Chapter 113

• It started quietly, like most things do these days. No announcement. No scandal. Just a name mentioned over coffee, a folded page in a trade magazine, a whispered remark from someone I used to know well but hadn’t spoken to in years. I almost missed it. Would’ve missed it, if Simone hadn’t paused mid-sentence and tilted the page toward me, her finger tapping once, deliberate.
• “You’ll want to look at this,” she said.
• I did not expect to see the silhouette of my own work staring back at me. Not exactly, not down to the last detail, but close enough that I knew. A particular sleeve curve I had only used once, a way the fabric twisted at the hip that had taken me four sketchbook tries to solve. Not copied, not blatantly. But echoed. Whispered through another label, bent just enough to avoid accusation, but not enough to hide the truth from someone who had lived it.