Heartache

by Danielle Allen

  “What do you think?” Charlotte asked, appearing from behind a wall.

  I wiped my hands down my face before folding my arms across my chest. “I wasn’t nervous before, but after seeing all of this... Yeah, I’m nervous as shit now.”

  “Good. When you stop feeling like that, you stop being humble.” She nodded before walking back toward the makeshift bar. “And the suit was a nice touch.”

  Before I could thank her for the compliment, she started discussing food and drink options with the caterers.

  As eight o’clock approached, I became a nervous wreck. I checked my phone again and I didn’t have any missed calls or emails.

  Did she not get my invitation? Or did she get it and decide not to come?

  I put the heel of my hand over my heart and pressed. The thought of being rejected was a tough pill to swallow.

  I was never the type of person who needed the validation of others. I painted what I wanted. I painted what I felt. I painted what I knew. And that was always enough. But I felt lightheaded as the first wave of event attendees arrived and there was no sign of the one person I invited.

  “Just beer and wine?” I verified with the bartender as I approached him.

  “Yes and you look like you need this,” he replied, handing me a glass of white wine.

  I would’ve rather had a beer…or a rum and coke, but okay.

  Taking two glasses, I headed to the back door. It was a staff only exit, but I needed some air. I needed to breathe.

  As soon as I got outside, I sucked in as much air as my lungs could take until I felt like I could breathe again normally.

  “What is going on with me?” I muttered to myself.

  I finished the glasses of wine as I swept my eyes up and down the alley. There was no one else around. The noise of the city seemed far away. The view wasn’t anything remarkable. But out of nowhere, I felt at peace. The mini break and the alcohol gave me the calmness I needed.

  I just have to let it go, I thought, remembering the sage advice I’d been given. Whatever happens, tonight will be fine.

  When I reentered the building, I felt like a new person. I mingled with other artists, buyers, art enthusiasts, and people who just walked in off of the street because they were intrigued. I scanned each face, but gave up thirty minutes into the event. I was becoming too preoccupied with the slim possibility of her showing up.

  If she was coming, she would’ve been here by now.

  When I was asked to go around and talk about each piece, I didn’t hesitate because I needed to focus on the art. And all of the people in attendance were interested in the art. They wanted to know more about the subjects. They wanted to know about the materials I used. They wanted to know less about me and more about my craft. That helped keep me focused as I walked around and talked about each piece.

  At each painting, the crowd who wanted the discussion got bigger. By the time we had moved to the final painting, everyone in the building was looking and listening. I finished up my brief overview of the work and then I waited. My heart started beating fast because I knew the same questions that they had asked about all of the other paintings were going to be asked about this one too.

  Shit, I should’ve thought about that before I agreed to do this impromptu discussion.

  “This one seems different than the others,” someone in the middle of the pack pointed out. Because of the murmuring, I couldn’t tell if it was a man or a woman speaking. “It seems more…I don’t know, raw, maybe.”

  It is.

  “How so?” I returned, hardening my face. I didn’t want to advertise what the painting meant to me.

  “Well… where the others seemed to convey a specific emotion, this one just seems emotional. Does that make sense?”

  Here we go.

  I nodded, but didn’t add anything. I didn’t want to encourage him.

  “Yeah, you’re right,” a young woman in the front spoke up. “This one seems more romantic, more personal.”

  My throat felt like it was starting to close up and my heart was pounding in my chest. I nodded.

  “Very good insights. Does anyone have a question?”

  “You used these little metallic pieces on all of the other paintings, but not on this one. Why?”

  I let out a small breath. “I didn’t want to compromise the piece. I did this one first and it’s special. The other paintings needed the flecks of foil to compare to this one, not the other way around.”

  As the murmuring heightened at the newest revelation, I heard another question in the midst of it.

  “The others have a marker indicating the price, but this one doesn’t. Was that an oversight?”

  “No. It’s not for sale.”

  A college-aged man with a notebook in his hand lifted his pen and asked, “What’s the title of this one?”

  I cleared my throat. “Heartache.”

  “Is she the one that got away?” the woman in the front asked as her eyes widened.

  I looked at Charlotte who was already on her way over. “We’re going to conclude the question and answer portion of our exhibition. Now, if we can switch gears, I’d like to propose a toast. After every show, I like to toast all of the fine people who attend, so get your glasses filled to the brim so we can continue that tradition,” she stated firmly, dispersing the crowd.

  Closing my eyes, I ran my hands over my face. My heart was still pounding in my chest.

  That was intense.

  “That was intense.”

  My eyes flew open at the sound of her voice and it took me a second to wrap my mind around what I was seeing.

  “You came,” I choked out in disbelief.

  My eyes scanned her from head to toe, memorizing every detail in case it was the last time I’d see her. From the way her hair was pinned up to the sexy black high heels she wore, I couldn’t stop staring.

  “I did,” Bianca said with a nod, taking a step toward me. Her eyes moved down my body and she smiled. “You clean up nice.”

  I waited until our eyes locked before I said, “You are absolutely beautiful.”

  Bianca chewed on the corner of her lip. “Thank you.”

  My mouth went dry as I realized she was just as nervous as I was. I took two steps forward. “Were you here the whole time?”

  “Did you think I would miss your first New York show?” She took a small step forward, licking her lips. My eyes zeroed in on her tongue as it moved from one corner of her mouth to the other.

  “Did you like it?” I asked nervously as I took the final step, bringing us face-to-face, eye-to-eye.

  “I loved it. You’ve outdone yourself. And I’m so proud of you, Ro.”

  God, I missed the sound of her voice. I could listen to her say my name over and over again.

  The thought reminded me of our one and only night together and my dick stirred.

  “It’s time for the toast!” Charlotte announced, putting glasses in our hands.

  As Charlotte gave her toast to me and those who attended, I watched Bianca. I still couldn’t believe she was standing next to me. After almost five months of separation, just being next to her was weakening me.

  Leaning over to her, I caught a whiff of vanilla and coconut oil and I swallowed around the lump in my throat. “Will you go for a walk with me? I think I saw a café up the street,” I whispered.

  She nodded as she chewed on the corner of her lip.

  Once the toast was over, I thanked Charlotte and agreed to meet with her before my flight in the morning. Bianca and I walked out of Orchard Gallery and headed in the direction of my hotel. I couldn’t remember exactly where the café was, but I knew I had seen it on the walk over.

  We were both quiet as we made our way down the sidewalk.

  “Are you happy?” I asked.

  “Are you?” she questioned automatically.

  I stopped and wrapped my hand around her wrist, causing her to stop as well. Touching her for the first time in months, I felt the
buzz of electricity that still existed between us. “I don’t want to play the game. I need to know if you’re happy.”

  Bianca wouldn’t look me in my eyes. “I’ve been too busy to think about it with the baby on the way.”

  Oh shit, she’s pregnant? She can’t be pregnant. She doesn’t look pregnant. But we didn’t use a condom that night. The one time I don’t use a condom I get someone pregnant! Oh my God. Bianca and I are going to be parents. I mean, it’s unexpected, but I could—

  When she looked up at me, her eyebrows flew up. “No.” She shook her head. “No no no no no no. I’m not pregnant! Amber is pregnant. Remember? And the baby is due any day now. I’m helping her out while she figures out some stuff with her boyfriend.”

  A mix of relief and disappointment flooded my system. “Oh, okay.”

  I was relieved to not have a baby on the way, but I couldn’t help but feel a little let down.

  Bianca looked at me in that way that let me know she was reading me like a book. “Did you want me to be pregnant?”

  It was my turn to look away. I shrugged. “Not particularly. But if you were, it would mean that you would be back in my life. And I didn’t hate that idea.”

  “Well, I’m surprised,” Bianca acknowledged, crossing her arms over her chest as she started walking again. “We didn’t leave on the best terms. And a baby definitely wouldn’t have fixed what happened between us.”

  I quickly fell into step with her. “No, we didn’t leave on the best terms and I didn’t mean that a baby would fix things with us. I just meant… I was…”

  I just meant I was going to be happy if she was the mother of my child? That’s not even what I meant… was it? I don’t even know anymore. What am I even talking about? What the fuck is wrong with me? Yeah, I’m killing this conversation.

  We walked in silence for a couple of blocks.

  “B, thank you for accepting my invitation to come to my show.”

  “Thank you for inviting me.”

  “It wasn’t easy to find you. But I’m glad I did.”

  Two weeks before my exhibition, I couldn’t find Bianca’s address anywhere. But with a little help from Malik, I was able to use his IT skills and social media to find Bianca’s new workplace. With a little searching, Malik and I were able to find a congratulatory message that Amber had posted urging people to stop by Pho Gallery to say hi to her best friend. After that, it was easy to find an address and mail an invitation to her.

  It was the waiting on a response that was the hard part.

  “I’m not going to lie… After the whole thing with Meredith, I was equal parts creeped out and impressed that you were able to find me,” she teased before her voice broke with laughter.

  My heart seized at the sound.

  I’ve missed her jokes. I’ve missed her laugh. I’ve missed her.

  “I hope it was more impressive than creepy,” I joked as I chuckled along with her. When our laughter died down, I continued. “But either way, I’m glad I was able to get the invitation to you. I don’t have your new number or your address and I didn’t know if you had received my email.”

  She gave me an apologetic smile. “I changed my privacy settings so that any email from you would go to my spam folder.”

  I nodded and smiled back. “I understand.” I paused for a second. “I’m sorry I pushed you away. I’m an asshole.”

  “I know.” She glanced over at me. “That you’re sorry and that you’re an asshole.”

  I smirked.

  If she’s joking with me, that’s a good sign.

  “I replay our last conversation in my head and I just wish it didn’t go down like that,” she said quietly, holding onto my arm as she side stepped a pothole. She let go too quickly and I felt the loss.

  “Me too,” I agreed, ignoring the flutter in my chest from the brief contact. “I’ve thought about it a lot over the last few months. Everything about that day was fucked. I know I didn’t handle anything the way I should’ve and I regret that. And whenever I would dream about you, I always imagined it going down differently.”

  Looking away from Bianca I noticed that we were approaching my hotel. I looked back… and then I looked ahead again.

  How did I miss the café? I looked around again. I guess we can just go to the hotel bar.

  When our eyes met again, I felt something shift. Her voice was barely audible when she murmured, “You dream about me?”

  “All the time.” Giving the doorman a nod, I opened the glass door of the hotel for her.

  “What would you have done differently?”

  I didn’t want to walk and talk. I wanted her to see me, all of me, when I told her my truth.

  Pulling her into an alcove next to the bar, I looked her into her eyes. “I wouldn’t have let you leave like that. If I had it to do all over again, I wouldn’t have let you walk out of my life. I wouldn’t have taken things out on you that had nothing to do with you. And…” I hesitated, swallowing around the lump in my throat.

  She looked down briefly and then back up at me. Her eyes were brimming with tears. “I didn’t come here for this. I swear to God, I just came to support you.” She took a ragged breath. “I can’t go through this again.”

  “I know. And I’m glad you came to the show. Because I need to say this to your face.” I took her face into my hands and as soon as I touched her soft cheeks, the first tear fell.

  “Don’t do this to me, Roman. Not again. It’s taken me a long time to get to the point where I’m okay. Please don’t do this.”

  “I have to, B.” I wiped her tears with my thumbs. “I want to be honest with you. And I made peace with what has happened because there’s nothing I can do to change what I did to you. But I do believe you deserve the truth. So hear me out… please.”

  She chewed on her lip for a while before she finally nodded. Pulling out of my grasp, she turned her back to me and wiped her eyes. When she turned back around new tears had formed, but they didn’t fall.

  “You meant too much to me. And it was too much, too soon. It seemed like all of a sudden, I couldn’t stop thinking about you. I couldn’t stop wanting you. I needed you, Bianca. And from the day I realized I needed you, I started pushing you away, sabotaging our relationship. And I’m sorry for that because the last thing I ever wanted to do was hurt you. You meant everything to me. Hell, you still mean everything to me.”

  Her shoulders started to shake and it took everything in me not to reach out for her again.

  “The last five months have been hell for me. But I needed to go through that. I needed to grieve. Not just for what I lost with you, but for everything. I never gave myself the chance to grieve everything that’s happened to me. And while I was going through that process, it occurred to me that you are and have been for a while, the single most important person in my life.”

  “Roman,” she whispered, closing her eyes.

  I couldn’t resist the way she said my name and I wrapped my hands around her neck, cradling her head with my thumbs.

  “Bianca, five months ago I was in love with you, but I was so wrapped up in the past and what would go wrong that I didn’t fully see what I was doing to you right then and there. I didn’t want to hurt you. I didn’t mean to hurt you. But I did. And you were absolutely right when you said I didn’t deserve you. It hurt like hell to hear, but it was the truth. Deep down, I knew it too.”

  “I didn’t—”

  Her statement ended in a gust of air as I put my forehead against hers, looking deeply into her eyes.

  “I have to get this out,” I interrupted, feeling myself getting choked up.

  She nodded and took a fraction of a step closer to me.

  Feeling her body just barely grazing mine weakened me. I removed my forehead from hers and gazed at her. “It didn’t take me five months to realize that I fucked up. I knew that the moment you walked out the door. But it took me five months to realize that it wasn’t you that I didn’t trust; it was me.”


  Confusion crossed her face. “What?”

  “I didn’t think I would survive another blow… the thing with Tia, the thing with Elizabeth and William, the thing with my birth mother. It all added up and it was too much. And then you came along and what I felt between us, felt like another thing that would implode. It felt like another thing that would break me down. And I didn’t think I could handle it falling apart. I didn’t trust that I would recover from you, from us.”

  Her eyes brimmed with tears and she blinked them back.

  “But over the last few months, I realized that the reason I didn’t think I would recover from us is because you’re the one,” I said softly, getting lost in her chocolate brown eyes. “You’re it for me, B.”

  Bianca’s face crumbled before me and I had to fight the emotion that burned my throat. Pulling her into me, I sighed when I felt her arms wrap around me and I brought my lips to the center of her forehead. I relished in the feeling of her soft body melding into mine. I knew she could feel my heart pounding in my chest. I knew she could feel that I was shaking.

  “Roman—”

  “Please, I’m almost done,” I uttered in a strangled whisper.

  Tilting her head upwards, I raked my teeth over my bottom lip. “I don’t know if you’re single. I don’t know how you feel about me. I don’t know if you’ve moved on. But I need to tell you the truth. Five months ago, I was in love with you, but I was too scared to do anything about it. Today, I’m in love with you and I’m scared shitless not to do anything about it.”

  I looked away from her to prevent the tears that had welled up in my eyes from falling. I let out a lungful of air and then our eyes locked again. Everything I had gone through had led me to that moment and I wasn’t going to fuck it up.

  I pulled her face within an inch of mine. My lips hovered over hers, begging to be given permission to make contact. My emotions were getting the best of me and my voice broke as I continued, “I love you, Bianca. I’m so madly in love with you. I don’t care what I have to do. I don’t care how long it takes. I won’t lose you again. I won’t fuck this up. I will fight for you.”