Part 2

As they wandered, she realized he was revealing not just her embarrassing past, but comforting truths: how she talked to her plants when lonely, how she once danced in her underwear to ABBA at 2 a.m., and how she always looked for hearts in clouds.

Then she looked at him and said, “But I know you, too.”

His grin faded, eyes searching hers.

“You pretend to be confident, but you always leave a seat empty in your gallery for someone you haven’t met yet. You paint eyes last, because you’re afraid they’ll look through you. And you once cried because a squirrel trusted you enough to eat from your hand.”

Theo looked stunned. Then whispered, “Miranda Banerjee… what are we?”

And that was when things got mildly seductive.

They ended up in a boat floating on wine through Venice. A gondolier in a flamingo suit hummed “Careless Whisper” as Miranda leaned on Theo’s shoulder.

He traced patterns on her palm. “You’re not lonely here.”

“I wish you were real,” she murmured.

He cupped her face. “Maybe I am. Maybe we both are.”

The sky turned into a movie screen. Clips played of their dream lives together: pillow fights with pastry cream, bickering over crossword clues, dancing in a supermarket aisle wearing colanders as hats.

Then – the twist.

Darwin the cat suddenly appeared in a top hat and monocle. “Wake up, Miranda,” he meowed imperiously. “He’s waiting for you.”

Miranda jolted awake.

It was morning. Her phone buzzed.

A message from her new online drawing class: “Your art partner for the week is Theo Grayson. Painter. Coffee snob. Possibly allergic to bees.”

She gasped. Her heart did a cartwheel. Then she whispered to Darwin, who sat watching like he’d known all along: “You sly matchmaker.”

The cat sneezed, then turned around with exaggerated disinterest.

And somewhere, in a studio full of sunlight and mismatched socks, a man named Theo was staring at her email… smiling.