Outside, the sun was starting to set behind the institute's ivy walls. She stared at the glass-paneled building for a long time. The people inside moved like they were living the life she was supposed to have. Sharp heels clicked. Swatches of silk flowed like dreams in motion. Laughter echoed in designer coats.
Her dream had a price tag. And she couldn't afford it anymore.
Her feet moved without her consent—one step, then another—as the world tilted violently around her and it felt like a walk of shame.
She collided with a freshman carrying mannequins. The girl yelped as polystyrene limbs clattered to the floor. Venessa didn't stop to help. Couldn't.
What?
Her knees buckled. The lawn rushed up to meet her—cool grass against her palms, the scent of freshly trimmed hedges assaulting her senses. Somewhere, a sprinkler hissed.
Why?
Fingers fumbling, she dragged herself onto a bench. The wood was still warm from the afternoon sun. It felt obscene, that anything could still be warm.
How could he?
A shadow fell across her lap. The envelope. Still clutched in her whitened grip.
Venessa stared at it, her mind splitting into warring factions:
What if it's true?
Six months had passed since Damon had walked away. Six months of silence, of unanswered texts, of sleepless nights wondering what she had done wrong. And now this—Stella's cruel little invitation, a spectacle designed to break her.
No.
She had already lost enough. She wouldn't give them the satisfaction of watching her shatter.
But as much as she tried to bury the questions, they clawed at her insides like starving animals:
Why?
Why had he done this to her?
Was it because she hadn't cried when he ended things? Had he wanted her to beg? To fall apart so he could play the savior one last time?
Or was it something deeper?
Had she been too eager? Too devoted? Had she loved him too openly, too recklessly, until he grew bored of something he never had to fight for?
Did he ever love me at all?
Or had she just been another conquest, another pretty thing to collect until something shinier came along?
Venessa's fingers trembled as she reached for her phone, hovering over Damon's contact—still saved, still untouched since that last unanswered call.
She could ask him. Demand the truth. But what would it change?
He had already chosen.
If she reached out now, she'd only be handing him the last piece of herself he hadn't already stolen—her dignity.
With a slow, shuddering breath, she picked up the keycard and dropped it into the nearest trash can. She doesn't need to open old wound which had started healing...she could live without him. Period.
Venessa began to walk wondering when exactly she'd become the villain in her own love story.
She couldn't bring herself to leave—not yet. Not without saying goodbye to the one place that had held her together when everything else fell apart.
The hallway to the student lockers was quieter than the rest of campus, tucked behind the textile lab where the scent of starch and thread glue still lingered in the air. Her heels echoed as she walked, slower now, like she was approaching a grave.
Locker 017. Her name wasn't taped on the door anymore—someone had peeled it off weeks ago—but she still remembered the soft click of the latch, the way it always stuck at the bottom like it was holding its breath.
She opened it.
Inside: a crumpled stack of half-finished sketches, pinned mood boards curling at the corners, fabric swatches in colors no longer sold in stores. A frayed copy of Vogue from last September lay flat against the back wall, its cover creased from being read too often—The Future of Fashion, it said in bold gold letters. Once, she'd circled her own dreams in its margins. Once, she believed her name could belong in its pages.
She reached for her sketchbook. The spine was split and patched with tape, the corners soft from years of use. She flipped through it slowly, each page like a pulse from another life.
There were gowns that would never be worn, concepts she'd never pitch, silhouettes born in midnight madness and caffeine-fueled euphoria. A wedding dress she had designed for Jane's third marriage—extravagant, glittering with hand-sewn pearls and a cape like falling snow. A stage costume Laila had begged her to design, back when Laila still believed her voice could fill stadiums and not just echo through empty rehearsal halls. And a little coat. Blue velvet with tiny golden buttons, drawn carefully and colored with pastel pencil.
"For Dina's birthday," she had written in the margin. "When I'm a world famous designer, I'll make you a whole wardrobe."
Her fingers hovered over that page. Her throat closed.
She sat down on the bench nearby—more a ledge than a seat, cold and impersonal—and let the sketchbook rest on her lap as if it could comfort her. But the pages didn't whisper back. They didn't tell her this was all a bad dream, that she'd wake up tomorrow with her tuition paid and her future still intact.
She flipped to the very first drawing she ever made in that studio. A ballgown—awkwardly proportioned, too many darts, the waist too high—but radiant in a way that only blind hope could create. She remembered the day she drew it. How she'd come home beaming. How her mother had hung it on the fridge like it was a diploma. How, back then, failure was just a story you told after you succeeded.
Her hand trembled as she tore it from the book.
Not out of anger. Not regret.
Just... preservation.
A keepsake from a life she had almost lived.
She folded it gently, corners aligned, and slipped it into her coat pocket like it was something fragile. Like it was the last piece of herself she could carry.
With one final glance at the locker—at everything she was leaving behind—she closed the door softly. No slam. No drama.
Just the sound of something ending.
And then she walked away, sketchbook abandoned, future unwritten, carrying only a piece of paper and a broken promise stitched in silk.
.....
Just outside the subway station, Venessa's phone buzzed with a Monaco area code.
"Jane."
"Don't hang up." Her eldest sister's voice was tinny through the receiver. "Laila told me about the Institute. There's another way."
Venessa watched rain streak the studio windows. "If you're offering a loan, no thank! I'd rather die then to have another debt on my head." The Ellison collapsed had an impact on her. She won't take the money unless earned.
"A job. Klaus von Amsberg is hiring a personal shopper. Pays 15K monthly."
Venessa's stomach turned. Klaus—70 years old, thrice-divorced, and Jane's second husband's uncle—had hands like cold cuts.
"He adores you," Jane pressed. "Says you have... an eye."
In the reflection of the window, Venessa watched herself mouth the word: "Whore."
Jane sighed. "It's that or the work-study, Ness. At least Klaus lets you keep your nails clean."
"I'm not for sale, Jane." Her voice was quiet, but it carried the weight of every compromise she'd refused to make.
"Oh, for God's sake, it's just a job."
"It's not just a job when he leers at your mouth before you even say hello," Venessa snapped. "You know what kind of man Klaus is."
Jane went silent.
"And let me guess," Venessa continued, pacing the edge of the platform where city grime shimmered under neon haze, "in a few months, I'd be gifted some bracelet. Then flown to some resort. And the next time he called, it wouldn't be about shoes or suits—it would be about staying the night. Don't insult me."
"You're overthinking it."
"No, I'm remembering it." Her voice broke, not from tears, but from exhaustion. "This is how it starts. Always. You say yes because it's just dinner. Just one favor. Just a hand on your back that lingers too long. And suddenly you're ten steps from the life you wanted and too ashamed to walk back."
A gust of wind swept past, tugging at the hem of her coat like the ghosts of every choice she could have made.
"I'd rather scrub toilets at the Institute than let someone like him buy a version of me that doesn't even exist."
Jane exhaled, brittle. "You're such a romantic. It's going to ruin you. Don't tell me, you're still not open to see reality of the world."
"Jane, I've hoped for love not begged, so please don't put it like that, I might be unlucky, Damon's a bastard, that doesn't mean me being romantic is at fault here. " Venessa said softly. "I'm fine, good and positive that love exists...even if it's not meant for me. Just knowing it is going to save me."
There was no pride left to break, no empire left to defend. What she had now was smaller than all that—her name, her integrity, the thrum in her chest when she designed something true. And it wasn't much. But it was hers.
"I can resurrect my career," she said, almost to herself. "Not through favors. Not through backroom handshakes or gold-plated chains. It'll be one hemline. It may take years. It may never come. But if it does? I'll be able to breathe in it."
On the other end, Jane was quiet. For once, no clever retort, no lecture masked as concern. Just static and the sound of distance.
"Jane, you don't have to take burden for me, it's okay if you can't help but just don't push me into mess, from you know better than anyone...is impossible to recover. " Venessa said gently, and ended the call.
She stood there a moment longer, letting the cold settle into her bones. The lights of the city blurred with rain, like a canvas not yet dried. Somewhere below, the train rumbled into the station.
Instead of boarding quick Venessa's stepped were slow, she let her eyes close for a second too long, lashes damp, heart aching but intact.
The wind pressed against her coat, tugging like a quiet promise: You chose your soul. Hold onto it.
And when she opened her eyes again, her vision blurred—not from the rain this time, but from tears she refused to let fall.
Because choosing integrity always costs something.
But losing yourself costs everything.