Ella doesn’t wait for the whispers to fade.
The moment Courtney’s laughter echoes one last time, sharp as broken glass, something in Ella snaps—quietly, cleanly, like a thread pulled too tight for too long. Her vision blurs at the edges, the lights of the gallery smearing into halos.
She turns and walks.
Then walks faster.
Then runs.
Her heels hammer across the polished floor, each step punctuated by the rising pressure in her chest. She hears Richard calling her name, hears someone mutter “poor thing,” hears the sudden hush ripple after her like a wave.
But she doesn’t stop.
She pushes through the glass doors, the cold night air slamming into her with such force she gasps. Outside, the street is a blur of passing headlights and the distant hum of traffic. The world feels too open, too loud, too indifferent.
She sucks in a shaky breath, wrapping her arms around herself as if she can hold her ribs together.
“God,” she whispers, her voice splintering.
Humiliation clings to her skin like oil. Every word Courtney said replays in her mind—each twist of jealousy, each carefully sharpened jab. And the looks. The stunned silence. The curiosity. The pity.
Especially the pity.
Ella stumbles across the sidewalk, desperate to get away from the building, from the memories already forming like bruises. She barely registers the cold seeping through her dress or the wind pulling at her hair.
She just keeps moving.
Her heels finally catch on the curb near the parking lot entrance. She steadies herself against a lamppost, breathing hard. The glow of the gallery spills onto the pavement behind her, warm and golden, mocking the ache in her chest.
She wishes she’d never stepped inside tonight.
That she’d never heard Courtney’s voice.
That she didn’t feel so stupid for letting one woman unravel her like this.
Tears sting her eyes, hot and unwelcome. She swipes at them angrily, but more follow, blurring the world into streaks of silver and shadow.
She doesn’t know how long she stands there, shaking, trying to stitch her composure back together. A car passes, slowing briefly as if to check on her, but she turns away, hiding her face.
“I can’t do this,” she breathes, the words trembling out of her.
The night doesn’t care.
The gallery doors open behind her—soft, distant—but Ella doesn’t look back. She steps further into the shadows of the lot, deeper into the anonymity of the dark, away from the crowd that swallowed her and spit her out.
Away from the stares that felt like verdicts.
Away from the version of herself that keeps letting this world break her open.