Chapter Text
Red Hearts had always been the kind of person who saw the world as a blank canvas.
She chose to believe things could be beautiful, if you worked hard enough at them. Love was no different for her. She believed in glances that linger a second too long, in goodnight texts, in hands finding each other under the table, in the thoughtfulness and tiny gestures.
So when she met Ace Cards at a party, it felt like maybe the universe was offering her something good.
Ace was tall, with a crooked smile and effortless confidence. He had the kind of charm that made people turn their heads when he walked into a room.
“Are you an artist?” he asked, taking her hand without permission to examine the small streak of blue paint on her wrist.
Red laughed; half nervous, half flattered.
“I study art. Yeah.”
“That’s interesting,” he replied, though his tone suggested he meant it more out of politeness than genuine curiosity.
Still, that night he made her feel special. He looked at her as if she were the only person at the party. He walked her home. He texted her the next day. And the day after that. And for weeks.
At first, everything was beautiful.
Ace would show up at her apartment with makeshift bouquets, made with flowers probably stolen from someone’s yard, and kiss her like the world was about to end. He told her she was different, that he didn’t usually get attached like this, that she had changed him.
Red wanted to believe him.
She wanted to believe that when he disappeared for hours without replying, it was because he was busy. That when he canceled plans at the last minute, something important had come up. That when he stared at other girls a little too long, it was just distraction.
The first cracks were small.
“You’re wearing that?” he asked one night, looking her up and down when she stepped out in a red dress she loved.
“Yeah… why?”
“I don’t know. It’s a little… loud. I don’t want people thinking I’m dating someone desperate for attention.”
The comment slid down her spine like cold water.
She changed.
It wasn’t the last time.
Over time, she started to feel like she had to shrink herself to fit into his life. Quieter. Smaller. Easier.
Whenever she tried to talk about how she felt, Ace would twist the conversation.
“You’re overreacting.” “You make everything dramatic.” “If you were more chill, we wouldn’t have these problems.”
Red began to wonder if maybe he was right.
Maybe she was too much. Too sensitive. Too emotional…
One night, after a particularly cruel argument, when Ace told her no one else would put up with her constant insecurities, Red walked back to her apartment alone.
The breakup wasn’t explosive. It was slow. Painfully slow.
Ace stopped answering for two days. Then he showed up with a vague excuse and someone else’s perfume clinging to his clothes.
“We can’t keep doing this,” he said calmly, and that calmness unraveled her. “You’re too intense for me.”
The world tilted.
“I… I can change,” she heard herself say.
Ace sighed, almost pitying.
“That’s the problem, Red. You’re always trying to be something you’re not.”
And he left her standing there on the sidewalk, his words lodged deep in her chest.
For weeks, Red didn’t paint.
The blank canvases stared at her like accusations. Every time she tried to start something, Ace’s voice echoed in her head.
Who would want this? Who would want someone like you?
She started avoiding parties. Avoiding the subject. When her friends hinted that she should get back out there, she just shook her head.
“Love’s not for me,” she’d say, as if it was a logical conclusion.
But inside, it hurt.
It hurt to have loved someone so much who made her feel so small.
She became more guarded. More careful. She promised herself she would never give herself away like that again. That next time, if there even was a next time, she wouldn’t let anyone make her question her worth.
Deep down, though, there was something darker: the suspicion that maybe Ace had been right.
Maybe she was the problem. Maybe she loved too fiercely. Maybe that was what drove people away.
One afternoon, walking across campus with her hands shoved into her jacket pockets, she noticed couples sitting under the trees. Laughing, sharing earbuds, kissing without fear.
A sharp ache bloomed in her chest. Not because she missed Ace, but because she missed the version of herself who believed in all of that.
That was the last time Red Hearts believed in love.
She didn’t say it out loud, didn’t make some dramatic show. She simply stopped expecting it, stopped looking at people as possibilities.
She focused on her classes, her friends, the distant dream of opening a gallery one day. If love wasn’t meant for her, at least art would always welcome her with open arms.
And so, convinced that her heart was far too complicated for anyone to want to stay, she walked into the café near campus on an ordinary morning.
She had no idea that everything was about to begin again.