Chapter 6

The day they walked out of court, Edward stood on the steps in a perfectly tailored suit, his hair neat down to the last strand, but there was no hiding the wrecked look in his eyes.

"Charlotte," he called after her.

She stopped but didn't turn around.

"Did you really have to do this? Did you have to take it this far?"

Charlotte turned and looked at him. This man had once been the whole world as she knew it. Now he looked like nothing more than a rock she'd kicked off the road.

"Forgiveness is a choice," she said. "So is refusing to forgive."

Then she turned again and walked into the sunlight.

Behind her, Edward stayed where he was, like a tree ripped out by the roots.

Three days after the divorce, Charlotte moved into a rental.

It was a tiny studio in an old building, renting for 500 dollars a month, not even half the size of the master bedroom in her old home. The apartment was on the first floor, north-facing, with almost no sunlight all day. Paint peeled off the walls. The bathroom faucet didn't shut all the way and dripped all night long.

But it was hers.

She used part of the divorce settlement to pay six months of rent up front and bought only the basics: a bed, a desk, a chair, and a lamp. She placed the desk by the window and set the lamp on the right side, so at night the light wouldn't get in the way while she sketched.

That night, after everything was put in place, she sat on the bed and looked around.

The room was bare, with plain white walls and no decorations. In the closet hung the few clothes she had taken from the old house, most of them faded from too many washes. The only thing with any value was a black trench coat she had bought the year she graduated. She hadn't worn it in three years, and the shoulders carried a faint musty smell.

And yet, this felt like the best place she had lived in for the past three years.

Because Edward wasn't here.

No deliberate heavy footsteps when he came home late at night. No frown when he didn't like the food. No smug tone when he said, "It's not like you even have a job."

There was only her now.

At the very bottom of her suitcase, she dug out an old portfolio case. The zipper had rusted, and it took forever to yank it open. Inside was a stack of yellowing design sketches from her college days.

She went through them one by one.

The first was from a campus competition in her sophomore year, an asymmetrical dress with a design note that read: Inspired by a butterfly breaking out of its cocoon.

The second was a wool coat she had designed as part-time freelance work for an independent brand in junior year. The collar had an irregular wave shape, and the brand had praised it as genius work.

The third was her senior graduation piece, the white gown that had won her the national gold medal. The dress was embroidered with 108 hand-sewn feathers, each one angled differently. When the model walked in it, she looked like a white bird spreading its wings.

When she turned to the last sheet, she found another piece of paper hidden in the inner layer of the case.

She pulled it out and saw that it was a rough sketch she had done three years ago. Back then, she had only just gotten married and hadn't fully given up on design yet. One day after Edward left for work, she had been bored at home and casually sketched the first draft of an evening gown.

The lines were rough and the color blocking was messy, but the feeling was all there. The shoulders looked tight and restrained, then the silhouette seemed to rip open from the waist down, with the skirt spreading like an explosion of flames.

In the lower right corner, she had written a tiny sentence: One day, I'm going to make this for real.

Charlotte stared at those words, and her eyes suddenly turned red.

She hadn't touched design work in three years.

In those three years, her pencils had turned into spatulas, her drawing paper into grocery lists, and her inspiration into rent, food, and bills. She had thought all of that was gone for good.

But this sketch was still here.

She switched on the desk lamp. Light spilled across the table. She dug a 2B pencil out of the drawer, grabbed a sheet of printer paper, and started drawing.

Her hand shook when the first line hit the page.

It had been too long. The lines came out crooked and awkward instead of smooth like they used to. She drew, erased, drew again, and the paper got dirty fast.

She didn't stop.

The second sheet was a little better. On the third, the lines started listening to her. By the fourth, her hand had stopped shaking.

At two in the morning, she finished her first complete design sketch in three years.

It was a black dress. The top was tight and corseted, like a form of restraint. From the waist down, the skirt looked torn open, exposing a red inner lining. The hem was finished with uneven fringe, like ashes left after a fire.

In the lower right corner, she wrote two words: Metamorphosis.

Then she collapsed over the desk and cried.

Not the kind of quiet crying she had gotten used to. She sobbed hard, her whole body shaking, tears dripping onto the sketch she had just finished. She rushed to wipe them away, only to find the tears had landed right over the chest of the dress, spreading into a small gray stain.

She stared at the blurred gray patch and froze.

That spot looked like a cracked pearl.