Blindsided

by Shey Stahl

  There’s only one place left where I can escape my thoughts. Pushing open the door to my studio, I sit down at my table and the mess I’ve made tossing everything aside every time someone needs me or my attention. The expo is in three weeks, and I have one of my pieces done. It’s time I start putting myself before the ones who don’t appreciate my worth. It’s time to find my heart, wherever it fell.

  I paint when I’m happy.

  I paint when I’m sad.

  I paint for a new beginning, diving in deep into the unknown. Letting the colors provoke a psychic reaction, I paint to understand and deal with pain.

  I did some research after Eldon died, then again after Cat’s accident about the colors of chromotherapy. For each color, there’s a positive reaction as well as a negative.

  It said that white is a new beginning, pure and clarifying to the mind. Maybe that’s why wedding dresses are white, because it’s a new beginning.

  Red is love, energy, power, strength, passion and heat, but can also evoke anger, danger, and warning.

  Yellow shines with hope and happiness and stimulates creativity. I’ve always liked the color yellow, but it can also bring out irresponsibility and instability. I’ve certainly been known to be both.

  Turquoise is serene and healing, bringing peace to the mind and body, but also, envy, and femininity.

  Green soothes and relaxes our spirit with harmony and renewal, and yet again, can also bring out envy, jealousy, and guilt.

  Orange is active and friendly, but it also shows ignorance and sluggishness.

  Pink is healthy, happy, compassion, sweet and playful. It’s weak and shows immaturity. And then there’s blue. I fear this color the most. Maybe because it’s the color of my eyes and when I look in the mirror, I see blue. I see love, loyalty, trust, and intelligence. But there’s also coldness and fear.

  You’re probably thinking, what does all that mean?

  It means for every action, there’s a consequence. For every reaction, there’s emotion. That’s really what it boils down to.

  Drawing in a deep breath, I stare at the blank canvas before me. A text comes through from Landon.

  LC: I’m sorry.

  Like I said, for every action there’s a consequence.

  Mine?

  I don’t reply.

  Blind Side – The side of the field facing the quarterback’s back side when he is dropping to pass or standing in the backfield looking to pass. For a right-handed quarterback, this is his left side or the defense’s right side. Teams put their better offensive linemen on the blind side.

  “What the hell is that thing?”

  Braylee and Adler stare at me, then the cat on the counter. At least I think it’s a cat. Maybe it’s a rat. Are rats black?

  Kasen grabs a towel off the floor, picks the wet animal up and then sets him on it. He doesn’t move. “It’s a cat.” Adler reaches out to touch him, and the cat jerks its body to the side like it has a twitch. “We found him outside this morning.”

  I’m not an animal lover. They’re messy, smelly, and I don’t particularly like cats. Their fur gets everywhere and that’s not something I can deal with. Also, I had a cat once and he died after Revel threw him out the window. In Revel’s defense, the cat was sleeping in a laundry basket and instead of doing the laundry like Oma told him to, Revel’s answer was to throw it out the second-story window. The cat didn’t make it. I’ll spare you the gruesome details, but there was a car involved too. Ever since Spiral died, I swore off animals. I couldn’t give my heart like that again.

  “Put him back outside,” I tell the kids. “We don’t need an animal, and his owner is probably looking for him.”

  “He doesn’t have a collar,” Braylee points out, taking the cat in her arms. He curls up in her arms but again, jerks his body in a weird way, as if he’s having a seizure. “That means he doesn’t have an owner.”

  “You don’t know anything about the cat. Look at him.” I gesture to the cat’s odd twitchy behavior and his extremely fluffy fur. It’s as though he’s been hit by lightning. “He probably has rabies.”

  Kasen clears his throat. “Adler put him in the microwave.”

  My mouth drops open, and I stare at the kid who looks the most like me. Also, he’s wearing my jersey and it’s probably by design so he can persuade me to let him have a pet. “You did what?”

  Adler’s eyes widen. “He was wet. I thought it would dry him faster.”

  Are you thinking, what in the actual fuck? Yeah, me and you both. But seriously, how the fuck is he not dead? “For how long?”

  “Only a couple seconds before I rescued the cat,” Kasen tells me, handing the kids their lunches he packed.

  “We got a cat?” Haisley yells, rushing into the kitchen to see the animal who’s now curled up asleep in Braylee’s arms.

  And then Nalani comes in, broken wrist and all, squealing as she yells, “Aw, cute!” and rips the cat from Braylee’s arms. He doesn’t even notice and falls fast asleep again. Or he’s slowly dying of radiation poisoning. In the midst of his sleeping, he keeps twitching.

  “It’s okay, Twitch,” Braylee says, petting his fluffy black head. “We will take care of you. We know what it’s like to be abandoned.”

  Great. Now I can’t get rid of him. I don’t doubt for one moment that’s a dig at me.

  Kasen tends to the kids, gets their breakfast ready, and I look at the text messages I’ve sent Ember, afraid to admit how many times I’ve texted over the last twelve hours and she hasn’t replied. I look at Adler who’s sitting next to me eating his cereal. “Is texting her a hundred times too much?”

  Adler stares at me blankly, and I’m not sure if he’s trying to remember yesterday or just fucking with me. “You don’t think so?”

  I raise an eyebrow. “No?”

  “And that’s what’s wrong with you. I’m eleven, and I know that.”

  “You’re still nine.”

  “Yeah, but I’ll be eleven next year. Same difference.”

  “And that means you’re nine, not quite ten and not eleven for another year and two days. You can’t just adjust the number based on what you’ll be next year.”

  “Says the guy who texted a girl a hundred and sixteen times, but lies and says a hundred.”

  “Oh shut up.”

  I’m lost wandering around Saturday morning. I have no idea what to do with my life now that Ember is avoiding me. Even though she didn’t technically live in the house with me and the kids, it’s strangely black and white now. I know, crazy, but the color she brings into our lives is gone. I think I even see a frown on Nalani when I make my way into her room before I leave.

  Sitting next to Haisley, her eyes find mine. “Hi,” Nalani says, but it’s not your normal hi. This one is about as dejected as I feel.

  “Hey, kiddo, how’s the arm?” She’s on the floor playing with her horses, making them gallop on her cast.

  Dropping the horse on the floor, she moves toward me and then knocks me in the face with her bandaged wrist. She rubs my head where she hit me. “Owie?”

  “No, I’m fine.” They haven’t put a proper cast on it yet and honestly, I’m impressed the temporary cast is still intact. I thought for sure she would have ripped it off overnight.

  “Are you leaving?” Haisley asks, handing Nalani another pony.

  I nod. “Yeah, we have a game in Florida.”

  Haisley’s eyes drop to the floor and then she frowns. “What if you don’t come back?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Our parents didn't come back. What if you don’t?”

  Jesus Christ. Talk about a hit to the heart. I was around Haisley’s age when my parents died and honestly, I can’t ever remember having these thoughts. I just knew they were there one day and gone the next. It was a strange feeling of being lost and confused and then eventually angry at them for leaving us. Like they had control over it.

  “Accidents happen, yes, so I can’t make you that pro
mise, but I plan on coming back.”

  Haisley thinks about what I said or at least pretends to and then smiles. “Will you bring me back a dolphin?”

  I stare at her. Is she serious? She’s five. Of course she’s fucking serious. “Like an actual dolphin?”

  She nods. “Yeah. Adler and Braylee have Twitch. I’d like a pet dolphin.”

  Nalani perks up. “Yeah, pease? Dollpin. I have dollpin?”

  How can I say no to a dollpin? I wonder if he’ll fit in the pool?

  It’s as I’m leaving for Miami, I realize I shouldn’t be. I shouldn’t be leaving things between Ember and me up in the air like this. I want to go knock on her door, but I know if she’s not answering my one hundred and sixteen text messages, she doesn’t want to talk to me. I can’t say I blame her this time.

  Franchise Tag – A ploy by an NFL team during negotiations with one of their own free agents. If a team puts the franchise tag on a player, that player is under contract for a period of one year at a salary equal to the average of the top five players in his position. A team may apply the franchise tag to only one player at a time. The team and player may renegotiate at any time and remove the franchise tag from the player.

  Landon leaves for the game, and though I pretend I don’t see him leaving, I do.

  I avoid. That’s what I do when my heart’s on fire and raging in flames of regret.

  I can’t say I regret any time spent with him or the last five years, and I certainly don’t regret being with the kids. Okay, I don’t regret anything.

  Once Landon’s gone, Kasen takes care of the younger kids with Cat, running the twins to their football game and Haisley to her first friend’s birthday party here in Seattle. I wish I was going with her so I could make sure no kid treats her badly, but I know with the expo coming up, I need to be working.

  And I need my mind off Landon. So painting is what my day will consist of.

  Sitting in my art studio, which happens to be the spare bedroom of the guest house, I hear a soft knock of the door.

  Twisting around, I see Marley at the door with two Starbucks cups in hand. Adorably dressed in paint-splattered overalls and a bright purple shirt, with her long auburn hair in a messy bun. She sighs and holds the cup up. “Salted caramel mocha still your favorite?”

  Smiling, I nod and motion her forward. “Yes, thank you.”

  Tentatively, she steps into the room, scanning her surroundings. Handing me the cup, she catches sight of my easel. Her chest expands with a deep breath before her eyes drift to mine. “It’s beautiful. I wish I could paint like that.”

  “You can do anything you set your mind to.” I tap the stool next to my easel for her to sit down. “Art helps you become yourself by understanding and escaping.”

  A tender smile tugs at her lips. I don’t know for sure, but she seems different. Her posture more rigid, her eyes guarded. “How do you know what you’re painting?”

  “I don’t.” I shift my focus to the painting. “At least not in the beginning. I start with an idea and remove all traces of reality. You strip it back until every brush stroke, every nuance of light and shade, every swirl of color bleeding into the canvas resembles the chaos you feel inside. The chaos on the canvas, that’s where you find clarity. There’s no beginning, no end. That’s art. When you can’t tell what’s real and what’s not.”

  Nodding, she doesn’t say anything, but her eyes never move from the painting. She’s quiet, taking in everything I said. Never underestimate the power of silence. People aren’t necessarily quiet because they don’t have anything to say. The most creative people in the world are the ones who listen, think, and observe.

  Taking a drink of her own coffee, Marley sets the cup down on my table, but then immediately picks it up. “Sorry.”

  “It’s okay, you can set it there.”

  Marley relaxes and offers another soft smile.

  I nudge her with my knee. “You know your uncle didn’t mean what he said last night, right?”

  Marley shrugs. “I think he meant what he said. He just didn’t mean for us to hear it.”

  “I’m not about to defend his actions yesterday, but I think with Nalani getting hurt, it was his first reminder that you kids could be taken away from him.”

  “He said something to that effect last night, but it’s clear he didn’t want us to begin with.”

  “You’re right, he didn’t, but I think he’s doing pretty well considering.”

  Marley thinks about what I said and then stands, reaching for her coffee. “I should let you go.” She leaves me with, “If you think that, why haven’t you forgiven him?”

  It’s not what she says, but the look she leaves me with. The one that tells me forgiveness is something she never had the chance to give someone.

  I don’t know a lot about what happened with her parents, but from the little bits I’ve gotten out of her over the last month, she had gotten into a fight with her mom about not being able to stay at a friend’s house the weekend they died.

  Part of me wants to call Landon and tell him I forgive him. The other part wants him to suffer in my silence.

  I’m alone maybe twenty minutes when Cat comes in with a party hat on and what looks to be one of those child party bags. “What’s that?”

  Cat smiles and sets it on the table. “Swag bag. Parents give this shit out like candy at those damn parties.”

  “And you have it because?” I have to admit, I’m jealous Cat went with Haisley. I was kind of looking forward to taking her.

  “Haisley hooked a sister up.” And then she stares at the bag. “I think. Anyway, how are you holding up?”

  What a loaded question that is. “You know in Pretty Woman where Richard Gere’s character, Edward, totally won Julia Robert’s character, Vivian, over? Okay, so if I’m Vivian, the hooker—let’s use that term loosely—and Landon’s the rich guy who buys and sells companies. Wait… that’s what he did for a living, right?”

  Cat stares at me, her brow furrowed. “You’re—”

  “Don’t answer that.”

  “But—”

  I wave my hand, the one holding a paintbrush, in her face. “No, really. Let’s just say we’re them, and I told myself in the beginning—just like she did—no kissing on the mouth. I broke that fucking rule in the first week with him back when we met. And I know, you’re probably super confused by this, but I promise, there’s a point to all this nonsense.”

  “And that is?”

  “My point is…” I pause because I think somewhere along that rant, I did lose sight of what I was trying to say. “Well, I broke all my own rules with him.”

  “So why did you?”

  I lean back in my chair and sigh, setting my brush on the table.

  “I have no idea. Maybe because he’s Landon and he has his own gravity,” I tell Cat.

  Again, she’s staring at me, and I’m not entirely sure that last part made any sense.

  Cat smiles, like she’s trying to be nice. “Okay, so now what though? You’re not talking to him, and he’s so miserable.”

  “I don’t know what happens now.” I point to the paintings stacked on the floor and the one on my easel. “I know I have to finish this, but at least it’s coming along.” Every artist has a masterpiece. One they favor above all else. Whether you’re a writer, artist, singer, anything you design from the creativity of your mind, you have one piece you pour everything you have into. Mine is Blindsided. And, as you can imagine, it’s Landon.

  “You work so hard.” Cat leans into the table, her fingers brushing over the acrylic paint tubes.

  “I’ve been telling myself for years I’m going to finish this piece and I know now I need to,” I admit.

  Cat stares at the one on my easel. “Holy shit, girl. That’s freaking amazing!”

  My eyes drift to it, the shades, the textures, the meaning only I will ever know. While Landon’s mind works in rules, strategy, and execution, this piece, it’s helpless, abandoned,
lost, and it’s him. I paint secrets, knowing the colors will never reveal the truth. Artists are reckless, so why is it we need to be recklessly disarmed before we can truly uncover our potential?

  We ignore truth for temporary happiness.

  I can’t keep putting my life off for everyone else anymore, just like I can’t stop my heart from breaking. Truthfully, I’m lonely. I’m holed up in here every day, and it’s lonely. Creativity is funny like that. You can’t make it stop, but you also can’t live with it because that very thing that creates your passion for what you love destroys everything else around you and alienates you from everyone who doesn’t understand it.

  I miss the kids.

  I miss our daily routines.

  I miss helping them with homework, and I even miss begging them to eat something healthy and knowing they won’t.

  Most of all, I miss Landon. Okay, I miss the sex, but I still miss him and his personality. Even the things I hate about him, like the fact that he cannot schedule his own flights or manage his own social media.

  I’m still working for him, arranging flights, photoshoots and interviews… making sure he doesn’t post anything stupid on social media… taking care of him, but I haven’t spoken to him directly since last night. I miss my best friend. I ache for him, every second of the day, like a hole in my chest. And I’m angry at everything that happened between us. I’m angry for letting it happen and the way he spoke to me.

  I’m angry for the way we got carried away, for letting my girl emotions build and build, without thinking about how it would end. He’s Landon Slade. I knew how it would end, yet still, I fell headfirst. No, I fucking jumped.

  I’m crazy. It’s crazy. And even though I tell myself it’s over between us, the aching in my chest is unavoidable, and my heart tries to work it out. It doesn’t stop me from wanting to go to him and apologize, even though I didn’t do anything I need to apologize for. It’s funny, you can negotiate with your heart as much as you want, but your head… at least there’s one rational part of your body willing to deflect the crazy.