Seven Shades of You

by Johnson, A. M.

  I gave in and spoke first. “I have to go. I have my first class with Hintz in five minutes.”

  “That’s on the other side of campus.”

  “I know.”

  She stared in the direction of the art building. “You better hurry, he hates it if you’re late.”

  I pulled my hood up and over my head, protecting my face from the weather. “Full of advice today.”

  She let go of the strap of her bag and pushed a piece of loose hair from her eyes. “Like I said before, anytime. I’m in the studio almost every night… if you need help with any of his assignments.”

  I knew she meant it literally, but in my head, where I kept the thoughts about her full lips and breathable pulse to myself, I wanted to pretend her invitation was more than it was, that if I showed up at the studio, she’d show me the parts of herself she couldn’t let go of, the secrets she’d never sell, and I’d let her see mine too.

  Indigo

  Thick rivers of yellow paint dripped down the canvas, mixing in with the gray and red, creating a marching army of brown that swirled around the previous layer I’d thrown last night. My arms ached, the chill of the studio sticking to the fine layer of sweat on my skin, I stepped back to survey the damage. Alone, I stood in front of the six-by-eight-foot painting, the music blared, my usual tactic. Smother the whispers, the doubt, until all I had left was a peaceful, white noise. A beat, beyond the pulse in my wrists, a guiding rhythm I could use to create. If Daphne was here, she’d tell me to turn it down, tell me she couldn’t think, but she hadn’t shown up again, texting to say she had a date and to not wait up. She’d been avoiding me after I talked to her, on Dr. Sand’s suggestion, about coming with me to sign up for therapy, brushing me off with a quick I’m fine.

  You let her go.

  You’ll let her drown.

  Help was something you could only offer the willing. I pressed my lips together as the song switched to Prince’s, I Would Die 4 U, one of my favorites, and the words scratching around in my head were honed and bleached to that perfect white. I leaned down to grab the other bucket of green paint, some of the lime color spilling, splashing onto the floor and decorating the bottom of my jeans. I hummed to the tune, trying to clear my head, leaving the world behind, making sure the voices stayed far away. My love for the eighties was cultivated by the pop beats. Artists sang about dying for love, the heavy lyrics dressed up in purple sound. Drum machines and guitars and synthesizers, all buttoned up by the poets who made them fly beyond the paper they’d been written on. Music filled the room, taking up all the space, and half-way through, I found myself smiling, bobbing my head, singing, and fading into the white noise.

  I dipped my brush into the paint and waved my arm with as much anger and feeling as I could muster, stretching the muscle and the paint across the canvas. It was messy and fun, and any darkness hidden inside my corners dispersed. I found being alone like this, without my dad, or my mom, or even Daphne, I was able to do something different, something I’d never done before, something beyond the form I’d been taught all my life. It was a war of color, the East versus the West, and I was so immersed in it, I didn’t hear the door open or close. I was alone, until he chuckled.

  “What the hell are you listening to?” Kai’s laugh warmed my entire body, like a sweater, it wrapped around my cold, damp skin.

  I lowered my brush and rested it on the side of the bucket, hyperaware of how naked I felt. He’d caught me mid-ballad and embarrassed. He was here, looking at me with a crooked smile, oblivious, not knowing he’d stepped into my sanctuary, a realm where my insides were out, my thoughts a disarray of spectrum, a place where I couldn’t hide behind forced confidence. He stared at me for a few breaths before his gaze fixed on the large painting behind me.

  “Prince.” I answered too late. His eyes had gone wide, his lips parting as he took a step forward. “It’s Prince,” I continued to ramble. “I have a thing for eighties music, more for eighties covers, but sometimes the original is better.”

  Shut. Up.

  You invited him.

  He’ll see it. He’ll know.

  You can’t hide us.

  I closed my eyes, willing myself to take a breath, to find the center, the big empty. My father, my meds, all the years I worked on feeling normal and quiet, Kai split me open with one look. Nerves fed the demons on my back, but like I’d always been taught to do, I opened my eyes anyway.

  Kai swallowed, his arms—corded with muscle—lay at his side. His dark brown eyes devoured the piece, my painting. My blood sang at what I thought might be awe inside his expression. When he finally spoke, my heart fell one-thousand stories, like a leaf falling from a tree, in the wind, twisting and turning, until it met the ground with a delicate end.

  “Wow,” he whispered, long and exaggerated, coming to stand next to me. We both stared at what I’d been working on for the past few days. “It’s like I’m standing in front of a Jackson Pollock.”

  My fingers trembled as I pulled on a smile. “I wish.”

  “Indie.” My name an admonishment, but hearing it in his rich, rough, tone, burnt orange, it conjured glints of fall fireside flames, and made my heart heat inside my chest. In my periphery, I saw movement as he turned to face me. “This is fucking amazing… how many layers have you created?” he asked, and when I didn’t turn to look at him, he stepped closer to the painting, holding his hand up as if to touch it, but leaving a good three inches of space between his skin and the wet paint.

  “Five, so far.”

  He looked over his shoulder with a smile. “It’s chaos.”

  I smiled, my neck, cheeks, and ears burning. “I don’t usually paint like this, but—”

  “You should always paint like this.” He stepped even closer, tilting his head as if to listen to the color, hear the war in action as I’d laid it out to be heard.

  “Abstract is my father’s thing, my mother is… more literal, I’ve always been a blend of both.” He absently nodded as he moved back a few steps, tipping his head back to take it all in. His broad shoulders spread in the center of the rectangle, his t-shirt stretched as he breathed, the ball cap he wore backward made his hair curl around the edges by his ears. He was too perfect standing in front of my destruction.

  “Is this for a class?” he asked, facing me again.

  The tan of his cheeks had been touched with pink. It was the first time I could read him, that blush of color, there was no arrogance in it, just real, honest, and raw interest. It made the truth slip past my lips before I could decide if it sounded too weird.

  “It’s the dissection of my inheritance, my attempt at finding something that hasn’t come from my DNA.” I could hear him breathing as I found the brave bits of red in the room and collected them, drawing me closer to where he stood. He smelled like boy. Spiced and soapy and warm. I smiled, wanting his eyes on my mouth, and when he found it, I watched him watch me speak as I said, “Something only I am capable of. Something they can’t take away from me.”

  “Your parents?”

  I shook my head, knowing I couldn’t tell him the truth, knowing the minute I mentioned the voices in my head, any progress we’d made as friends would be tainted, and I’d never see this honest set of his eyes ever again.

  “Everyone, in general, I guess. Royal has his own thing, I have painting, and it may sound childish, but I’d like to set myself apart from my parents as an artist. Make my art mine in its conceptions.”

  His Adam’s apple moved under the smooth skin of his neck as the song on my playlist switched to some dark, ambient instrumental Camden had recommended. The shift drew his attention to the speakers. He didn’t say anything for a while, the seconds ticking by, and as if he had to shake himself awake, he sucked in a long breath, the honesty graying around the edges of his mouth, he said, “You have the weirdest taste in music.”

  “I’d like to think it’s eclectic.”

  “You keep telling yourself that, O’Connell.”

>   “I like to paint, music is a mood, and I like to have them all.”

  “Can the mood be from this decade?”

  “You don’t have to stay.”

  He held his hand to his heart in mock offense, I almost snorted. His jaw pulsed, and he looked over my shoulder at the painting, his confidence flickering like a dying bulb. “Just finished up with work, figured I’d stop by since I was in the building.”

  “You’re working with Professor Hintz already?”

  “No, I had garbage duty tonight. Building two and the art campus. Very important stuff.” He shoved his hands in his pockets, and I liked the way it made the veins stick out on his arms. I wanted to draw them on paper, use them as the standard. Every male arm should look like his.

  “Do you miss Stacks?”

  “Honestly, not really. I miss shooting the shit with my teammates, but it’s better that I left. I don’t have to do this cleaning gig for much longer, two weeks, and I’m the property of Professor Hintz.”

  I laughed at his wolfish grin. “God help you. Do you know how picky he is?”

  “I guess I’ll find out. He extended my deadline. I have to have my portfolio ready in two weeks. He wants a painting and…”

  “And that’s why you’re here?” I’d hoped my disappointment wasn’t as obvious as it sounded to me. I’d invited him, offered to help him, but that naïve hope, the girl who’d never been kissed, whose fingerprints remained on her own flesh, with hands aching to be held, wanted him to be here for her.

  “If you’re willing, I could use the help.” His eyes flicked to my canvas. “Because if he expects this, I’m screwed.”

  I grabbed my brush from the side of the bucket and placed it into another tub filled with turpentine. “He expects you to try. He sees something in you if he’s allowing you to assist him. You’ve sold drawings… you can do this.” I covered the buckets of paint I’d been using with their respective lids and walked over to the supply closet. Kneeling down, I rummaged through all of the blank canvases until I found a small six-by-six-inch square. “Start here.”

  Kai took the canvas from my hand. “What am I supposed to do with this?”

  I shrugged and tried not to laugh at the irritation gathering along the creases of his forehead.

  “You get to listen to my shitty music and paint a mood.”

  He raised his brows. “Hope you have black paint.”

  “See, already equating mood to color, you’re ahead of the game.”

  “Are you making fun of me?”

  “Maybe.”

  His chuckle was dark as he reached for the end of my braid. My skin came alive at the playful tug, the relaxed intimacy of the gesture. “Watch yourself, O’Connell, don’t dish it if you can’t take it.”

  I stood taller than I have in my entire life, conjuring my brother’s laid-back ease, and said, “I can take it.”

  He rubbed the back of his neck, and I admired the way his muscles moved under his skin. The air in the room a golden static as he cleared his throat.

  “I surrender, okay, this is your pool, teach me how to swim.”

  I took the canvas from his hand and nodded my chin toward the back wall with all the brushes and bottles of paint. He followed me in silence, not speaking or interrupting, as I explained to him the different types of brushes, where he could find the water color, oil, pastels, and acrylics, everything he might need for a basic painting.

  “What if I wanted to add my own mediums?” he asked.

  “How so?”

  Without answering me, he picked up the newspaper we used sometimes as a drop cloth, a bottle of white and red paint and set it all down on a table. He motioned for the canvas in my hand and I gave it to him. Kai studied the room, and I didn’t say a word as he moved around like he owned it, grabbing a plastic bowl, glue, and not one paint brush.

  When he returned to the workstation, his lopsided grin made me laugh. “Are you gonna watch me?”

  I held up my hands. “Not if you’d rather me not.”

  “I’d rather you not.” I wasn’t sure if he’d meant to be harsh, but my smile faltered, and he exhaled a long breath. “I mean, how would you feel if Picasso was here, watching you?”

  “I’m no Picasso.” The compliment broke my face open, and the smile I’d tried to hide had no chance.

  He rubbed the back of his neck again. “You’re my Picasso alright. And I feel like a dumbass.”

  I bit back my smile, pinching my lip between my teeth. I nodded. “I’ve got a drawing I need to work on for class in the morning. I’ll just sit at the other end of the table. You won’t even know I’m here.”

  “This music of yours will remind me.”

  “You can change it.”

  Just Like Heaven by the Cure started to play.

  “This is fine.”

  We worked without words for almost an hour, the music getting sleepier as the playlist went on. I’d lied about having a drawing due in the morning, wanting to sketch his arms as he worked. I’d begun shading the curve of his biceps when he swore under his breath.

  “This is shit.”

  I didn’t look up from the table, afraid he wouldn’t want me to.

  “Is this total shit?”

  I glanced up and loved that his hat was off, his hair messy and tipped with white and red paint as if he’d dragged his angry fingers through it.

  “Do you really want my opinion?”

  “Yes.” The one syllable more like a growl.

  I hopped off the stool and circled the table. At first glance, what he’d accomplished was pretty spectacular for a first attempt. He’d used the newspaper for a decoupage canvas, the white and red paint strewn across the words in abstract lines and shapes by his fingertips.

  “I like it and I don’t.”

  “Okay. What the hell does that mean?”

  “It means you’re trying too hard.” His body tensed. “What are you trying to convey here? What does it mean to you?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Nothing?”

  He let out a stuttered breath. “It means I’m not a fucking painter.”

  I lowered my voice, feeling his frustration in bursts of shadow and black. I’d been here several times, wanting the piece to be exactly what it was like in my head, and failing.

  “How did you learn to draw?”

  “I didn’t… I just… knew.” He raked his paint-covered hands through his hair and sank down into his chair.

  “I’m the same way with a brush… it comes naturally to me, but it took me forever to learn how to draw, to get things to look real. Everything I drew looked like a cartoon version of whatever the subject was, but over time, and I’m still learning, I got better. You will, too. Hintz liked your drawings?”

  “Yeah, he’s the one who sold them for me.”

  “He’ll push you, Kai. Like he pushes all of his students. You don’t need to know how to paint to be a TA. You’ll learn.”

  “I will.” His shoulders set in a stern line.

  “You don’t have to be a painter. Hintz wants your eye, your hands—your pencil. He sees something in you and that’s huge.”

  He looked at me, his jaw a sculpture of its own. “You’re good at this pep talk stuff, you should come rile us up before meets.”

  I huffed out a laugh. “Royal would hate that. Swimming is his canvas.”

  “Dissection of inheritance.” His gaze drifted to my painting. “Royal said he’s not artistic at all, was he lying?”

  I leaned against the table. “No. He can’t paint, and I can’t swim, it’s like somewhere our coding got mixed up and we both lost a gene.”

  “Wait.” He picked up his hat and pulled it on backward, his smile conspiratorial. “I think I’m high on fumes… did you say you can’t swim?”

  “I almost drowned when I was five and never went back.”

  “So you haven’t actually tried.”

  “Like I said, I’d rather—”

  “Paint, yeah
, I got it.” He stared at me in disbelief for a minute and then rapped his knuckles on the tabletop before he stood. He picked up his painting and tossed it in the trash.

  “I’m going to let you in on a little secret about me. I never do anything half-ass. When I chose swimming, I gave it everything I had. I want to do the same with this. I can draw, but if I’m turning my life upside down, I want to do it all. I want to paint how I feel, Indie. Like you do. I want to translate what I see in every medium if I can. If I’m doing this then I’m all in.”

  “Good.”

  “And I want to learn from the best.”

  “Hintz is a genius.”

  “I’m not talking about Hintz.” He smiled when I shook my head. “Help me and I’ll teach you how to swim.”

  “I don’t care about swimming.”

  “Yeah, you do.”

  The water was as frightening as the mess inside my head. I had a hold on my voices for the most part. I could medicate myself, shut them out, paint them away, but inside the water, I had no control. My body had never been mine, shared by the monsters inside, never stepping foot inside another pool was something I’d done on my terms.

  “I really don’t, it’s Royal’s—”

  “I’ll feel better knowing I’m helping you in some way, too.”

  “So, really, you’re just selfish?”

  “What? No?”

  “Is that a question?”

  “Let me teach you how to swim. It’s… a safety thing.”

  I narrowed my eyes. “A safety thing?”

  “Yeah. What if you fell in the lake or a pool?”

  “Random. But I don’t own a suit.”

  “Then buy one.” He looked at my painting one last time. His eyes lingered over the layered splatters of paint and then dusted over my color-crusted arms and clothes.

  “I’ll help you, and you won’t owe me anything. Except… I might like to see some of your drawings.”

  “I’ll show you whatever you want,” he said in a half whisper, his attention wandering back to my canvas. “And I’ll teach you how to swim.”

  “Water scares me.”

  Such a child.

  “And that’s exactly why you need to learn. This entire room scares the shit out of me, but I want to make it mine.”