The penthouse walls had never felt so small.
Serena sat by the window,
the city sprawling beyond the glass like a life she used to know.
She hadn't been to an event in a week.
No gallery openings.
No charity brunches.
No fashion previews.
The invitations still trickled in —
out of habit, maybe —
but she deleted them without reading.
She wasn't ready to face the looks.
The whispers.
The pity.
Across the room, Landon flipped through TV channels, bored.
He hadn't asked if she wanted to go anywhere.
Hadn't offered a distraction.
Hadn't even commented when the brunch fallout started hitting social media —
whispers about Serena's "downgrade,"
mocking side-by-side photos of Malik's new ventures and Landon's sloppy appearances.
At first, Landon had stayed out late without telling her.
Now he didn't bother lying about it.
"Going out," he muttered one night, already halfway into his leather jacket.
"Work or fun?" Serena asked, trying to keep her voice light.
He grinned — that same reckless, boyish grin that used to make her heart stutter.
"Fun.
Definitely not work."
And he left without looking back.
Serena didn't cry.
She didn't scream.
She just stood there in the empty living room,
hands dangling at her sides,
feeling like a ghost trapped in her own home.
The next morning,
she found a lipstick smudge on the collar of his shirt tossed carelessly over the bathroom sink.
It wasn't hers.
The color was wrong.
The shade was wrong.
Everything was wrong.
Still, Serena said nothing when he returned, sunglasses hiding bloodshot eyes.
She just poured herself another black coffee she wouldn't drink,
nodded absently when he mumbled something about "late meetings,"
and sat at the marble counter, staring out the window.
But even in the silence, her mind turned.
There had to be something left.
Something she could still claim.
Still protect.
Still prove she wasn't defeated.
Her mind snagged on one thing:
The gallery.
It had been hers, too —
not just Malik's.
Her ideas.
Her blood and sweat.
She had helped build it.
Had given it soul.
Surely they would still remember that.
Surely they would still remember her.
A flicker of purpose reignited in her chest.
She would go there tomorrow.
She would remind them.
Because even if Malik had erased her from his world—
The gallery was still hers.
It had to be.