Picking up the brush, I hold onto the palette and allow the splashes of color to hit the pristine white fabric in swathes of black and purple. Deep blues and dark reds, vibrant and alluring. I move quickly, lost in the art. It doesn’t take long for me to find myself breathless, and the moment I still all movement, I look at the once blank, taunting canvas and see a creation that stops my heart.
It’s been so long since I’ve seen anything creative from my hand. But what I’ve done is breathtaking. My heart is thudding so loudly it’s deafening, and I drop the brush and palette on the floor. The splatter of paint bounces around the silence of the room, and it grabs my attention. But nothing can deter me right now. All I see is black. The darkness I was always so afraid of is right in front of me.
My phone shrieks from the other room, the ringing dancing in the darkened house, and as I make my way through to the living room, I still feel as if I’ve just had an out-of-body experience.
“Yeah?” I answer, knowing Eli is going to have my ass for my grouchiness.
“What the fuck crawled up your ass?” he bites out, causing me to chuckle.
Sighing, I head into the kitchen. “I’ve been working.”
“You have?” The shock in his tone speaks volumes. He knows how much I’ve been struggling with my art, and for me to say I’ve been working is not something even I thought I’d be doing.
I can’t stop grinning when I think about the painting I just finished. I’ll need to add a few finishing touches to it, but the imagery came from nowhere. “I have. Somehow, I found inspiration.”
“And this has nothing to do with a woman?” he asks. The curiosity in his tone forces me to still before I pull a bottle of beer from the fridge. An image of the pretty girl flashes in my mind, but I shake it off quickly.
“Why would it have anything to do with a woman?”
“Don’t sound so snarky,” he taunts. “It was an innocent question.”
“Nothing is innocent when it comes to you and questions about my love life,” I tell him, but the moment the words are out of my mouth, I want to pull them back.
“Now you have a love life?” This time, he guffaws, which only has me gripping the neck of the bottle even tighter. I’m being an idiot. I put my foot right in that one.
“Is there something you wanted, Eli?” I snap back, hoping he’ll drop the subject because I don’t want to talk about her right now. About the woman who’s going to be at my door bright and early tomorrow. About the woman who’s been on my mind all fucking day.
“Yeah, we wanted to invite you for dinner before Wednesday and the gallery opening,” he tells me. “You haven’t been over in a while, and I’m starting to think you have something against me.” Another chuckle makes me smile. We’ve been friends for so long, and even though we don’t talk every day, I know if I ever needed anything, he would step up.
“I do,” I tell him with a laugh. “You’re far too fucking snarky for my liking. You know they say that’s the first way to lose friends.”
“Fuck you,” he bites out, but I can hear the smile on his face.
“You’d love to.”
“You know it,” he throws back, and we’re both chuckling.
“Would you two quit it,” Kate says in the background. “Just come for dinner. I’m making your favorite dessert.”
“Is she really bribing me with her decadent double chocolate cake?”
“You know my wife. She plays dirty,” Eli tells me, and I have to nod. I know she is a good woman, and I know she’s just telling me about the dessert to get me out of this house.
“Fine,” I sigh. “I’ll be there; just tell me when.”
“Tomorrow night. Let’s say around six,” Eli informs me happily, and we say our goodbyes before I hang up. Tomorrow I’ll have a long day with Ms. Kinley, but at least I know by the time the sun sets, she’ll be gone, and I’ll be on my way to see Eli and his wife. And I’ll enjoy my evening without my new employee.
The red numbers on the clock glare at me.
I haven’t slept. My mind has been a mess, and even though I tried to ensure I passed out by drowning myself in half a bottle of bourbon, it’s not worked. I wanted to forget, to get lost in the delirium the alcohol brings, but nothing can stop the images of a feisty purple-haired beauty from running through my mind.
I watch as the minutes tick by. By three-thirty, I shove the blankets off and push to my feet. Pulling on a pair of sweatpants, I make my way into the kitchen and find a mug. I set it under the coffee drip and press the button for a strong Americano.
I’m going to need all the coffee in the world if I’m going to get through this day. And having a bubbly twenty-something-year-old bouncing around my house is going to be torture enough.
I pick up the mug and head straight for my studio. Even though it’s still dark out, the painting I finished before I fell into bed last night stares back at me, a reminder of what that twenty-something-year-old did to me.
There’s no explanation as to why or how she managed to force my creative brain to spark, but she did. And now, I’m stuck in the limbo that comes after I create something exquisite. I feel as if I can’t make anything that could match it.
Sipping my drink, I stare long and hard at the colors swirling together, and I get lost in it. My focus blurring as a memory hits me suddenly— the fierce nature taking hold and dragging me into the past.
“Are you going to spend all day in here?” My wife’s voice is cold, angry, but right now, I’m lost in the work. I don’t turn to her. She doesn’t come near me, and I continue painting. My hand moving of its own accord, and nothing can stop the need to get the paint on the canvas.
Bright red, soft blue, and gray that make up the sky. The water is a navy shade that melds with the horizon on the painting I’m creating. I haven’t answered her, but I can’t. She knows, when I’m in the zone, to leave me be, but lately, we’ve been fighting more and more.
Her need for freedom and my need for creativity have locked us in a prison I’ve found we can’t break free from. I feel the fire of her gaze burning into my back, but I still can’t stop.
“I’m so done with this bullshit, Julian,” she says from behind me, and I know I should go to her. Perhaps I’m the asshole she always tells me I am. Maybe I’m not the good husband I thought I could be. But right now, I know even if I did go to her, it wouldn’t change the anger she’s spewing my way.
“Please, can you just . . . Please, Shay,” I plead with her as my focus starts waning. This is what happens when she interrupts me. The money that I’m being paid to create this will pay for her shopping sprees, but she doesn’t understand. I’ve tried so hard, I’ve done everything I can, but my wife is lost to the promises of money and fame instead of life with me.
It wasn’t long ago that I loved her with everything I had. All the while, I knew she wanted my family’s money and name rather than a husband who loved her. And that’s what breaks me.
Anger overtakes me, but I don’t look at her because I know I’ll tell her to leave. And if I do that, I’m going to break myself in the process. Because as much as I know she hates me now, I realize I never loved her either. Will I live in this guilt forever?