Chapter 5: Finding Luna
Tuesday night, eleven o'clock. I sat on my bed with my laptop open, scrolling through flight options like I was picking a movie. JFK, LaGuardia, Newark—didn't matter. Just needed to get the hell out of here.
Three weeks. I just need three weeks away from all of this.
My suitcase lay open beside me, half-packed with clothes I'd grabbed without thinking. I started deleting photos from my phone while I waited for the booking confirmation. Seven years of pictures. Adrian and me at gallery openings, vacation shots from Napa, that stupid selfie from our anniversary dinner last month.
How many of these smiles were real?
Delete. Delete. Delete.
My phone buzzed with a text to Emma, my assistant: "Going to NY for three weeks. Handle day-to-day with Adrian, but NO exhibition decisions without me."
Then I pulled up Evangeline's Instagram. Block. Her Twitter. Block. Her LinkedIn. Block.
"There," I said to my empty bedroom. "Like they never existed."
The next morning I was on a plane, watching LA shrink into smog and sprawl below me. By afternoon, I was standing in MoMA, surrounded by more art than I'd seen in months.
The photography section hit different than I expected. Raw images by women I'd never heard of, work that didn't care about being pretty or sellable. Just honest.
This is what art should feel like. Real. Unfiltered.
"That one gets me every time," someone said beside me.
I turned to find a girl, maybe twenty-five, with purple streaks in her dark hair and paint under her fingernails. She was staring at this black-and-white photo of two people in bed, somehow managing to look intimate and completely alone at the same time.
"The loneliness in intimacy," she continued. "Most photographers miss that completely."
"Yeah." The words hit closer to home than I wanted. "Sometimes the people closest to us see us the least."
She looked at me with sharp eyes. "You sound like you know something about that."
"Maybe." I studied the photograph again. "Are you an artist?"
"Trying to be. Maya Chen." She stuck out her hand. "You?"
"I used to think I was a gallery owner. Now I'm not sure what I am."
Maya grinned. "Maybe that's the best place to start—not knowing."
Maybe she's right.
By day four, Adrian's calls were getting desperate. I let most of them go to voicemail, listening to his voice get more frantic with each message.
"Celeste, you can't just disappear! We have meetings scheduled!"
Then Eleanor called while I was having coffee at the Whitney.
"Darling, Adrian says you're in New York? Is everything alright?"
Her voice made my chest tight. "I'm fine, Eleanor. Just needed some space to think."
"He seems very worried. And frankly, a bit lost."
Good. Maybe he should be.
"Some people need to get lost before they can find themselves," I said, watching tourists take selfies with the Hudson in the background.
"Oh sweetheart..." Eleanor's sigh carried across three thousand miles. "Whatever happened between you two, running away won't fix it."
"I'm not running away. I'm running toward something."
Another Adrian voicemail came through that night: "Evangeline returned the photograph. It's in your office at the gallery. Can we please just talk?"
Too little, too late.
The second week, I discovered Brooklyn. Specifically, the gallery scene in Williamsburg—tiny spaces crammed with work by artists nobody'd heard of yet. Places that felt alive instead of sterile.
I wandered into this narrow space called Lunar Gallery, walls covered with photographs that made my heart race. The owner, a woman about my age with silver-streaked hair and kind eyes, was hanging a new piece.
"Opening tomorrow," she said without looking up. "Young photographer from Queens. Amazing eye."
"What draws you to her work?"
"Same thing that draws me to all my artists." She stepped back, adjusting the frame slightly. "She tells stories that need telling."
"How do you decide which stories matter?"
Luna—that's what her business card said—finally looked at me. "If it moves you, if it challenges you, if it makes you see the world differently—that's art worth supporting."
I used to think that way.
"Business vs. passion?" she asked, reading my expression. "Yeah, that's the eternal struggle. But you know what I learned? Passion pays better in the long run."
We talked for two hours. About art, about risk, about the difference between collecting and curating. She made me remember why I'd fallen in love with this world in the first place.
Maybe it's time I remembered what passion feels like.
Week three. My last night in the city. I found myself on a rooftop bar in Midtown, nursing a glass of wine and watching the lights flicker across Manhattan. The city hummed below me, eight million people chasing their dreams or running from their nightmares.
My phone rang. Dad's rehab center.
"Mija, I was hoping you'd call."
"How's the therapy going, Dad?"
"Much better. Doctor says I might go home next week." His words were clearer now, stronger. "When are you coming to visit?"
"Soon. Very soon." I took a sip of wine, tasting possibility. "Dad, I'm making some changes in my life."
"Good changes?"
"Necessary changes. I think Mom would approve."
"Your mother always said you had her strength," he said softly. "It just took you time to find it."
Twenty-one days. Twenty-one days to remember who I was before I became half of 'we.'
The flight home felt different than the one leaving. I typed emails on my phone, connecting with the people who'd mattered during my time away.
To Maya: "Thank you for reminding me what authentic art looks like. I'd love to discuss showing your work when you're ready."
To Luna: "Your philosophy inspired me. Hope we can stay in touch as I rebuild."
As LAX appeared through the airplane window, I left Emma a voicemail: "Starting tomorrow, I want to meet with every artist who still believes in what we're doing. Time to rebuild."
Luna Gallery. That's what I'll call it. New name, new vision, new beginning.
Home looked smaller than I remembered. The driveway was empty—Adrian's Porsche nowhere to be seen. I found his key on the kitchen counter with a note: "The photograph is in your office. I'm staying at a hotel until we figure this out."
Until we figure this out. Still thinking in terms of 'we.'
I walked into my office. There it was, Mom's Moonrise, Hernandez, hanging exactly where it belonged. But this time, it didn't feel like a reminder of everything I'd lost. It felt like a promise of everything I could still become.
I touched the frame gently, the way Mom used to.
"Ready for the next chapter, Mom?"