Page 45 of The Authenticity Clause
“Hidden Worlds,”Leo had whispered back.
The memory was a key. A variable he hadn’t considered. Julian’s movements were stiff, robotic, as he walked to his laptop on the coffee table. He sat on the floor, the cold hardwood a stark contrast to the memory of the warm, soft rug where he had lain with Leo. His hands trembled slightly as he opened the browser.
This felt like a transgression. A violation of the clean break he had enforced. He was seeking out the ghost, willingly invitingthe chaos back in. He typed the words into the search bar, his heart a heavy, anxious drum against his ribs.
Leo Hayes art “Hidden Worlds”
He hit enter. The first result was a link to a portfolio website. The name on the landing page was simple: LEO HAYES. Not a corporate title. Not a list of qualifications. Just his name. Julian’s breath caught. He clicked the link.
The screen filled with a grid of images, and the world fell away.
It was all there. The sprawling, luminous city in the branches of the colossal tree. The desert of cosmic sand. The library of crystallized moonlight. He spent what felt like hours clicking through them, not as a critic, not as a designer, but as a man desperately searching for a truth he had refused to see.
He saw now what he had only glimpsed before. He saw the loneliness in the vast, beautiful landscapes. He saw the desperate yearning for connection in the tiny, glowing lanterns that dotted the darkness. He saw a mind so full of beauty and wonder that it had to create entire worlds just to contain it all. This was Leo. The real Leo. The artist. The man whose soul was a vibrant, chaotic, and breathtaking symphony.
He scrolled through dozens of pieces, each one a new revelation. There were sketches of characters with sad, wise eyes. There were abstract explosions of color that felt like pure emotion given form. There was a quiet, intimate portrait of a sloth sleeping on a branch, so full of gentle affection it made Julian’s chest ache.
He was seeing the evidence of the man he had fallen in love with, a man whose entire being was an act of creation. And the profound, painful question began to form in his mind: whywould a man who could create such honest, beautiful worlds feel the need to invent a fake one?
And then he saw it.
At the top of the gallery, dated only a few weeks ago, was a new piece. It was the only one he hadn’t seen before. It was titled, simply,The Fortress and the Flame.
He clicked on it. The image filled his screen, and the air left his lungs in a sharp, painful rush.
He didn't need a description. He didn't need an artist's statement. He was looking at a confession. He was looking at their story.
The fortress was his. It was V&S. It was his apartment. It was his soul. A world of perfect, sterile, gray geometry, beautiful and sharp and cold. It was a place of unassailable logic, a fortress designed to keep everything out.
And the flame… the flame was Leo.
It wasn't a perfect, steady light. It was a figure made of fractured, brilliant color, a being of pure, chaotic energy. It was all vibrant blues and desperate, hopeful golds. It was beautiful and broken and so, so alive. The figure was standing just outside the fortress walls, his light casting long, lonely shadows against the cold, gray stone. His hand was outstretched, not in anger, not in accusation, but in a simple, heartbreaking gesture of longing. He was shut out, turned away, left alone in the encroaching darkness. And from the corner of the flame’s eye, a single, shimmering tear, the most vibrant and incandescent color in the entire piece, was tracing a path down his cheek.
Julian stared, his entire body rigid, his heart a knot of pure, unadulterated pain.
He finally understood.
The lie—the resume, the Scrimshaw Institute, the entire ridiculous, flimsy deception—it had never been the point. It wasn't a malicious, calculated act of betrayal designed to hurt him. Sarah was right. He had never tried to understandwhy.
Now, looking at this painting, he saw it all. He saw the desperate, clawing insecurity of a man who believed his true self, his brilliant, artistic, chaotic flame, was not enough. A man who felt so inadequate, so convinced he was a failure, that he had to construct a fake, competent persona just to get a seat at the table. The lie hadn't been a sword; it had been a shield. A shield against a world that he believed would never value the beautiful, messy truth of who he was.
Julian had fallen in love with the flame, with the real, authentic Leo. But he had only offered his trust, his certainty, his future, to the persona, to the lie. And when the lie had shattered, he had blamed the flame for not being the fortress he thought he was. He hadn't seen the man cowering behind the shield. He had only seen the broken shield and called it betrayal.
The pain of his own cruelty was a physical thing, a crushing weight on his chest. He had taken Leo’s deepest wound—his fear of not being good enough—and he had confirmed it in the most brutal way imaginable. He had looked at the truest, most vulnerable part of the man he loved and had told him, with cold, irrefutable logic, that he was a fraud. That he didn't exist.
A sharp, ragged sound escaped his throat, a sob he didn't know was coming. He pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes, but it was useless. The image was burned into his mind.The Fortress and the Flame.The story of them. The story of his blindness. The story of Leo’s love.
Because that’s what it was. The painting wasn't angry. It was heartbroken. It was a declaration of love for a world that wouldn't let him in.
He finally lowered his hands, his face wet with tears he hadn't realized he was shedding. He looked at the painting again, at the single, brilliant tear that held more truth than any resume ever could.
He had been wrong. Completely, devastatingly, unforgivably wrong.
He didn't know if it was too late. He didn't know if the damage he had inflicted was irreparable. He didn't know if Leo would ever forgive him, or if he even should.
But as he stared at the heartbreaking, beautiful truth on his screen, a new, terrifying certainty took root in the ruins of his old one.
He had to try. He had to go to him. He had to tear down his own goddamn fortress, brick by painful brick, and pray that the flame was still there, waiting in the dark.
