Colors of Memory, Part 1

Your hearts know in silence the secrets of the days and the nights.
But your ears thirst for the sound of your heart's knowledge.

VP and BP Standings
Erin - 79 VP - 800 BP - 1 Achiev
Claire - 63 VP - 7100 BP - 2 Achievs
Marissa - 56 VP - 4200 BP - 1 Achiev
Liesa - 54 VP - 2900 BP - 2 Achievs
Norah - 48 VP - 3050 BP - 2 Achievs
Emi - 44 VP - 3750 BP - 1 Achiev
Dawn - 43 VP - 4500 BP - 1 Achiev
Sam - 29 VP - 4550 BP - 2 Achievs
Chloe - 8 VP - 2975 BP - 1 Achiev
Riley - 6 VP - 4300 BP

After Marissa left, Andy retreated from the Suite with the quiet urgency of a man who’d rather face the open air than his own thoughts. He took the long way down, cutting through empty corridors until the chill of conditioned air gave way to the tepid green of the inner gardens. The hotel’s gardens were always a degree removed from reality—more cultivated than wild, more art than accident. Here, nothing grew by chance; every tree was perfectly spaced, every flowerbed shaped to catch the light just so. On days like this, with the morning haze still clinging to the glass roof, the world outside the hotel felt a rumor.

He walked the gravel path by muscle memory, not caring where it led, until the path opened to the small amphitheater of stone benches and gnarled olive trees at the gardens’ heart. There, Emi sat cross-legged on the flagstones, surrounded by a semicircle of blank canvases, jars of cloudy water, and paint-stained towels. She wore a smock that looked suspiciously like a thrift-store tablecloth, tied at the waist over an old sundress. Her knees were stained blue and green, as if she’d kneecapped a Smurf in a previous life.

Claire was perched on the lowest bench, her chin tucked to her knees, hair in a loose ponytail. She wore a cardigan three sizes too big, the sleeves rolled up to the elbows, and her ears twitched with each scrape of Emi’s brush against canvas. Claire’s notebook rested at her feet, closed for once.

Marissa and Norah sat two benches up, flanking the pair like bookends. Marissa was in business-casual, as if someone might call a meeting at any moment. She sipped coffee from a lidded cup, her attention split between the garden and the canvas in Emi’s hands. Norah was a study in contrasts: she wore running shorts and a t-shirt that strove valiantly against the enormous breasts gracing her torso, a silk scarf knotted at her neck, and sneakers still wet from the dew. She’d pulled her curls back into a brutal bun, but the humidity was already breaking it into wild, escaping tendrils.

Riley sat at the fringe, on the arm of a bench, body angled away from the group. She wore a denim jacket over a faded band tee, her legs drawn up, boots crossed at the ankles. Her face was unreadable, eyes flickering from the sky to the stone and back again.

Chloe lingered just out of the circle, one hand on the bark of the nearest olive tree, her other arm hugging herself tight. Her cardigan was buttoned to the throat, the hem falling almost to her knees, and her hair—down today—was a honey-colored shield. She watched the scene with wary longing, as if she might join at any second, or bolt just as easily.

Andy hovered at the threshold, not wanting to intrude, but Emi saw him and smiled with all six arms at once. “Andy! We’re making a gallery,” she said, her voice carrying a touch of paint-fume giddiness.

He took the invitation, sidling up behind Claire. “Looks great,” he said, because it did.

Emi held up her latest piece: an impressionistic blur of bodies in motion—distinctly female forms, all mid-laugh or mid-stride, rendered in electric ribbons of color that bled and overlapped. “It’s everyone’s first day,” she explained, and Andy recognized each figure at once: Marissa’s tall, formal posture; Sam’s signature lean-in; Norah’s coiled energy; Erin’s angry profile. Emi herself was in the background, barely visible, as if she’d painted herself in as an afterthought.

Next to her, three more paintings stood propped against the stone. The first was a stark silhouette—Riley, unmistakably, framed by a corona of orange and red, as if she were a cutout against a bonfire. The second showed Laura, not as a face or body but as a shape of light breaking through deep water, blue and violet rays splitting around an empty center. The last was a group portrait: the original harem plus Emily, Chloe and Riley, gathered in the Suite’s kitchen, each mid-gesture, as if caught in a moment of accidental harmony.

Andy took a minute to process it. The paintings weren’t just records; they were evidence, proof that something real had happened here. He glanced at Emi, who met his gaze with a quiet, almost embarrassed pride.

“Sometimes seeing what’s unspoken helps us process more than talking could,” Emi said, her tone matter-of-fact. “I’m bad with words, so this is how I remember things. Or maybe how I want to remember them.”

Claire smiled, a quick, closed-mouth flash. She gestured for Andy to sit beside her, and he did. Her hand found his, fingers cool and dry, and he let her keep it.

Marissa craned her neck for a better look. “These are really good, Emi. Have you ever thought of framing them?” Her voice was warm, and Andy noticed that when Marissa spoke, everyone else stilled to listen.

“I don’t know,” Emi said, brushing a flyaway lock from her face. “It feels weird to keep them. Like, I want to share them but I don’t know if it’s okay.”

“It is,” Marissa said. “I think it’s more than okay.”

Claire scribbled in her notebook, then tore out a sheet and passed it up the bench. Marissa read it, then smiled and handed it down to Emi.

The note said: You don’t need permission to remember something beautiful.

Emi read it, then pressed the note flat with both hands, as if to keep it forever.

Erin entered next, striding in like she owned the garden. She wore nothing but running shoes and carried a water bottle. This would have been shocking, once, but Andy barely blinked. Erin’s breasts always were made more improbable by her athletic build, not less. She looked like a fever dream, but she carried it off with the confidence of someone who’d long ago stopped caring what other people thought.

She stopped short at the semicircle of girls, then grinned. “You started without me?”

Chloe, emboldened by the moment, slid into the circle and made a space for Erin. “We were just admiring Emi’s art,” she said, voice gentle. She glanced at Riley, who shrugged and looked away, but not before Andy caught the microsecond of curiosity in her eyes.

Erin eyed the paintings, then picked up the group portrait. “Hey, is this supposed to be me?” She pointed at the lone figure with red hair, mid-lunge.

Emi nodded. “You and Emily.” She pointed to the figure in pink and Gold next to her.

Erin laughed. “At least you got Emily’s good side.” She passed the painting to Chloe, who handled it like a rare artifact.

Claire tapped her pen, then wrote another note. She handed it to Andy, who read it aloud: “‘You have a good side, too. It’s just usually facing away from the canvas.’”

The circle dissolved into laughter. The sound was warm, real.

Norah spoke next, voice even and measured. “You should show these to Arabella. She’ll want to put them in the next communal area.”

Emi’s face flushed. “I think I’d die.”

“Or you’d inspire someone else,” Marissa said. “Either way, it’s worth it.”

A hush fell, not awkward but expectant, like everyone was waiting for someone to say the thing they were all thinking.

Chloe broke it, soft but steady. “I miss Laura,” she said. “I feel like she’s in these, somehow.”

Emi smiled, tears welling up but not falling. “She is. I think she’d want us to remember her this way. Not as a ghost, but as part of us.”

Riley made a noise, half cough, half sob. She didn’t speak, but for the first time, she didn’t flinch from the memory.

Andy squeezed Claire’s hand, feeling the tremor in her fingers. He realized they were all holding on, in one way or another.

Marissa stood, brushing off her pants. “I’m going to get more coffee. Anyone want some?”

A chorus of yeses, and she disappeared up the path.

The women lingered, passing the paintings from hand to hand. Erin asked about the technique; Norah dissected the composition; Chloe offered to help name the series. Emi beamed, the attention both terrifying and thrilling.

Andy watched it all from his place on the bench, Claire leaning against his shoulder, Riley quietly absorbing the energy at the edge.

It felt like a victory, even if no one would ever call it that.

The sun climbed, and the blue haze of morning faded to bright. Emi capped her paints and stretched, arms high above her head, fingers splayed in a fan of color.

“We should do this again,” she said. “Next time, maybe everyone can paint.”

Norah grinned, “Even me?”

“Especially you,” Emi replied, and for the first time, Norah seemed genuinely pleased.

They sat together, letting the moment linger, until finally the spell broke and they drifted away—some to coffee, some to the gym, some just to walk the gardens in pairs and trios.

Andy stayed until the space emptied, then stood and walked the loop back toward the hotel. The air was thick with the smell of paint and growing things.

He thought of Laura, of the way her laugh still echoed in moments like this. He hoped, wherever she was, she could see them—these women, piecing themselves back together, helping piece him back together, painting something new from the brokenness. And he hoped she’d approve.

Andy retreated to the Main Lobby, seeking the quiet of the Master’s Suite, a little **** for silence, and found it—almost. Standing just by the elevator door was Emily. She didn’t startle when he entered. Instead, she turned, her hair—a tidal wave of blonde with streaks of pink—cascading forward to form a makeshift curtain. She was as naked as ever, but the effect was less erotic than defensive: a shield she could control, for once.

She stood there, in her sneakers, hands twisted together at her chest. If she’d rehearsed this encounter, she hadn’t settled on an opening line.

“Sorry,” Andy said, voice low. “I didn’t mean to—”

“No,” she said. “It’s okay.” She didn’t move to cover herself further, nor did she shift her posture; she just watched him, eyes bright in the low light.

He waited for her to speak, not wanting to rush whatever brought her here.

“I had a dream last night,” Emily said. Her voice was clearer than he’d expected—no tremor, no hitch. “It was about Jake. I thought, after everything, I’d be able to let him go. But I woke up and it hurt all over again.”

Andy didn’t know what to say. He had far too much experience with dreams of lost loves and heartache.

Emily smiled a little, reading his silence. “I’m not here to dump that on you,” she said. “It’s just—I wondered if it would ever stop feeling that way. Like I’m cheating on him, or that I’m wrong for wanting something else.”

Andy shook his head. “You’re not wrong.”

She nodded, as if she’d expected as much. Then she drew herself up, rolling her shoulders back. “Can I ask you a weird question?”

“Of course.”

She met his eyes, and for a second she looked every bit as young as she was. “Would you ever want something permanent? With someone like me?”

He froze, the question a trapdoor under his feet.

Emily didn’t flinch. “I know you don’t love me, at least not yet. And I’m not even sure I want to fall in love again, not yet. But I want to know if you could—if the idea of a future, even a weird one, scares you.”

Andy considered it. He could see her watching, gauging every microexpression, like the answer really mattered.

“I used to think about forever all the time,” he said, choosing his words. “But lately, I’m just trying to get through a day without screwing up what I already have. I don’t think permanence scares me. I think I’m just not ready to trust it again. Not unless I can build it, slow, and know that it’ll stick. And I feel that may be what Is happening, here.”

Emily processed this. She didn’t look disappointed, exactly—just calibrated, like she was absorbing a dose of reality.

“Thank you,” she said, voice small but steady. “That’s… honestly all I needed.” She let out a breath, then smiled. “I’ll leave you alone now.”

She slipped past him, the hair-curtain following behind. He caught a whiff of rose water and shampoo. When she reached the hallway to the Banquet Hall, she hesitated for a long second before she actually left.

Andy let the silence settle. He wondered if he’d said the right thing, or if there was even such a thing. He wondered, for the hundredth time, how people managed to just… love each other without making a mess of it.

He made his way to elevator door, but before he reached it, voices in the hall made him pause.

“You can’t keep putting it off.” Sam’s voice. “She’s going to find out, and it’s better if it comes from you.”

Liesa replied thinly. “I just need more time, Sam. It’s not as easy as you think.”

Sam sounded frustrated. “It is exactly as easy as I think. You take her aside, you say the words, and then you let her be mad. It’s better than dragging it out.”

“But what if—”

“If you don’t, I will. You know I hate this shit, Liesa. Secrets like this don’t get easier. They get worse.”

A hard silence, broken only by the echo of their voices in the hallway.

Liesa piped up: “You won’t. I know you.”

“Try me.”

Andy lingered at the edge of the hall, unwilling to intrude, but unable not to listen. The air crackled with a kind of static, a tension that felt both ancient and brand new.

Liesa’s voice was softer when she spoke next. “I’m sorry. I just… I’m scared, okay?”

Sam replied, “I know. But you owe her honesty.”

Another silence. Then the sound of footsteps—Sam, walking away, her patience worn thin. Liesa stood in the hall, frozen, then pivoted and walked the other direction, head down.

Andy slipped into the kitchen, poured his coffee, and leaned against the counter.

Everywhere he looked, there were people afraid of hurting each other—afraid of wanting too much, or not enough, or of what came next.