by Lexy Timms
But I didn’t have to tell Max any of this. I could tell by his eyes he was already thinking about it.
“It’s not mine,” I said. “There’s a local artist who paints on her back porch. I told her I’d put up a painting or two of her things to test out the community. See if they enjoyed it.”
“Do they like her stuff?” he asked.
“They do. She’s been up for a couple of weeks now,” I said.
“How many has she sold?”
“Max, don’t.”
“How many, Hailey?”
“Four paintings in the last two weeks,” I said.
“Four paintings,” he said.
“Max, in the whole of San Diego, there are multiple trends of art, all with different audiences who have different tastes. Maybe this side of town isn’t the audience for your art. Maybe you should do some of the park art showcases and take notes.”
“Take notes,” he said.
“You know, take stock of who’s interested in your art. Get their numbers. Start an email list. Ask them where they live. What they enjoy doing. You said you’ve been having some success online, right?” I asked.
“Oh, yes.”
“Then you might be one of those lucky artists who could do everything from their home. Maybe you don’t need a gallery. Just your online audience, a way to ship out your paintings, and a place to paint.”
“If your gallery was failing, and your only choice was to relegate yourself to your little home and do everything online, would you give this up? What you’ve built with your own two hands?”
He finally turned to me, and I could see the sadness in his beautiful multicolored eyes. His bright features that had once drawn from me giggles and flirtatious blushes were now muted tones of sadness and depression. Before I could catch what I was doing, I walked over to him and wrapped my arms around his shoulders. I felt him stiffen at first before he caved, wrapping his long, languid arms around me.
I could feel his face burying into the crook of my neck while I comforted him in the middle of my studio.
“If it’s any consolation, I adore your aesthetic and your style.”
“You do?” he asked.
“I do, and if you give it enough time, and you want to keep showcasing your artwork here, I’m sure others will, too. Your business cards with your website and your address are flying off my counter faster than I can keep them restocked. Get some more to me, and I’ll keep them up as well.”
“Thanks,” he said as he released me.
“Max, I’m serious. You have to give it time.”
“I’ve been here for two years. You’ve been here less than two months,” he said.
“But I traveled for years. I’ve been everywhere. Phoenix. Denver. The twin cities. Seattle. Los Angeles.”
I had to close my eyes and draw in a deep breath to keep myself steady during this conversation.
“The point is, many of those cities didn’t enjoy my artwork. The twin cities were merciless, and I had to take on a part-time job just to keep myself afloat in Denver. If worst comes to worst, maybe the city isn’t right for you. I failed on many occasions. Some failures were much bigger than others and cost me more than I even care to admit.”
“I’m sorry for all you’ve suffered,” he said.
“I never said anything about suffering,” I said, snickering.
“You didn’t, but your eyes did.”
I looked up at him and felt his hand graze my cheek. I studied him intently, allowing his smooth voice to sink into my ears. His thumb stroked my cheek gently, rising up within me a blush I couldn’t control. For an instant, I thought I saw the faintest smile cross his cheek before he dropped his hand and cleared his throat.
“I adore San Diego. For all the failure of my own artistic pursuits, it’s been kind to me in other ways. I’m not ready to give up on it yet.”
“Then don’t. Give it time. People will come around. I’m sure of it.”
“Could I ask you a question?”
“Sure,” I said.
“You have a wonderful storage shed out back. I noticed it the last time I came. I had to park all the way out there to find a place to put my car.”
“Then you probably came at lunchtime,” I said, grinning.
“Is it always that busy around here at lunchtime?” he asked.
“It’s coming to be that way, yes. I’m sorry I missed you. When did you come?”
“It was a couple weeks ago. Not a big deal. I only came by to see if my paintings were still on the wall or not.”
“Well, the next time you come in, track me down. You’re starting to become a nice sight for sore eyes,” I said.
“I’ll keep that in mind,” he said, smiling.
“Ah, there’s that smile. All right. What about my storage shed? You curious as to where I got it? Because if you are, you’re out of luck. It was here when I purchased the building.”
“Actually, no. What do you keep in there?” he asked.
“Paintings, mostly.”
“Paintings you’ll eventually showcase?”
“Not really,” I said. “They’re from an artist who passed away.”
“Why wouldn’t you showcase something like that? It would be a great way to honor their memory,” he said.
“It’s a bit more complicated than that. I also keep it as an overflow space for things I sell in my small little shop.”
“When you’re not gutting pumpkins in it?” he asked, grinning.
“Exactly. But I’m sure people wouldn’t want me to be gutting pumpkins where I’m usually painting, so I moved that whole workshop back here. Don’t worry. I keep everything nice and clean,” I said, winking.
“How did you know the artist?” he asked.
“Hm?”
“The artist who died. How did you know them?”
I closed my eyes while I tried to keep the memories at bay. If there was any person I was going to talk to about all this, it most certainly wasn’t Max. He was a nice guy, and I had to admit he had a natural charm about him, but that subject was deeply personal. John’s paintings didn’t just conjure memories of Los Angeles and our art therapy classes together anymore.
They also conjured memories of Bryan, a man I’d come to hurt more than I’d ever intended.
“I’m just waiting for the right time, I guess. It’s a personal venture, too, and I’m not quite ready for it.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about, but I can respect personal ventures. Let me know when you start hanging them. I’d love to come take a look and dive more into the story behind all of this,” he said.
“I’ll keep you in the loop,” I said.
“Well, I must be heading off. I have a check to cash, and I can finally get you a couple of new paintings I just finished.”
“Wonderful. You can drop them off anytime, and I’ll get them on the wall,” I said.
I turned and went back into the small little room where I had started tracing the stencil on a massive pumpkin. Max bringing up John’s paintings threw me back to this inevitable meeting I was having with Bryan. He deserved to know the truth, the absolute truth, no matter what it did to him. He needed closure. Bryan deserved the kind of closure I knew I could give him, but if I somehow didn’t get through to him, I knew it would truly be over for both of us.
I didn’t only want to communicate what happened to his brother and my memories of him, I wanted to communicate to him that none of this had been planned. I hadn’t planned to settle in San Diego and track him down. I hadn’t planned on falling in love with him. I hadn’t planned on giving myself over to him like I did. It had just happened. I needed him to know I still loved him, and I was still willing to work on things, despite how he tossed me out onto his porch after using me.
I knew Anna wouldn’t be happy with that truth, and I knew Bryan wouldn’t be either, but there were things he needed to say like there were things I needed to say.
I picked up my carving
knife and made the first of many incisions. I allowed myself to be swept away by the rhythmic cutting of the pumpkin’s flesh, the orange slowly giving way to the picture I wanted. I heard my phone buzzing on the counter near the cash register, but I had no intentions of picking it up. It was probably Anna, trying to figure out if I needed anything here at the gallery, but all I needed was for her to back off.
All I needed was to get this talk with Bryan over with.
Chapter 13
Bryan
Halloween was just a couple days away, and I could feel the excitement lingering in the air. Children were chattering about costumes, and parents were hauling bags of candy to their cars. All the while, I was standing outside Hailey’s art studio door. It was opening and closing frantically with happy customers lugging their artwork and pre-carved pumpkins home. I couldn’t help feeling a small flicker of pride well up in my chest for her success. There was a part of me that ached that I hadn’t been here for the grand opening to usher in this new part of her life that seemed to be doing so well.
I scooted over toward the window and saw her chatting with a customer. People were pointing out paintings on the walls, asking about prices and fondling the tags hanging from them. Some people were asking her about the easel up front, and I had to duck down when she looked over, so she wouldn’t spot me. I wasn’t ready to have this conversation with her, especially in front of customers. I wasn’t ready to hash this out and attempt to stuff my feelings down, so I could listen to her ramble on about someone she never really knew, someone she felt she knew because he painted some pictures before he shot himself up in an alleyway or some shit.
I took a deep breath and listened as her door kept opening and closing. I took a deep breath and stood up, no longer seeing her through the window. I turned my head toward the diner and started over that way, feeling my stomach rumbling with hunger. It’d been weeks since Drew and I had been over there. I’d been avoiding it because of the proximity to Hailey’s gallery, but I knew Drew was avoiding it because I was.
I walked into the diner and sat down, taking in all the Halloween decorations that had been put up. Many of the waitresses perked up when I came in, waving to me with wide smiles on their faces. I’d forgotten how much this place warmed my soul, and I felt the joy I garnered from this place spreading through my limbs. I sat down, and our regular waitress came over, a double chocolate milkshake already in her hand as she set it in front of me. No whipped cream but cherries on both the bottom and covering the top.
Just how I enjoyed it the first time I’d shared a milkshake with Hailey.
“Been a while since I’ve seen your pretty face in here,” she said, smiling. “You feelin’ all right?”
I looked back across the road out through the window and saw Hailey helping a customer stuff painting after painting in the back of his car. Holy shit, she was doing wonderfully. Had it been this busy since she opened?
“Oh, yeah. I’m doing fine. Just really busy with work. Opening new job sites and such.”
“Where’s your fun little friend?” she asked.
“Drew? He’s ...”
How could I tell her he was pricing out stuff to open his own tattoo shop? How could I tell her I was here trying to speak with my ex about what happened between her and my dead brother? How could I tell her my life was secretly going to shit, and I was slowly turning into the shadow of what my parents used to be?
“He’s actually not feeling too well, working too much and not resting enough to recuperate. I’m about to chain him to his bed,” I said, grinning.
“Well, you tell that man to get better. If he needs a milkshake or a warm pick-me-up, it’s on the house when he comes back in here.”
“I’ll be sure to let him know, thank you.”
I started mindlessly spooning the milkshake into my mouth as the waitress took off. I noticed she didn’t take my order even though she started calling out food for my table, and that’s when I realized I had been here way too much. This was Drew’s and my spot for sure, but it was slightly tainted with Hailey. We’d come over here and had milkshakes one time, and she loved them so much, she had gotten another one to go. The look on her face while she was sucking down that milkshake through that straw had squirmed me in my seat. This was right before the second time we’d slept with one another, and I felt every single hair on my body stand on end.
I was thrown back to that night about a week ago. When she showed up on my porch while I was drunk. I thought it was a hate fuck, something to get her out of my system. I knew if I had a really good orgasm without tending to her needs at all, I could flush her completely from my system and be done with her. That’s how it was supposed to work. That’s what Drew told me was supposed to happen.
But all it did was cover my home in her scent. All it did was force me to replace that damn couch. All it did was make me scrub harder in the shower because now her perfume was once again underneath my nose. My heart now fluttered with the thought of her again, and my dreams were permeated with her writhing underneath me. The encounter we’d had only served to reopen my heart to a woman who’d tossed it onto the ground and stomped it into oblivion, and I hated myself for it.
I hated that I still loved Hailey, no matter what she had done to me.
It was annoying. As the waitress sat my order down in front of me, all I could think about was this impending conversation. I started to dip my fries in my chocolate milkshake while I continued to stare across the street. The customers were slowly dying down, and most of them were coming over here for lunch. I started wondering if that happened every day. If every lunch shift, customers would flood her shop before flooding this diner. If that was the case, she was doing exactly what she’d wanted to do.
She was reviving a dead area of town with nothing but the beauty of her artwork.
Of course, she would be successful. Of course, that would mean she would stick around. Of course, there was a part of me that was happy for her. Proud of her. Rooting her on even though she fed me deceit while we were together. I ate my food faster, trying to stuff all the memories down with the food settling into my stomach. One by one, the customers left her shop and came over here, filling up the diner I’d come to know so intimately with faces that seemed to foreign.
Except none of the waitresses seemed to be addressing anyone in a foreign manner.
That meant these people were regulars, which meant Hailey’s art gallery was always this busy with regulars who were coming to see her artwork.
I finished my milkshake and left my plate of half-eaten food on the table. One by one, the cars trickled from the parking lot until there was no one left but her across the street. I threw some bills onto the table and started for the door, suddenly feeling full of the energy I needed to have this conversation. I strode across the road, feeling my shoulders roll back in confidence as the energy from my lunch coursed through my system, but there was still an inkling of doubt in the back of my mind.
I knew this conversation was important, but I still wasn’t sure if I was ready to have it.
I almost ducked out and went to my car. I almost turned my body and ran back across the street. I almost caved into the familiar feeling of fear as I approached the front door of Hailey’s gallery, but before I could turn my back, my hand was on the doorknob and the door was rushing open.
My eyes lifted to take in Hailey, standing in the middle of the room with paintings surrounding her. Her walls were almost completely bare, and I could tell she was trying to figure out where to put the paintings at her feet. I noticed some still had a creepy Halloween feel to them, but I also noticed there were a few pieces of artwork hanging on the walls that weren’t done by her. I’d been around her painting long enough to get a feel for her style, and the brushstrokes were all different. A couple of the paintings were too bright for her tastes, but one of the paintings was dark, way too dark, even for her.
I studied the darkened painting and wondered where it had come from. It
was a picture of a man in the woods, his figure cloaked in darkness. The forest was black with only a little bit of sunlight streaming through the trees, but it was enough for the audience to realize that the trees weren’t green. They were crimson red. Like blood.
I walked slowly toward the painting and allowed my fingertips to reach out to it. No, this wasn’t something Hailey could do. Her soul was too attuned to the natures and the emotions of others around her to be this dark. She experienced too much joy in her life to paint something this morbid. I looked closer and saw the figure in the woods hunched over like maybe he was in pain or screaming out for help. I had no idea whether it was a man or a woman, but there was something deep inside of me that called to the dark man alone in the woods while he was surrounded by blood-dripping trees.
My eyes finally peeled from the painting and scanned the bare walls, my soul silently congratulating her on her success. Bare walls meant people were purchasing her artwork, which meant she was becoming profitable. It meant she was pulling people into this side of town and exposing a beauty to this rundown part of San Diego that hadn’t been touched in years. I wanted to ask her if she was doing her classes and if she was holding her art therapy sessions yet. I wanted to ask her if she’d had any formal galleries with cocktails and finger foods and shit like that.
I wanted to ask her if she was still thinking about showcasing John’s paintings like I knew she’d mentioned during that initial conversation that ended it all.
But before I could turn around and get my bearings, I felt his heavy weight descend around my neck. I felt this warmth encompass my body while my eyes tried to adjust. There was something pressed into the crook of my neck while my arms stayed rigid at my sides, and my instinct was to push the object away, to get out from whatever grip someone had me in.
