Hide and Seek
A liar and a cheat now seeks true love.
THE STORY
For years, she believed love would just find her when she was ready for it. So she didn't think much about who she hurt along the way, and she rarely stayed around long enough to see the damage she left behind. Not because she meant to be cruel, but because she wasn't paying attention to anyone but herself.
Then she decided she wanted something different. Real love. Something lasting. But by the time she went looking for it, she found a world that didn't trust easily anymore. People had been hurt before, some of them by her, and that made it harder for anyone to let their guard down, including the people she now hoped to build something with.
But here's the part that's harder to admit. She isn't just facing a world she helped damage. She's damaged too. Not because someone broke her heart. Because she knows what she's capable of. She knows how easily she once deceived people without thinking twice, and that knowledge changed how she sees everyone else. If she could do that, so could anyone. That fear followed her into every new attempt at love. It's why she never fully commits. Not because someone gave her a reason not to, but because she's still learning to trust that not everyone will do what she once did.
THE ARTWORK
Look closely at the two hands. They're reaching for each other. They're close, closer than anything else in the painting, but they don't touch. There's a small gap between their fingertips, and that gap is the point. It's not about rejection. It's about hesitation. Both people are still unsure if it's safe to go the rest of the way.
Now look at the cracks along both arms. They're heaviest near the wrists, where the hands begin, and they fade out as they get closer to the fingertips. That's not random. It means the damage happened in the past. It's something both people are carrying into this moment, not something happening right now. And it's on both hands, not just one, because nobody comes to love with a clean slate.
Between the fingertips, there's a small point of light. It's the only steady, clear thing in the whole painting. Everything else is loose and unfinished, but the light stays sharp. That's on purpose. It means that no matter how much hesitation sits in that gap, the chance at real love hasn't disappeared. It's still there, waiting.
The painting to be left rough, almost unfinished, because her story isn't finished either. She's still working through who she used to be. She still doesn't know if the hand reaching back is ready, or scared, the same way she is. She wanted this hanging somewhere she'd see it every day. Not as something she's already solved, but as a truth she's still living inside of.
What you give the world eventually finds its way back to you. She's still learning how to give differently, one day at a time. Not for validation. Not as a performance. Just because she has come to believe that people, all of them, deserve real love. That belief is what she's trying to live out now, one honest day at a time. And this painting is what reminds her, every time she looks at it, why that matters.