Waterfall Effect

by K. K. Allen

“The answer is no, Val. No.”

  She pouts. “You’re a bit more wound up than I remember. You know I can take care of you, sugar.” She’s practically purring when her smile fades, as if aggravated by my rejection. “I need your cock.”

  A loud gasp comes from the other side of the room. I turn to find a shocked and angry face to match, followed by an explosion detonating in Aurora’s eyes. And as she puts the puzzle pieces together over the next few seconds, wind stokes her flames.

  Aurora whips forward until she’s standing next to me. “I’m pretty sure he already gave you your answer.”

  As proud of her as I am for being bold and stepping into the ring, my insides shake when I realize what Aurora just witnessed. What will she think of me now? Clearly, I’m not the same man she left broken and alone in that courtroom. I moved on in ways I’m not proud of, and now we both must face the consequences.

  Still, the fury in Aurora’s eyes somehow gives me strength. I toss my shoulders back and point to the door, glancing at Val one final time. “It’s time for you to leave. I’ll make sure Claire refunds your money.”

  But she doesn’t flinch. Instead she stands there, still shooting daggers at Aurora. “Who the fuck are you?”

  Aurora moves forward until she’s toe to toe with Val, but I wrap an arm around her waist to stop her from pouncing. My nose falls into her neck on instinct, and I’m instantly high from her scent. “Just let her leave.”

  I expect her to fight against my hold or to stiffen at my touch. Instead, she relaxes and curls into my arms like my touch was all she needed. I can feel the shivers of her body, the heat soaking from her skin and seeping into mine.

  “You’re going to regret this, Jaxon,” Val hisses as she slams her heels against the tile.

  “I don’t think I will, Val,” I call after her. “Have a good night.” Val tosses me a glare over her shoulder, and I can’t resist hammering one more nail into the coffin. “And don’t contact me again.”

  She yanks open the door, revealing a line of people who all seem to have their amused eyes on us. She huffs, probably embarrassed to have witnesses to her rejection, and pushes her way through the crowd until she disappears from view, hopefully for the last time.

  I’m still shaking minutes later while the attendees settle into their seats. I was completely unprepared to overhear the exchange between Valerie and Jaxon, but my entire body caved with relief in knowing that he wanted no part in what she was offering.

  And the way he held me. The way he wrapped me in his arms and wouldn’t let me go. An avalanche of “what ifs” begins to pile up in my head. Regrets. Wrong turns. What if he had held me tighter in that courtroom and refused to let me walk out that door? Would I have responded the same way?

  But no matter how many moments I try to alter in my mind, the truth remains the same. I should never have let him let me go.

  Jax is at the front of the class, his back to me as he chooses a brush from his collection when Claire steps up beside me. “Where’s Val?”

  I let out an amused breath. “Jax sent her on her way.”

  Claire’s jaw drops. “He did not.” I can feel her excitement radiating around us.

  “He did.”

  Her eyes linger on me as she sucks in a slow breath. “Okay, then. You know, Jax hasn’t had an empty seat in the class in…” She thinks about it, tossing her head back and searching the air. “Over a year, I’d say.”

  “Because of Val?” When I’d asked Claire who the bold brunette was that charged into Jaxon’s studio, Claire had mentioned Val was a business associate. She was vague, but it was enough to understand Jax had been mixing whatever that business was with pleasure.

  She shakes her head. “No. He might think that, but he’d be wrong. They come to see him. Because he’s talented. The devastatingly handsome and broody parts are just a bonus.” She cocks a brow at me. “But you know all that, don’t you?”

  Rolling my eyes, I nudge her with my elbow. “You forgot ‘great with his hands’ and ‘smart.’”

  She laughs and nods to the front of the room. “He is all those things. Which is why I would hate to ruin his streak today. I was able to fill one seat with a girl on the waitlist. You should take the other.”

  “Maybe you should sit in. I’ll cover everything else,” I suggest. Claire has already warned me that after tonight, I’m on my own during the events anyway. Might as well start now.

  After another pause, she shakes her head. “Nope. You should definitely sit in.”

  I don’t need time to think about that one. “I don’t paint anymore.”

  Jaxon stalks over, a confused look on his face. “You realize there’s a room of thirsty customers waiting for someone to take their orders, right?”

  “Sure do,” Claire says before backing away. “I’ll go take care of that. Aurora is going to sit in and take the class. We’re considering it part of her training.” Clare winks.

  I swear when I see her again, when we’re alone, she’s going to hear what I have to say, and it’s not going to be pleasant.

  Jax, however, seems thrilled. “Really?” he asks, his eyes focused on me.

  That word. It’s filled with surprise and hope, expanding my heart in a way I never expected. I take a breath and look up at him.

  “I guess so.” I shrug. “I’m free to just sit there and paint nothing, right?”

  Jax smiles and shrugs. “The rules are, there are no rules.”

  I grin, remembering our favorite line of one of the movies they played during the town’s old movie nights. “This isn’t Grease, tough guy.”

  A chuckle leaves his body and reverberates through me, a smile lighting up his face. I love the way his eyes drink me in. The way just one look could pull me to him and steal my breath.

  “Maybe not,” he agrees, “but the rules still apply.” He winks and reaches for my hand, loosely grabbing onto my fingers and turning so he has me in tow. “Come on. I’ll get you set up.”

  Class begins, and despite my constant fight against my anxiety, I’m a good sport. I take my time getting reacquainted with the objects in front of me like they’re old friends. My pointer finger feathers over the canvas, feeling its texture one pore at a time. I pick up a brush and run it across my palm, its edges prickling my skin.

  Today’s painting is of the bridge at Hollow Falls, but a simplified version, void of textures and layers of depth usually found in one of Jaxon’s creations. I don’t hear a word as Jaxon leads the class. Instead, I’m lost in the feel of it all. The thrill of easing perfect drops of color from their tubes, the faint odor euphoric to my senses. The heaviness of the brush as it quivers in my hold. The excitement of mixing colors to get to that desired hue—the one that belongs only to me, the creator. And the relief of dragging the paint-filled brush across the canvas in one wicked swipe to mark the start of a new journey.

  I’m in the corner in the back of the class, where only the wall can see me and my lack of progress. Jaxon gives me space, but every now and then his eyes find mine, lingering long enough to rile my heart. Even Claire is respectful as she brings me wine, never making a move to peek at my canvas. She just smiles and moves on to the next customer.

  Before I realize it, an hour has passed, and I’ve managed to fill in the background with the light brown hue of the sky. None of it comes easy. My hands still tremble and my breaths feel forced, but it does get better. Whatever has been stifling my wings for so many years has got to go.

  My canvas is still one color and one color only by the time Claire closes down Creek Café and takes off for the night as the final students make their way out the door. It’s all I’ve accomplished, but it’s more than I have to show for the last seven years.

  Jax approaches, a curl of brown hair flipping outward beneath his gray knit cap. I look up with a blush. I’m not sure if I’m nervous because my canvas is all but empty or because I’m finally taking in more of Jaxon with my eyes.
I wouldn’t allow myself to be so greedy before. After everything that had happened, I didn’t feel deserving. He was mine once, and I made the decision to let him go. To free him of the stigma that came with dating Henry June’s daughter. Because even though he said he didn’t care, I didn’t believe him.

  “Can I?” he says, dragging me out of my damaging thoughts.

  I take a deep breath as I nod. “Sure. I didn’t get very far. It’s literally just one co—” He steps forward, and I can’t finish my sentence. My stomach flips at his nearness. This is so embarrassing. There’s nothing for him to see, yet somehow I know he’ll make me feel like it’s everything. I laugh through my nerves as he stops behind me. He’s not even touching me, but I can feel him everywhere.

  Seconds go by, maybe minutes, and I’m intensely aware of the silence as he stares over my head at a canvas filled with nothing but a burnt sky. The sound of metal scraping the floor comes next. I turn to find him pulling a chair up beside me. He sits, his eyes still focused on the painting but his hand moving to cover mine.

  “Show me.”

  My heart kicks, chills erupt over my skin, and my breathing begins to shallow once again.

  “Sh-show you?”

  Why did I think I could do this? Because he asked.

  His hand squeezes mine, and I feel it in my heart. My lungs inflate with my next deep breath.

  “Paint something.”

  “Jax,” I beg, on the verge of tears.

  He waits, not saying a word. His patience makes me want to try. For me. For him. For us. Whenever there was too much to say, we’d let art do the talking. We’d let the brush plot the story while the colors brought it to life.

  So I try…because I really want to.

  I swallow. My shaky hand moves the brush to the dollop of white on my palette. Clouds. I’ll dab in some clouds and call it a day. Easy enough. But when I lift the brush just inches from the canvas…I freeze. My vision blackens, and I hear the words that always come during a state of panic. “To understand truth, one must find courage to seek light in the darkness.” My father’s words.

  I move my shaky hand to drop the brush on the table and open my eyes. “I can’t. I’m sorry. Maybe it’s just not in me anymore.”

  “Of course it’s still in you. You just need to try.” His tone is somewhere between encouraging and frustrated.

  “What do you think I’ve been doing for the past two hours?” I gesture to the canvas, returning his frustration with my own. “It was never this hard before. I’d get inspired; I’d paint. That was it. It was all so simple. And now…”

  “And now, what? Aurora, talk to me.”

  Standing, I move away from the canvas and back up to the wall. I just need some space from him. Being so close to him has this strange effect on my thoughts. They get all twisted and tangled, but I know how important this conversation is. He wants to understand, and I need to find a way to deal with this fear I have of painting.

  “It’s not that I don’t want to. I do. It’s just—I freeze. I wish I could explain it better, Jax.”

  “Can you try?”

  My breath stutters again before I speak. “I don’t know.” I shake my head, hating how hard it is to wrangle the words to help him understand. But he’s patient, waiting in silence, his eyes relaxed as he stares at me from his stool.

  “You know those three days I was missing?” I cringe at my own words, but Jaxon just nods.

  I take another breath, letting it out slowly before continuing. “It’s just a dark spot in my memory. All the important pieces that could shed light on the darkness are missing. But I know they’re there somewhere.” I look up again. This time I don’t break eye contact. “That’s the part I don’t know how to explain. The memories are there. I just can’t see them.” I take in a shaky breath, then swallow. “But I sense them.”

  Man, this is harder than I thought. I twist my body, trying to gain comfort but finding none. I know I must sound crazy to Jaxon. My therapist never used the word crazy, but I’m sure he thought I was too. How can I not be? Three entire days are missing from my memory. It makes no sense. But Jaxon wants to know, so I’ll tell him. I’ll tell him everything I don’t understand.

  “When I lift a brush to canvas and get a hit of the oncoming rush…something holds me back. Something keeps me in the dark. It doesn’t help that I’ve been doing this to myself for seven years. The longer I stayed away from my art and this place and you, the more boulders I put up to deter myself from ever returning.

  “My therapist used my love for waterfalls to explain how I coped with life after the trauma. He called it the Waterfall Effect. I was the riverbed, trying to hold steady in the roughest water. Time was the river, and it continued to move over me, fast and furious on its way to the drop. He said that every boulder I set up was me trying to stop time—stemming from a fear of moving forward and a fear of returning to where I came from.”

  I take a long, slow breath as I lean against the wall for support. Jaxon hasn’t moved, and his expression hasn’t changed. He’s just listening, patiently.

  “But with every boulder came a consequence, Jax—elements that messed with my landscape, my mind. Because sometimes the current was just too strong to keep out. Still is.” I bite my lip and track his movement as he stands and moves toward me. I press myself further into the wall, rushing to finish, because I don’t know what will happen if he comes any closer. “That’s where the darkness comes in. The panic attacks. Sometimes, there’s just too much to process, and it feels like I’m drowning.”

  I push off the wall, feeling anxious in my own skin, my heart pounding in my chest. “A stream is unforgiving, unrelenting. It doesn’t stop moving. It pays no attention to the direction it’s headed. To the damage it’s causing. To the lives it’s changing. To the path it’s carving. And despite the changes, I still stood there, losing more of myself while time stripped pieces of me away.”

  My confession stirs between us in the silence until he moves a tentative hand to my waist. “You fear you’re lost, but you’re not.” He speaks firmly, his tone low even though there’s no one around to hear us. “There’s a reason you came back, even if you don’t completely understand it. You’ve always trusted your heart to guide you, and that’s why I trust that your intentions have been and always will be driven by something good.” He lets out a breath and closes the small gap between us, his warmth a familiar comfort as his front grazes mine. “You survived, Aurora.” His confidence strikes me right in the chest. My body quivers at his words. “If that’s not moving forward during your darkest days, then I don’t know what is.”

  Deep down, I know he’s right. But what about our lives between then and now—the time and distance? How does it affect us? How have we changed? How do we fit?

  He’s been with other women, and as much as it kills me, I knew it would happen. I just never thought I’d be back to face the consequences. And now, there’s so much I need to accept. There are so many questions I want to ask, but I’m not even sure how to begin.

  “That sounds like just the type of thing your father would go on one of his tangents about.”

  I shrug, brimming with emotion as I turn my head to look at Jaxon, tears building in the back of my throat. “My therapist used the Waterfall Effect metaphor when speaking about my father’s disorder, too. He could sense I had never come to terms with losing my father. The man on trial was someone else entirely.” My eyes flutter to his. It feels good to talk about my father again—the man I loved, not the accused murderer. “When I was twelve and my parents sat me down to explain that my father had been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, I didn’t understand what that meant. I didn’t see anything wrong with him at the time. He didn’t seem insane to me.” I shrug, forgiving my younger self as I speak. “I explained that to doctor Rohls, and he went on about how the mind is affected by knowledge, time, and the environment, the same way waterfalls affect the landscape around the
m.”

  My eyes catch his to make sure I’m not losing him. He’s staring at the canvas, deep in thought. “And for the first time in my life, it all clicked. If water represents knowledge, and knowledge produces energy, and that energy runs through the stream—” I pause, feeling a blush creep up my cheeks as I remind myself of my father. Sometimes he could be a bit much, but I still devoured his every word—and at times like this, it shows.

  “Keep going,” Jaxon urges, filling my chest with warmth.

  I nod, swallowing before I continue. “The mind manifests based on all the elements combined, and time, velocity, and knowledge impact the mind, just like waterfalls transform landscapes over time. Doctor Rohls believed in the transfer of knowledge between all beings—and how that knowledge changes over time. Good and bad, until it overflows into a pool of knowledge. The plunge pool.” I smile at the mental image.

  “Everything is connected,” he says.

  I nod again, thrilled that Jaxon gets it. “Well, when it comes to the mind of a schizophrenic, the force of nature is a bit rougher on the mind, and completely unpredictable. In the end, that pool of knowledge shallows, providing less energy, less knowledge, to the mind.” I bat my eyes away again, unwilling to give into my fears about my own pool depleting one day. “Not every case of a schizophrenic is the same, but doctor Rohls wanted me to understand what happened and why.” An ache creeps into my heart, squeezing it tight. “He wanted me to know that no matter what happened from my father’s diagnosis and on, he loved me, even if he wasn’t able to show it the same way anymore.”

  Jaxon squeezes my side again, and the comfort I felt as we spoke about my father, about the Waterfall Effect, melts away. I pull away from him, not wanting his comfort. Not with the hours previous poisoning what this talk could have been.

  “Jax.” I swallow, hating myself for my next question. But I have to know before all of this gets even more complicated than it already is. “Who is Val?”

  He pulls his hand from my waist like he’s been burned. “What?”