I swing the stool in the other direction. Into the studio. Toward him. I let its momentum carry me the first few steps. The damn windows won’t break. I’ll break him instead. I tighten my grip on the curved legs, but something in my body hesitates. I’ve never attacked someone like this before. I’m within my rights to do it. He’s keeping me here against my will. But he’s not hurting me. He’s just standing there. A beautiful criminal. I trusted him.
I trusted him.
I dig the ball of my foot into the floor and run. My arms lift by themselves. I’ll hit his head. His ribs. I’ll swing it so he can’t get away. Wood on flesh. Another memory fights its way forward—my palms on wood—but I don’t let it surface.
I’m going to hit him. My mind braces for the crack of his skull, for the surprised grunt. The hard fall. My breath catches in my throat. Closer. Closer. Closer.
At the last possible moment, Emerson moves.
Some faraway part of me is surprised at how graceful he is. How athletic. I didn’t know a person could look so graceful in gray sweatpants and nothing else. Emerson knocks the stool out of my hand and grabs me around the waist. The stool clatters to the floor. I try to get my feet up so it doesn’t crush my toes. Pointless. He already has me out of the way.
I have the impression of muscle and body before my back connects with the wall. I shove against his chest, both palms, hard, but it doesn’t matter. Oh, god, it doesn’t matter. Emerson is the cage. Him. He doesn’t need metal bars. He doesn’t need locks. My panting breath is loud in my ears. This—I should paint this. A raging sea. Waves thrashing in my head. Whitecaps.
No part of me should like this. No part of me should feel relief at the fact that Emerson’s here. That I can’t get away. I’m not strong enough to push him off. I try again, and some sick part of me exhales. If I can’t get away, I don’t have to fight. I don’t have to lose. I make a few more attempts—reaching, digging in with my nails—but he bats my hands away. He’s not even out of breath. He’s as immovable as the wall. I know, I know—keep fighting until you can’t keep fighting anymore. That’s the rule. But who battles brick? Who battles concrete?
Why do I like this?
Why do I want him?
One final shove, and he catches my hand and pins it to his chest. His heart beats normally. Steadily.
“Don’t fight me, little painter.” The sound of his voice soothes something in me. It makes me compliant. I wanted to be a fighter, but I find myself leaning into the wall. Subsiding, like the tide. “There. See? You’re already mine. All stretched out like canvas. Trapped in a frame.”
His hand comes up, and he traces the shape of a frame beside my face. Over my head. Down the other side. It feels real. Like I could reach out and touch the edges. Like I could rise on tiptoe and press the top of my head to solid wood. I inch one hand out to prove to myself that it’s not. Of course it’s not.
“Why are you doing this?”
Emerson stops tracing the pattern of the frame, which would have been ornate, I think. Gilded. He puts his hand flat on the wall next to my head. His arm reaching in feels final. Permanent. His gaze skims down over my body, and it happens again. That change in his face. It happens in a blink. If I weren’t so close I could convince myself I’d imagined it. But no, I didn’t. It happened. That instant of absence. It’s over by the time he looks back into my eyes.
That blue-green intensity pins me to the wall just as much as his body.
“I wanted you the moment I saw you, but I resisted. I thought maybe you would escape me.” His eyebrows lift. “I thought perhaps I’d let you.”
“From the beginning.” The surprises tonight are never going to end, are they? My mouth goes dry. “You wanted to do this to me since we met on the beach?”
“No. Before.”
“What?”
“I saw you on the street.” A smile plays at the corners of his lips. “You were walking in a slash of sunlight. The moment you stepped into the frame, the whole world became background.”
“The frame?”
“The sidewalk,” he corrects, but I know he didn’t think of it like that. I know he thought of me as art, even then. Even before I knew he was watching. “I saw you, and I followed you. And then I saw your painting. I wanted that passion. That mystery. The way it felt…” He takes a sharp breath, like he’s feeling it again. Astonishment flashes across his features and disappears. This is how he looked when he saw my painting. That moment of pure wonder. I’d cry if I didn’t hate this so much. “I didn’t know the woman on the street was the artist. I didn’t know she was you. Not until the next day. Your fate was sealed the moment I read your name.”
Emerson trails a hand down the side of my face. It’s unbelievably tame compared to the wild, filthy passion we had earlier.
That was before.
That was when I was here by choice.
He’s taken that from me.
His fingertips hovering at my jawline feel bruising now, though he’s not using any more force. I turn my face away. Emerson’s hand twitches, like he’s going to let go, but he grips me tighter instead. Not to the point of actual pain. It hurts my heart. I was naive, just like Leo said. I was a fool.
“You have a comfortable bed. Good food. Your studio. You won’t be deprived of art here.”
No, I won’t. Emerson has lots of art. I passed by many pieces on the way upstairs. I can see the far corner of the Giorgia Russo’s frame. It doesn’t feel the same now. It’s not like living in a gallery. Not like visiting a museum. All his art is examining me. I’m the one on display. The paintings have freedom, and I don’t.
I’m here in a frame.
Trapped, trapped, trapped.
Oh, god, I’m already losing my mind and I’ve been in captivity for less than a day. A matter of hours.
Anger surges, straight out of my heart and into my veins. It burns its way down to my fingers. This feels darker than the midnight blue of deep water. It’s a heartless, lightless void that scorches everything it touches. All the fear and anger and energy I’ve pushed down and painted out to survive grabs me by the wrist and drags me somewhere I don’t want to go, I don’t.
It’s just that I can’t stop.
The slap takes us both by surprise. Emerson doesn’t flinch, but something happens to his eyes as my hand makes contact. A split-second blank. His palm meets the wall next to my head with a whisper. Not a crack. He’s not retaliating.
He’s boxing me in.
The sound that comes out of me is the most animal I’ve ever made. I hit him with both fists, landing blows against his chest.
“You asshole.” A sob comes up with the insult. I feel like I could bite it in half. “You bastard. You’re being—you’re being such a dick.”
“Don’t stop,” Emerson says.
I hit him harder. “I hate you too much to keep going. I hate you so much I can’t put it into words.”
Except–
Except.
Maybe I can’t put it into words because it’s not really true. Because I am lost.
And anyway, I don’t have Leo’s cutting barbs or Eva’s cool insults. People weren’t creative with the way they spoke to me in school. They didn’t want to risk the wrath of my brother. Everything my siblings have said in front of me flies out of my head. It’s too late for me to become like them. Jesus, it’s frustrating. I can’t keep that frustration off my face.