Reborn at Eighteen The Billionaire's Second Chance novel Chapter 135

Chapter 135

Elara

I drew for three hours straight. My hand cramped. My back ached

from bending over the easel. Charcoal dust covered my fingers, my

clothes, my face. Sweat dripped down my back even though the

morning was cool.

But I didn’t stop.

A mom wanted a portrait of her two kids. They couldn’t sit still, kept

squirming and laughing. I sketched them fast, capturing their

movement. The mom cried when she saw it.

An old man wanted his dog drawn. The dog was ancient, nearly blind.

The man’s hands shook as he held the leash. “She doesn’t have much

time left,” he said quietly. I drew the dog with extra care. Made sure

to get the gray around her muzzle, the way her ears flopped.

A teenage girl wanted a self–portrait. She sat very still, very serious.

When I showed her the sketch, she smiled for the first time. “I

actually look pretty,” she whispered.

Each person felt important. Each sketch mattered. This wasn’t art for

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art galleries or rich people’s walls. This was art for real people. For

memories. For love.

Raven handled the money and talked to people in line. She was good

at it–friendly but not pushy. She’d tell them about the portraits while

I worked. Show them the business cards. Answer questions.

Around eleven, I sold my first painting. It was a small oil piece I’d

done last week–just an abstract study of light and shadow. A middle-

aged woman in expensive clothes stopped at our booth. She looked at

the painting for a long time.

“This brushwork,” she said. “Where did you study?”

“Mostly self–taught,” I said. That was technically true.

“How much?”

I hesitated. “One hundred fifty.”

“I’ll give you two hundred.”

Raven’s eyes went wide. I tried to keep my face neutral. “Okay. Thank

you.”

The woman pulled out cash. “Do you have a card? I might want to

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commission something larger.”

I handed her one of Raven’s printed cards. My hands were shaking.

After she left, Raven grabbed my arm. “Two hundred dollars! For one

painting!”

“I know.”

“Elara, you’re actually good at this. Like, really good.”

I felt something warm in my chest. Pride, maybe. Or just relief that

this was working.

By noon, my wrist was on fire. I’d drawn fourteen portraits and sold

two more small paintings. People kept coming. The line didn’t stop.

Then I saw Emily.

She was walking toward our booth with three other girls from St.

Valerius. My stomach dropped. I set down my charcoal.

Emily stopped at the table. She looked at the sketches, the paintings,

the business cards. Then she looked at me.

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“Hey, Elara.”

“Hi.”

The silence stretched. The other girls stood behind Emily, watching.

“We saw Raven’s Instagram post,” Emily said. “We wanted to come

support you.”

I didn’t know what to say. Support felt like a foreign concept. At St.

Valerius, I was the girl everyone whispered about. The foster kid. The

scandal. The one who didn’t belong.

One of the other girls stepped forward. I recognized her–she’d been

at the hospital when we confronted Madison. “These are beautiful,”

she said, picking up one of my sample sketches. “You’re really

talented.”

Another girl was staring at my small paintings. She frowned. “This style… it looks familiar. There’s a painting at the Chelsea Gallery. The one everyone talks about. ‘Broken Wings. It has Sloane Kennedy’s

signature on it, but the brushwork looks just like this.”

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