After I closed the sponsorship deal for Mark Delgado's exhibition, my stomach started bleeding and I collapsed on the curb.

I clung to the last thread of consciousness and called him. All I got was a busy signal, over and over.

The next second, a notification popped up on my social feed.

His new protégée had posted a risqué photo, the sensitive parts barely covered by little strawberry stickers.

Frowning, I swiped right to the next one.

Same girl, different pose. Only this time the background was the floral-print bedsheets I'd swapped onto the bed before leaving that very morning.

"Being a body model is exhausting! Sitting still half the day, my back is killing me. The bed's so much cozier. Another day of being thoroughly spoiled by my dear, dear mentor!"

"But mentor scolded me hard, too. Said my figure's so good he keeps losing focus because of me."

A string of blushing emojis trailed the caption. The comment section was even worse.

I tapped the like button, looked down at the wine stains soaking my dress, the wreck of myself, and dialed another number.

"I'm sorry. The contract we just finalized—let's put it on hold."

——

I hung up. My assistant, Dana Barnes, hailed a cab and took me to the hospital for a gastric lavage.

I hugged a trash can and threw up until the world spun, tears and snot smeared across my face.

The doctor frowned and couldn't hold it back.

"You again? Drinking like this, you're going to get yourself killed. Do you understand that?"

I gave a bitter smile and nodded.

I was a regular in the ER at 2 a.m. Every single time, I came in flat on my back, blackout drunk.

At dinner that night, the sponsor had made me a bet.

If I could down three bottles of high-proof liquor in one go, he'd sponsor Mark Delgado's exhibition.

Mark and I had been together ten years. I'd watched him claw his way up from a broke art student to a name that finally stuck in the art world.

One last push and his dream would come true.

And there was more. He'd promised to propose to me, officially, at the exhibition.

Ten years of chasing this together, and I wanted that show even more than he did.

The joke of it was, while I was drinking myself into a stomach hemorrhage, he was lying naked with another woman in my marital bed.

After a night on an IV drip, I had Dana take me back to the office.

I'd barely been asleep on the couch half an hour when the door slammed open.

Mark stormed in, face like a thundercloud, brandishing his phone.

"What is this supposed to mean?"

"Ava Jenner, your mind is filthy. Everything you see looks dirty because you're dirty!"

"There is nothing between me and Lucretia Monroe. It's all for the sake of art. Do you even understand that?"

He said it with total conviction, as if he'd forgotten what he swore when he first started out: that he'd never touch figure drawing, and if he ever did, I would be his only model.

I forced my eyes open and realized my finger had slipped earlier. I'd liked a comment.

"I'd bet money your mentor's intentions are anything but pure!"

A laugh escaped me, dry and helpless.

"You've got the nerve to call me dirty? You and your protégée rolled around in my marriage bed. How clean could that possibly be?"

"Did you forget what you promised me, way back when?"

Something guilty flickered across Mark's face, but his tone stayed hard.

"I was just using her to practice, that's all. And what about you? Drinking yourself blind with a different man every night, never coming home?"

"And that male assistant of yours, glued to your side twenty-four hours a day. Who knows what the two of you—"

"Crack!"

I cut him off with a slap across the face.

"Mark Delgado, you have no conscience!"

We'd both come from ordinary families, but he was the one obsessed with art.

After college, to buy him the best paints, the most expensive brushes, I'd been so broke I couldn't even afford a shared meal-prep box.

I lived on one plain dinner roll a day. The chronic malnutrition wrecked my stomach for good.

Later, when his career started taking off, I worked day and night chasing sponsors, drinking through endless business dinners. Stomach bleeds became routine.

"The last sponsor for your exhibition signed off tonight. And while I was being forced to drink until my stomach hemorrhaged, while I nearly died, where were you, Mark?"

My eyes burned. I swallowed down the sting climbing my nose and screamed the question at him.

"Stomach hemorrhage? Ava, I didn't know you—you know me. When I'm painting, I always shut my phone off."

Something in his face finally cracked. His hand lifted on instinct, reaching to feel my forehead.

A small figure came rushing over and planted herself between us.

The girl wore the look of a martyr facing the firing squad, jaw clenched. When her eyes swept over the red welt swelling on Mark's cheek, her lips trembled with tender heartbreak.

"It's all my fault, ma'am. I begged Mr. Delgado to sketch me. I only wanted a record of myself at my most beautiful—"

"If you want to hit someone, hit me. Yell at me. Don't blame him."

She tilted her chin up stubbornly, and the gesture exposed a faint red mark along her throat.

In the early days, he used to leave marks like that on me too.

My lips curled into a mocking arc.

"Mark. We're done."

I rose and walked straight for the door. Lucretia threw out an arm to stop me.

"Ma'am, please, don't be like this, I can explain— Ah!"

I turned to dodge her. Off balance, she crumpled to the floor.

Mark's eyes went bloodshot. He snatched my wrist.

"Enough, Ava. How long are you going to keep this up? You've got a problem, you take it out on me. Stop bullying a young girl!"

"She lost her own footing—"

I'd barely gotten one word of defense out before he cut me off.

"You're just too small-minded to make room for Lucretia, so you invent these lies to smear her, and now you're putting your hands on her!"

"Fine. You want to break up, we break up. And this time, don't come crawling back to beg me!"

With that, he bent down, gathered Lucretia up off the floor, and slammed the door behind them.

I'd never warmed to Lucretia from the first time we met, so I'd had Dana quietly look into her.

Just as I'd suspected, the girl was anything but simple.

I'd urged Mark more than once to let her go. Every time, he'd called me unreasonable, and it always ended in a bitter, ugly fight.

After all that, my head spun. I caught myself against the edge of the desk just in time to keep from going down.

Our graduation photo sat there on the desktop, Mark and me.

I was beaming at the camera. His gaze was fixed on me, as if he were looking at his entire world.

A heavy pressure clamped down on my chest. One sweep of my hand and the photo dropped into the trash.

Forcing myself upright, I answered an email from overseas.

"Thank you for the offer. I'll report to my new position on time."

I'd worked with a French curatorial firm before, and their director had long wanted to lure me away.

Because of Mark, I'd turned them down flat.

Now there was no one left worth staying for.

I went home to pack.

The sight of the rumpled sheets on the master bed sent a wave of nausea through me. I yanked them off and flung them aside.

There was porridge simmering in the kitchen. I ladled myself a bowl.

A noise sounded outside the door, and then Mark walked in, leading Lucretia by the hand with exaggerated care.

My eyes landed on their fingers, laced tight together. Mark jerked his hand back as if he'd been scalded.

He rubbed the bridge of his nose, his expression turning a little awkward.

"Lucretia hurt her hand. It's hard for her to get by on her own, so she'll be staying here for a while. You're the one who caused this, after all, so you'll take good care of her."

"Oh, and Lucretia loves how the master bedroom's done up. For now I'll sleep in the studio and you'll take the guest room. Let her have the master bedroom, so she can settle in with peace of mind."

He caught sight of the bowl in my hands, and a faint, amused smile tugged at his mouth.

"See, Lucretia? I told you your teacher's wife loves me. That breakup talk earlier was just her temper running hot. Look, one fight and she's back home cooking porridge like a good girl."

Lucretia gazed up at him, eyes shining with worship.

"It's the master's charm, that's all. Of course your wife couldn't stay mad at you for real!"

She stuck out her tongue playfully. Mark took the bowl without a word, drew her down beside him at the table.

"Lucretia doesn't eat ginger or garlic. Remember that next time."

He kept his head bent, carefully picking out each piece of ginger and garlic as he tossed the order at me over his shoulder.

The scene looked like they were the master and mistress of this house, and I was nothing but the hired help.

Yet in ten years, he had never once done anything like this for me.

He always said his hands were meant for painting, that all the small tedious tasks of living were mine to handle for him.

On an ordinary day he wouldn't so much as right a tipped-over trash can, let alone spoon-feed me porridge.

Last month, when my period collided with a bout of gastroenteritis, the pain pinned me to the bed.

He wouldn't even boil me a cup of brown sugar water. He insisted on ordering delivery instead.

I stared at the words estimated arrival in one hour, too drained to feel anything but despair, and in the end I dragged myself up on my own.

So it turned out his artist's hands could care for someone after all.

A nameless fire flared up in me. I stepped forward, snatched the bowl, and dumped it into the sink.

"If she can't eat it, then don't make her."

"Ava Jenner! Have you lost your mind? She's sick! There's a limit to how jealous you're allowed to be!"

Then he looked down at Lucretia.

"Come on. The master will take you out to eat."

I grabbed the bedsheet from the corner and hurled it at him.

"Take your filth and get out!"

Mark turned back, looking at me like I was a lunatic.

The door slammed hard enough to shake the walls. I ladled myself another bowl of porridge and ate it, crying as I went.

Not long after, a string of message tones went off.

Lucretia had sent a photo of the two of them eating.

Like a taunt, they'd ordered a table piled with dishes.

Her cheeks were stuffed full, and Mark was smiling at her with doting tenderness, reaching over to wipe a smear of grease from the corner of her mouth.

I stared at the all-too-familiar dishes, lost in a daze.

That restaurant had taken me ages to plan around. Last year, for my birthday, I'd booked the window seat far in advance.

But I'd waited until the food went stone cold, until the restaurant closed, and Mark never showed.

It wasn't until the next day that he explained, his face full of guilt.

"Ava, I'm sorry. Lucretia and I went out on a field study and got stranded in the mountains. I couldn't make it back in time."

Seeing how worn out he looked, I didn't have the heart to scold him. Instead I smiled and told him it was fine, that there'd be plenty of chances to eat there later.

But later I learned there had been no getting stranded in the mountains.

He'd simply wanted to watch the stars with the girl. Even the field study was just an excuse.

"Wife of my master, here's the leftovers boxed up for you to take home. Don't forget to eat them, okay!"

I blocked her in return, dragged my suitcase out, and went to live at the office.

I glanced back at the marital home Mark and I had decorated together, piece by piece with our own hands, and felt my heart turn cold inch by inch.

Ten years of love, and it had still come to this.

On the way to the hospital for my follow-up, I passed the familiar high-end jewelry store.

I remembered that today was the pickup day for the engagement ring Mark and I had chosen.

As if drawn by some unseen hand, I pushed the door open. The first thing I saw was him holding Lucretia's hand, gently slipping a diamond ring onto her finger.

The clerk smiled and complimented Lucretia on her lovely fingers, saying what a devoted, well-matched couple they made.

Lucretia's cheeks flushed pink. She covered her mouth and gave a coy little laugh.

"Don't tease me. This is my master."

"I'm just trying it on for his wife. But my fingers are slender, so it might not fit her."

"This ring will probably have to be resized."

Mark raised an eyebrow and said nothing, but his gaze never left her fingertips.

Once, my own ten fingers had been slender and perfectly even. In college I'd been my professor's most prized student.

When I gave up painting to study exhibition curating, my professor lamented it again and again, taking my hands in his, saying it was such a shame for these hands not to hold a brush.