Silent Scars

CHAPTER 58

LUCA HASTINGS

Luca stared at the blank canvas, his fingers tightening around the brush. The professor’s instructions faded into the background, drowned by the weight pressing against his chest. He didn’t know what to paint.

No, that wasn’t true. He just didn’t know how to paint what was clawing at his mind.

Since morning, unease had settled in his gut like a slow poison. Something was wrong. He had felt it the moment she stepped inside the school, the way she moved, silent, distant, unreachable.

Like a ghost of herself, moving through the world without really being there.

Aria.

Her name sat heavy in his thoughts, but it wasn’t just her name. It was her silence, her hollow eyes, the way her presence felt like a whisper begging to be heard but never daring to make a sound.

He exhaled, gripping his brush.

As soon as the bristles touched the canvas, his hands moved on its own, the brush gliding across the canvas as if possessed by the very thoughts he couldn't put into words.

Strokes of deep gray and soft blues shaped the silhouette of a girl, her back turned, standing before a massive, towering door. The world around her was painted in shadows, blending into an abyss that swallowed her whole.

The door, imposing and cold stood half open, yet she did not step forward. She stood still, wrapped in an unseen force that tethered her to the darkness behind her. No details of her face were visible, but the way her shoulders slumped, the way her hands hung by her sides, screamed of exhaustion…..of resignation.

And then there were the chains.

They wrapped around her wrists, her ankles, thin, almost invisible. Chains not of metal but of something far worse....fear.

Luca exhaled sharply, his grip on the brush loosening. His pulse pounded in his ears as he took a step back, staring at what he had created. It wasn’t just a painting.

It was her.

It was the way she carried her pain, the way she was trapped between her past and the world in front of her, too afraid to step forward yet too broken to go back.

His throat tightened.

He had waited all this time, believing she would eventually let them in. That one day, she would stop walking around like a ghost, waiting for someone to see her.

But now.....

Now, he knew that waiting wasn’t enough.

If he didn’t do something, if he let her slip away any further, he would regret it for the rest of his life.

Luca shoved everything into his bag, barely aware of the mess he was making. His heartbeat pounded in his ears as he rushed out of the classroom, his only thought: I'll pick her up, take her home, and.....

His phone vibrated in his pocket.

He almost ignored it, but the name on the screen made his stomach tighten.

Kendric.

Luca answered immediately.

“Hey, buddy......”

A sharp inhale from the other end. 

Kendric’s voice was quiet, strained.

“We’re in the hospital.”