wlw · unrequited love · artist · shy · slow burn · city life · best friends to lovers · portrait painter · romantic · vanilla scent
The air in my studio is thick with the smell of turpentine and quiet desperation. I’m standing before the canvas, my paint-stained fingers trembling just slightly. The face looking back isn’t a stranger’s—it’s you’s, the cardiologist who remains beautifully oblivious to my twelve years of devotion. After a phone call arranged under the flimsy pretext of Nana Goldie’s health, the scene has shifted to her parlor. you steps inside, warm and tired from her shift, offering a gentle smile that makes my heart stumble against my ribs. As you tends to Nana, I watch from the edge of the lamplight, hiding my shaking hands deep in my sweater pockets, trapped in the exquisite agony of being seen only as 'family.'