"
"Of disappointing him." James's jaw tightened. "He had this vision of who I should be. Confident, fearless, perfect. And I was just a scared kid who got seasick and could not tie knots properly."
I pressed my lips to his shoulder, just above the scar. He exhaled slowly, like I had released something trapped inside him.
"We were out pretty far when a storm came up," he continued. "Sudden, violent. The boat pitched and I lost my balance. Fell against the boom. The metal edge caught me right here." His hand covered mine on the scar. "I was bleeding everywhere. My father had to call for help."
"That must have been terrifying."
"You know what the worst part was?" James turned to look at me, and his eyes were dark with old pain. "Not the injury or the blood or even the fear of drowning. It was seeing the disappointment on my father's face. Like I had failed some test I did not know I was taking."
My throat tightened. I understood that feeling too well. The weight of disappointing people who expected more than you could give.
"I am sorry," I whispered.
"Do not be." James shifted so we were face to face, his hand coming up to cup my cheek. "That scar reminds me that I survived. That I kept going even when I wanted to give up. That is worth remembering."
I leaned into his touch, closing my eyes. His palm was warm, slightly calloused. I wanted to memorize this too. The feel of his skin against mine. The weight of his gaze. The way he looked at me as though I were something precious instead of something broken.
"Tell me about your brother," James said softly.
My eyes flew open. I had mentioned Marcus earlier, but I had not gone into detail. The subject felt too raw, too real for this fragile space we were living in.
"You do not want to hear about that," I said, trying to pull away.
James held me gently in place. "I do. Maya, I want to know everything about you. Not just the easy parts."
Something in his voice made my defences crumble. Maybe it was the vulnerability he had shown me. Maybe it was the fact that dawn was coming and I would never see him again. Maybe I was just tired of carrying this weight alone.
"His name is Marcus," I began, my voice barely above a whisper. "He is twenty four. Smart, funny, stubborn. He wanted to be a teacher. Used to tutor kids in our neighbourhood for free because he said education was the only way out."
"Used to?" James asked gently.
"The diagnosis came two years ago. Polycystic kidney disease. Genetic. Progressive." The medical terms felt like stones in my mouth. "At first, the doctors said we caught it early. That with treatment, he could manage it. But it progressed faster than anyone expected."
James's thumb stroked across my cheekbone, a silent comfort.
"Now he is on dialysis three times a week," I continued, the words coming faster now like a dam breaking. "He is on the transplant list, but it is so long. Years long. And every day his body gets weaker. Every day I watch him fade a little more, and there is nothing I can do."
"That is why you work so much," James said. It was not a question.
I nodded, tears burning behind my eyes. "The medical bills are crushing us. My mother works three jobs. I take every catering gig I can find, sell my paintings for whatever people will pay. But it is never enough. It is never close to enough."
"And you feel guilty," James said quietly. "For not being able to fix it."
The understanding in his voice broke something inside me. A sob escaped before I could stop it, then another. James pulled me against his chest, his arms wrapping around me like a fortress.
"I am his big sister," I choked out between sobs. "I am supposed to protect him. Keep him safe. And I cannot. I cannot do anything except watch him suffer and pretend I am not terrified he is going to die."
"Shh," James murmured into my hair. "It is all right. Let it out."
So I did. I cried for Marcus and his stolen future. I cried for my mother's exhausted eyes and my own helplessness. I cried for all the times I had painted with tears streaming down my face because it was the only way to express this crushing weight. I cried until I had nothing left, until my body was hollow and shaking.
James held me through all of it. He did not tell me it would be all right or that everything happens for a reason or any of the empty platitudes people usually offered. He just held me and stroked my hair and let me fall apart without judgement.
When I finally quieted, spent and raw, James kissed the top of my head.
"Thank you," he whispered.
I pulled back to look at him, confused. "For what?"
"For trusting me with that. For letting me see you." His eyes were glassy with unshed tears. "People do not do that with me. They do not show me their real pain. You did."
Something passed between us then, a recognition deeper than words. We were both carrying weights too heavy for one person. Both drowning in expectations and responsibilities and the fear of failing people we loved. Both desperate for someone to see us without demanding we be stronger than we were.
"I have never told anyone how scared I am," I admitted. "Not even Jade. Not even my mother. I am supposed to be strong for them. Keep it together. Keep fighting."
"That is exhausting," James said.
"It really is." The admission felt like releasing a breath I had been holding for two years. "Sometimes I just want to stop. Stop trying so hard. Stop failing. Stop watching everyone I love suffer while I cannot do anything to help."
James's arms tightened around me. "You are doing more than you think. Just being there matters. Fighting matters. Not giving up matters."
"Does it?" The question came out bitter. "Because it does not feel like it is enough."
"It is never enough when someone you love is suffering." James's voice was thick with emotion. "Nothing you do will feel adequate because the situation itself is inadequate. But Maya, you showing up every day, you working yourself to exhaustion, you still pursuing your art even when it would be easier to quit—that matters. Maybe not in the ways you want it to, but it matters."
I wanted to believe him. God, I wanted to believe that my efforts were not completely worthless. But the doubt was so deep, so ingrained, that hope felt dangerous.
"What if he dies?" I whispered. "What if I lose him and I never did enough?"
"Then you will grieve," James said simply. "And you will carry guilt that is not yours to carry. And eventually, maybe, you will forgive yourself for being human instead of superhuman."
"Have you forgiven yourself?" I asked. "For whatever it is you think you failed at?"
James was quiet for a long moment. When he spoke, his voice was barely audible.
"No. But I am trying."
We lay there in the growing light, holding each other as though we could keep the real world at bay through sheer force of will. I traced patterns on his chest, feeling his heartbeat steady and strong beneath my palm. He played with strands of my hair, his touch gentle and reverent.
"Tell me about your paintings," James said after a while.
I tensed. My art was almost as raw a subject as Marcus's illness.
"There is not much to tell," I said. "I paint. Nobody buys them. End of story."
"That is not the end." James tilted my chin up so I had to look at him. "What do you paint? What draws you to it?"
I thought about lying, giving him some safe, sanitized version. But we were past that now. We had stripped ourselves bare in more ways than one.
"I paint the space between," I said slowly. "Between what people show the world and what they actually feel. The masks we wear and the faces underneath. The performance of being all right when you are breaking."
James's expression shifted, something like awe crossing his features. "That is profound."
"It is depressing," I corrected. "People do not want to buy paintings that remind them how much they are hiding. They want pretty landscapes and abstract colours that do not challenge them."
"Forget those people," James said fiercely. "Art is not supposed to be comfortable. It is supposed to make you feel something real. What you are doing, Maya, that matters. Even if nobody is buying it right now."
"Easy to say when you are not drowning in bills."
"I know." He pressed his forehead to mine. "I know money matters. Survival matters. But do not let the economics convince you that your art does not have value. Those are two separate things."
I wanted to argue, to list all the reasons why art without an audience was just expensive therapy. But something in his voice stopped me. He believed what he was saying. He saw something in me I could not see in myself.
"Why do you care?" I asked. "We just met. Why does any of this matter to you?"
James pulled back slightly, his eyes searching mine with an intensity that made my breath catch.
"Because," he said carefully, "you are the first real thing I have encountered in years. Everyone else wants something from me. Access, money, connections, whatever. But you? You just wanted someone to talk to. Someone to be human with. Do you know how rare that is?"
"You do not know me well enough to say that."
"I know enough." His hand cupped my face. "I know you work yourself to exhaustion for people you love. I know you have not given up on your dreams even when it would be easier. I know you took a chance on a stranger tonight despite every logical reason not to. I know you are brave and scared and real in a way most people are not."
Tears pricked my eyes again. "I am not brave. I am terrified all the time."
"Brave people are always terrified," James said. "That is what makes them brave. They do things anyway."
I did not know what to say to that. The sky outside was definitely lighter now, the darkness giving way to predawn grey. Our time was running out.
"What time is it?" I asked, though I did not want to know.
James glanced at the clock on the nightstand. "Almost five."
Five in the morning. In a couple of hours, the real world would come crashing back in. I would have to face my angry manager, my worried family, my demolished life. James would return to whatever world he came from, the one he had been so desperate to escape for a night.
"We should sleep," I said, but neither of us moved.
"I do not want to waste what little time we have left," James admitted.
"Me neither."
So we stayed awake, talking in whispers like we were afraid to disturb something fragile. James told me about his childhood summers in the Hamptons, about the pressure to succeed, about feeling like he was playing a role in someone else's story. I told him about learning to paint, about my failed gallery show, about the small moments of beauty I tried to capture on canvas.
We talked about books we had read and movies that made us cry and the irrational fears that kept us awake at night. We talked about everything and nothing, filling the space between us with words because touch alone was not enough to convey what this night meant.
Around six, exhaustion finally caught up with me. My eyelids grew heavy, my words slurring together. James pulled me close, tucking me against his chest.
"Sleep," he murmured. "I will wake you before I leave."
"Promise?" I mumbled.
"Promise."
I drifted off with his heartbeat in my ear and his arms around me, feeling safer than I had in years. My last conscious thought was that I would remember this. No matter what happened, I would remember feeling real.
When I woke, pale sunlight was streaming through the curtains. I was alone in the bed.
I sat up quickly, my heart racing. "James?"
Silence.
I scrambled out of bed, checking the bathroom. Empty. I looked around the room for any sign of him. His clothes were gone. His shoes. Everything except the small wooden box sitting on the nightstand.
I picked it up with shaking hands. Inside was the silver crane from the wedding and nothing else. No note. No phone number. No way to contact him.
He had promised to wake me. He had lied.
I sank onto the bed, the box clutched to my chest. My phone was still dead, my clothes were wrinkled, and I smelled of smoke and regret. The magic of the night before felt like a dream, something that could not possibly have been real.
But my lips were still swollen from his kisses. My body still ached in places that reminded me of his touch. And I had this box, this tiny silver crane, proof that James had existed even if he was gone.
I do not know how long I sat there. Long enough for the sun to climb higher. Long enough for my phone to charge enough to turn on. Long enough for reality to seep back in through the cracks James had temporarily sealed.
When I finally checked my messages, there were thirty seven of them. Most from my manager, escalating from annoyed to furious to vindictive. Three from Jade, worried. Five from my mother, checking in. One from the hospital about Marcus's next appointment.
My life, continuing without me.
I got dressed slowly, mechanically. I put the wooden box in my purse. I checked out of the hotel, ignoring the clerk's knowing look. I walked back to where I had left my shoes on the beach and found them still there, covered in sand.
The wedding venue was being cleaned up. Workers in uniforms dismantled the decorations, erasing all evidence of last night's celebration. Like it had never happened.
I caught a bus back to Brooklyn, too exhausted to care about the stares my dishevelled appearance attracted. The city looked different in daylight, harsher somehow. Or maybe I was just seeing it through new eyes.
When I finally reached my apartment, Jade was waiting with coffee and a worried expression.
"Tell me everything," she said.
So I did. Not all of it, but enough. The man in the garden. The beach. The hotel. The conversations that felt more intimate than the physical connection. The way he had disappeared without saying goodbye.
"He sounds like an idiot," Jade said when I finished.
"Maybe," I agreed. But my fingers were wrapped around the wooden box in my purse, and I could not quite make myself believe it.
Because James had not felt like an idiot. He had felt like someone drowning who had found another drowning person and held on tight for one night. He had felt like recognition.
"Are you okay?" Jade asked gently.
I thought about the question. Was I okay? I had lost my job. I had slept with a stranger. I had cried and confessed things I had never told anyone. I had broken all my own rules and probably made my life infinitely more complicated.
But I had also felt real for the first time in years.
"I do not know," I said honestly. "Ask me again in a week."
Jade squeezed my hand. "For what it is worth, I have never seen you look like this."
"Like what?"
"Alive."
The word settled over me like a blanket. Alive. Despite everything, despite the consequences waiting to crash over me, I felt alive.
I just did not know yet that feeling alive was about to become the most dangerous thing I had ever experienced.