Shattered Glass Unbroken Soul Chapter 07
When Drew sprinted into the hospital, the nurse simply told him the patient had already left.
He stood at the end of the sterile hallway. His fist was still clamped tight around my pill bottle.
Sweat slicked the plastic surface.
On his phone, my final text sat silently on the screen. *Stay the hell out of my life.*
He suddenly sank to the floor. His shoulders collapsed completely.
This time, there were no bets. And there was no way out.
The wind in Reykjavik was brutal. It whipped against my face like tiny shards of ice.
When Professor Alder picked me up at the airport, the first thing she noticed was my bandage.
She didn’t press for details. She just unwound her scarf and draped it over my shoulders.
“The studio heater is running on high. Go get some sleep first.”
I nodded.
Here, no one used my silence as a betting chip. No one treated my boundaries like a buzzkill.
I started rebuilding my portfolio from scratch.
The crushed laptop was sent to a repair shop. My backup drive salvaged the bulk of my files.
The layers that were lost, I repainted stroke by stroke.
Sometimes I painted deep into the night, until the stitches in my arm began to itch.
Professor Alder would knock softly and set a bowl of hot soup on my desk.
“Take your time, Avery. Art shouldn’t cost you your life.”
Three weeks in, I met Elias Hale at the studio.
He was the curator collaborating with my professor. He had lived in Iceland for years. He spoke slowly, but every word was deliberate and clear.
Before handing me a coffee, he stopped at the edge of my desk.
“Do you take it black, or do you need milk?”
I blinked in surprise.
“Black is fine.”
He nodded and set the mug by my right hand. He glanced at my bandage but didn’t pry.
He simply walked over to the wall and turned the thermostat up two degrees.
In that moment, I suddenly realized that respect wasn’t a difficult concept.
It was just asking a question before handing someone a drink. Stopping a step away before crossing a line.Â