Page 28 of Beautifully Deranged

She heard me.

?Chapter Fourteen?

Lola

I keep my back straight, my shoulders squared, and my face impassive. I stay strong. All the way out of the gallery. Through the suffocating air of the city. Through the streets pulsing with life, with laughter, with people who aren't unraveling from the inside out. I don't let the cracks show. The thought of going back to the apartment complex makes my stomach twist. If I return, Mikhail might knock on my door.

Or worse, he won’t.

I book the hotel room before I can second-guess myself. It's a place to fall apart in private, because I know I will. I hold it together until the door shuts behind me.

Then I break. A ragged sob rips from my chest as I press my back to the door, sliding down until I’m crumpled on the floor. My hands clutch at my arms, nails digging into skin. I haven’t cried since my mother’s funeral, and yet, the tears won’t stop coming. I cry for the fact that the only man I’ve ever loved thinks of me as nothing more than a fuck. Aconvenientfuck.

Had I pursued him too hard? Made myself too easy?

He thinks I’m a slut. I’ve never been ashamed of who I am or what I want. I don’t play coy when I have an itch to scratch. But I really thought we were more. I was wrong.

And don’t get me started on the exhibition.

I spent months preparing for tonight. Moving to New York was supposed to be my test, my proof that I could make it on my own. That I could build an audience without my father's name. And yet, every face in that room was already familiar. My father’scolleagues. His connections. His world, not mine. All present to kiss his ass. I didn’t draw a single new person in. Not one.

For the first time in a long while, I don’t feel like a winner. I feel like the biggest loser.

Mikhail thinks I’m mediocre.That fucking prick.All this time, I thought he saw something in me. I never imagined he was humoring me because he thought my pussy was convenient. I wish I could say it doesn’t make me want to seek him out. To storm into his apartment. To look him in the eye and make him say it to my fucking face. I wish I didn’t have the urge to check the cameras in his place. Obsession dies hard. But it will die.

I won’t give in to these urges anymore. I won’t give him another second of my thoughts, my time, or my soul. I will put all of it, this rage, this betrayal, this heartbreak, into my art. Because the truth is, ever since I moved into that damn apartment complex, Mikhail has been a distraction. A dangerous, all-consuming, suffocating distraction that pulled me under and kept me from doing what I came here to do. I’ve been playing into this game instead of focusing on my dreams.

Maybe this is for the best. Maybe I needed this, to see him for what he truly is. A liar. A manipulative bastard who sees me as nothing more than passing amusement. Maybe now I can finally become who I was meant to be.

I push myself off the floor, wipe my face, and adjust my makeup. My mother taught me that when you put your mind to something, you never lose. I lost the battle. But I will win the war.

Mikhail is the past.

And me? I'm going to make myself one of the most famous artists in New York.

I head to the dimly lit hotel bar and slide onto a stool. My body feels heavy, my mind buzzing with static. I signal for a drink. "Whiskey. Neat."

The first burn is sharp, cutting through the ache in my chest, but not deep enough to carve it out. So I order another. And another. The bartender raises an eyebrow, but he pours anyway.

A few stools down, there’s a guy in a suit. One of those sleek, expensive ones you see in magazines, but he’s slouched. Tie’s loose. At first glance, I think, yeah, the type of man my mother would've pointed at and saidmarry that one. I look again.

His hair’s a wreck, like he’s been dragging his hands through it on loop. Cheeks flushed, lips dry and cracked. He’s chewing the bottom one like it wronged him. He’s been here a while. Long enough to stop caring how he looks.

He finally glances my way, eyes glassy.

"You drink like you're trying to forget something."

I lift my glass halfway. "What gave it away?"

He lets out a dry laugh, almost a cough. "Experience."

Then it's quiet. The not-uncomfortable kind.

Another drink. Another sting. I let the burn sit in my chest. "No one’s had a worse night than me," I mutter, raising the new glass in the air.

"Want to bet?" he says, turning fully to face me this time. His eyes are a mess, bloodshot, rimmed red, just... tired.

Why not? "Alright. Bet what?"

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