The Art of Us

by KL Hughes

  It wasn’t supposed to be like this.

  “So, you three obviously know each other.”

  Charlee is yanked almost violently from her thoughts at the sound of the woman’s voice. This is the woman who, only moments ago, had been so eager to buy her painting, the woman who Charlee now knows to be Alex’s girlfriend.

  She shakes her head, collects herself. “Uh, y-yes.” Closing her eyes, Charlee curses herself for her inability to speak without stuttering. She’s twisted and torn, shaken out of her skin. Her insides squirm, and the sensation claws its way into her voice.

  “Yes,” she says again after clearing her throat and wiping at her wet cheeks. She shuffles awkwardly around the server who has come to clean the mess at her feet. He offers her a small towel. She takes it with a quiet thank-you and cleans the sticky drink from her feet and ankles.

  The gallery crowd has mostly gone back to their browsing, and Charlee’s thankful to not have any additional eyes on her. She glances at Cam, still standing next to Alex. They both face Kari now as well, their expressions nearly identical—wide-eyed and silently screaming for an escape.

  Cam is the first to recover, though she plasters on a smile so toothy it’s unnerving. “Yeah, we, uh, we go way back. College.”

  “Oh!” Kari’s eyes widen. “I was wondering if we might bump into any of Alex’s old friends when we moved here.” She steps toward Cam and holds out her hand. “Kari Patel. I’m Alex’s girlfriend.”

  “Kari,” Cam says, nodding and taking a hesitant step forward to shake the woman’s hand. She takes another glance at Charlee, and Charlee knows they’re going to be up all night over this. And drunk. Definitely drunk. “Camila Cruz, but you can call me Cam. Nice to meet you.”

  Kari shakes Cam’s hand before turning toward Charlee expectantly. “And you said it was Charlee, right?”

  With a nod, Charlee takes Kari’s hand. “Charlee Parker, yes.”

  She waits to see recognition in Kari’s brown eyes. Waits for a subtle gasp or an understanding nod. A knowing remark. Something along the lines of “Oh, so you’re that Charlee,” as if there are hundreds of artists named Charlee Parker scattered around the city and she just happens to be the one who used to lie in bed with Alex, talking about whether or not God exists and what they might name their future children. That Charlee Parker indeed.

  No such recognition ever comes, though. A spark of pain flickers through her chest. It doesn’t flourish into flame—she doesn’t let it. She can’t really blame Alex. They’re even more alike than perhaps they ever realized.

  “Alex never told me she was friends with such a talented artist.”

  Kari’s grip is firm, her small hand soft and smooth. Charlee does her best not to think of how effortlessly those hands must glide over Alex’s body, how often, how intimately. The thoughts come anyway, stabbing with each new arrival.

  “Oh, well, thank you.” She briefly thinks she might throw up.

  “You must’ve been surprised, dropping your glass like that,” Kari says, one eyebrow ticking slightly up.

  The statement’s loaded. She can feel the weight of it, more of a question than a remark, probing. Charlee knows exactly what Kari is asking.

  “It’s been a long time,” she says, avoiding the real answer, but she sees it swimming in Alex’s eyes when she glances her way. She sees it wobbling in Alex’s throat, even from a distance.

  The truth is going to spill out like a fucking flood, and there’s nothing they can do to stop the mess. At most, they can try to contain it.

  “We dated,” Alex blurts out a second later, and Charlee closes her eyes. There it is.

  When she opens them again, Chris is standing there, having just reached her from the opposite side of the gallery where the bar is set up. He glances between Charlee and Alex. “Who did? You two?”

  Charlee sighs and nods. “Yes.”

  “Huh,” Chris says before lightly shrugging. He then steps over and holds his hand out to Alex. “Chris Massey.”

  Alex looks at Charlee, then back to Chris. “Okay,” she says, as if he just offered her a raincoat in the middle of a drought. She takes his hand regardless. “Do you work for Charlee?”

  “Oh—no, no.” He laughs and tucks a loose strand of hair behind his ear. “We’re together.”

  “O-oh.” Alex stutters out the word, and that certainly catches Charlee’s attention. Their eyes meet again—one hard, tense stare—and then Alex looks quickly away. “Nice to meet you then, Chris. I’m Alex. Alex Woodson.”

  Charlee does her best to get Cam’s attention without moving a muscle, staring so intensely at the side of her head that she is surprised she can’t read Cam’s thoughts. It works. A second later, Cam turns to look at her, and Charlee bugs out her eyes in an obvious sign of distress. If anyone can get them out of this situation, it’s Cam. Charlee can only hope Cam has something up her sleeve.

  “Um, cool, yeah. So, it’s nice to meet everyone,” Cam says. “And, Alex, it’s great to see you again, really. We should make a plan to get together soon and catch up, but right now really isn’t the best time for a chat. Charlee has to, you know, mingle with people, try to sell those paintings and all of that, and we’re all sort of blocking the flow of traffic, so…”

  “Oh yes, right.” Alex jumps into action and steps away from the centerpiece painting. “We’ll get out of your way, then. Kari, are you ready?”

  Charlee has to stop herself from letting out an audible sigh of relief. She’s about to make her escape when Kari says, “Oh, I see it now.” She points up at the painting, and Charlee’s stomach bottoms out. “This is why you didn’t want the painting, Alex. It’s you.”

  Alex’s face pales until it looks as if her soul has left her body, and Cam inches away from her, looking basically the same. Charlee’s insides writhe, and she can’t seem to make any words form on her tongue. This cannot possibly be real. When am I going to wake up?

  “Well, I must say, Charlee.” Kari licks across the front of her teeth before putting on a smile that looks borderline painful. “You have quite the detailed memory.”

  “Um. Well, I…” Charlee forces herself to calm down and tries again. She pushes the truth down as far as it will go, because there would be no coming back from those words. There’s a part of her, though, deep and aching, that yearns to say them.

  Nothing has ever inspired me more than the curve of her hips, the tilt of her lips when she smiled at me, sleepy and satisfied; the way she whispered ‘forever’ against my skin.

  Instead she says, “I specialize in the nude female form. I’m sure you’ve noticed from the rest of my work here. Artists draw from memory all the time. It’s nothing personal. We use people in our lives as inspiration or models for our work, and um—”

  “Oh yeah, totally,” Cam chimes in, slinking to Charlee’s side. She waves her hand dismissively and wraps an arm around Charlee’s back. “Charlee paints everyone. I mean, you should see all the naked paintings she’s done of me, both with and without my leg on.”

  Cam knocks her hand against her left leg as she says it. At the sound of her knuckles thunking against her prosthetic, Charlee closes her eyes and releases a heavy breath through her nose. She knows Cam is only trying to help, but she has a feeling this sort of “help” might actually make things worse, or at least more awkward.

  “It’s like, geez, how many times do you need to see me naked?” Cam laughs far too loudly for it not to sound forced. “But, I mean, she’s the best, so who am I to say no, you know? There should be more paintings of naked women with prosthetics. Am I right? And Alex looks good here, you have to admit. This is some great work, an—”

  “Stop talking,” Charlee says under her breath, subtly elbowing Cam’s side, and Cam immediately clamps her lips closed. Charlee clears her throat. Her cheeks feel like they are on fire. “You two have a nice night.�
��

  She can’t bear to stand here any longer. The tension rippling through the air and over her flesh burns. The haunted look in Alex’s eyes—eyes fixed on her when they should have been looking at Kari. I’m going to be sick.

  Pulling Cam with her, Charlee starts to walk away, but before she can take more than five steps—

  “Wait.”

  “I have to go, Charlee,” Alex said, seeing her boss wave her over from across the room. The woman wore a stern expression, and Alex knew she was going to be lectured about personal calls on company time. Again. But since she was always on company time, when was she supposed to take calls? She hardly ever got to go home.

  “What? No.” Charlee groaned. “Alex, we’ve only been on the phone for two minutes. I’m not exaggerating. Literally two minutes, and that’s the longest we’ve spoken in a week!”

  Alex curled herself into the wall a bit more and lowered her voice. “I know, but I’m at work.”

  “You’re always at work.” Charlee’s voice collapsed, tired and worn and tinged with hurt; Alex ached at the sound of it.

  “I know.” She swallowed. “I know, and I’m sorry.” She was. Every time Charlee sighed on the phone, Alex was sorry. Every time Charlee cried her I miss yous over the line, Alex was sorry. Every time Charlee’s voice went quiet and cold, Alex was sorry. She was sorry all the time, because this internship was opening so many doors for her career, but it was closing so many on her relationship. Alex felt torn in two. “I have to go now.”

  “You always have to go,” Charlee said. “You realize that practically every call we’ve had in the last eight months has ended with you telling me you have to go, right? You always have to go, Alex.”

  “Charlee, please, try to understand.” Alex glanced back at her boss again to see the woman tap her watch. Shit. “You know I’m not supposed to be on my phone.”

  “Then why did you answer when I called? Why didn’t you just let it roll to voicemail like it usually does? Why didn’t you just leave me to ramble on in a message you probably wouldn’t have listened to for another month anyway?”

  “Because I miss you,” Alex said, the words escaping as hardly more than a whisper. Her throat was too tight. Her voice broke, cracks spreading through it like the ones in Alex’s heart every time Charlee’s pain bled through the phone.

  “Oh, you miss me? Then why is it you never have time for me anymore? It’s like I’m just a burden for you now. We’re falling apart, and you’re too busy to even care!”

  Alex bristled, too exhausted to quell the anger that rippled through her, too exhausted to keep from being defensive. “Well, the world doesn’t revolve around you, Charlee!” She bit out the words before she could stop herself. “You may get to set your own work hours, but I don’t. I can’t be on the phone with you every second. I’m trying to make a life for myself.”

  Silence.

  For several long seconds. Alex bit her tongue as her own words flitted back through her mind. She had to hang up, but she held on anyway. Waiting. She slinked around the corner so her boss could no longer see her and darted into a nearby supply closet. Alex clicked the door closed behind her and slid to the floor in the dark room.

  When Charlee spoke again, the words tore like bullets through Alex’s chest, ripping through flesh and muscle and bone—fatal. “I guess I’m not a part of the life you want to make for yourself anymore.”

  Her voice was ragged, rough. Charlee was crying. It only made Alex feel worse. It made her hate herself for letting stress and anger and exhaustion get the better of her. She broke, tears pooling in her eyes.

  “Don’t say that. You know it isn’t true.”

  Charlee let out the smallest hiccup of a sob and said, “You said this was forever, Alex. You said we would last forever.”

  With a trembling sigh, Alex knocked her head back against the door. “I meant it, Charlee. I did. I still do.”

  Her head swam with Charlee’s tortured murmur of “What’s happening to us?” Then the line went silent, dead, and Alex wanted to scream. She grabbed the nearest object to her, a box of paper towels from the bottom of a shelf, and chucked it as hard as she could against the back wall of the supply room. A single loud sob ripped free as it flew.

  It hit the wall with a hard thud and crashed to the ground. Alex winced at the sound. She wiped roughly at her eyes, ignoring the mess, and left. She didn’t have time to fall apart.

  “So, that was uncomfortable,” Kari says as she and Alex enter their apartment and shed their coats. Dinner had been a mostly silent affair, awkward and tense. Thankfully, Kari stopped trying to initiate conversation after the third time Alex gave her a short, clipped reply.

  Alex walks through to the back of the apartment, stripping off her shirt as she goes. She doesn’t want to have this talk, yet she knows it will happen no matter how she tries to hold it off. That doesn’t stop her from trying. “Not now, Kari,” she says, rubbing at her tired eyes and changing into her pajamas. “I’m exhausted.”

  “And I’m confused.” Following Alex into their bedroom, Kari plops down on the bed and watches as Alex changes her clothes. “Why didn’t you tell me about Charlee?”

  “You never asked.”

  “I never knew to ask.”

  “Why would I talk to you about my ex?” Alex turns to face her. “Is it normal to gush about past lovers with current lovers? Because to me, that seems like something to be avoided.”

  Kari’s brow ticks up. “Gush?”

  “What does it matter?” Alex ignores the challenge. “It’s in the past, much like all the other things we’ve never discussed and likely never will discuss.”

  “I don’t ask about the past, Alex, because it’s obvious the past is painful for you,” Kari says. “I thought it was because of your time in the foster system, and maybe it mostly is, but it’s clear now that some of it is due to this relationship I knew nothing about. What did she do to you?”

  “Nothing,” Alex snaps as a flash of fierce protectiveness ignites in her chest. “She did nothing to me. I am the reason our relationship ended, and I take full responsibility for that.”

  “Okay.” Kari puts a hand up in surrender. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know, but maybe that’s why you should tell me. We’re going to have to see her again, so I think it would be nice to have a little backstory.”

  Alex swipes a hand down her face. “I cannot believe you invited them to dinner. As if the whole introduction wasn’t awkward enough. What were you even thinking?” She shakes her head. “This is a complete train wreck.”

  “I was trying to be nice!” Kari shouts at her, and Alex reels at the crack in her voice, the way she jumps off the bed like she’s about to leave. “Those people seemed important to you, so I was trying to… Do you have any idea how it felt for me to stand there in front of a massive painting of my naked girlfriend? Painted, may I remind you, by my girlfriend’s ex-girlfriend, who also happened to be there? Do you, Alex? Do you have any idea how that made me feel?”

  Alex crumples on the spot. The whirlwind of seeing Charlee again had been so overwhelming that she hadn’t stopped to think about how the whole thing must have made Kari feel.

  Reaching for Kari’s hands, Alex tugs her into a tight embrace. “I’m sorry,” she says. “You’re right. I’m an asshole.”

  Kari collapses against Alex’s chest, looping an arm around her waist and breathing against her neck. “I didn’t say that.” She kisses Alex’s neck before leaning back to look into her eyes. “And I don’t want to make this about me, because, yeah, it was awkward and uncomfortable, but it wasn’t like you knew it was going to happen. We were only there because I took us there, so it isn’t your fault.” She follows as Alex crosses to the bed. “And I guess the fact that you never told me about Charlee isn’t something I can hold against you either. You’re right. We’ve never talked much about our p
asts, and that’s on both of us. But I’m asking now, Alex. I want to know, if you want to tell me.”

  The bed shakes a bit as Alex sits and flops backward, her back sinking into the quilt atop their mattress. When Kari settles down beside her, Alex keeps her gaze focused on the ceiling, and Kari remains quiet, waiting for her to tell their story. To say something, anything.

  “We were together in college,” she says after a long silence. “It was…intense.”

  “First love?”

  “Yes.”

  “First loves are always intense. Mine was too.” She plays with Alex’s fingertips. “How long were you together?”

  “Four years.” Alex closes her eyes. “Almost five. The entire time we were in college and a little after.”

  “Wow.” Alex can hear the surprise in her voice. “That’s a long time.”

  “Yeah.”

  “You said the breakup was your fault?”

  A sharp stab of pain pierces her chest. “My sister would say otherwise. Maybe Charlee would too.”

  It’s hard to say her name again, to force the sound of it through her lips, but it also feels good. Like some kind of release. Maybe that should scare me, but it doesn’t. It feels too good to fear it.

  “Maybe it wasn’t really anyone’s fault,” she says. “I was doing what I thought was best at the time, what I still think was right for me, but I still feel responsible. I always have.”

  “What did you do?”

  Alex swallows, then swallows again, to soothe the tightness in her throat. It doesn’t work. Her voice strains, and she wants to stop. She wants to let the words die, let the story fade back into the background. She wants to crawl up onto her pillow, close her eyes, and sleep away the sorrow clogging her throat and throbbing in her chest.

  She’s never been good at talking about her past, not any part of it. It’s always been too hard, too hard to talk about the things she remembers, the things she’s lost. Her parents. Her grandma. Her childhood. Charlee. Those experiences, and carrying the weight of them, is enough. Talking about them is like adding an extra weight, so she doesn’t. Rarely does anyone ask her to anyway. And maybe it was wrong not to tell Kari about Charlee sooner, but it’s always been so much easier to carry the weight in silence and let the past stay in the past. It made living in the present…bearable.