by Monroe, Max
A minute later, the handsome artist is out of the room and bounding down the stairs, and I’m left inside his studio, staring out the window and attempting to sit tight until he gets back.
It’s much easier to be the subject when your eyes are fixed on the gorgeous man holding the brush. It’s easy to get lost in watching his every move. The way his eyes change. The way his brow furrows. The way he licks at his bottom lip.
But without Ansel to gawk at, I can only manage to sit tight for all of two minutes.
Eventually, I get a little restless and decide to explore the expansive room.
With bare feet and curious eyes, I tiptoe around the space and take in all of the art supplies and finished paintings. I run my hand over the bottles of paint lined up in a neat row on the counters and let the various brushes tickle my fingertips.
When I notice a small, little room toward the back, I push open the already cracked door and peek inside.
More paintings. I grin and step inside, taking in the brilliance that is Ansel Bray’s mind. God, he’s talented. I let my gaze wander around the room, but when shades of brown and blue and pink catch my eyes, I stop dead in my tracks.
The girl in the painting.
Only, it’s not the same one in the gallery; it’s a different one.
The painting is a visual of her from behind, the delicate lines of her bare skin being showcased from the back of her head to her neck to the small area where her lower back meets the curves of her hips.
When my eyes make their way down her body, they freeze on the right side of her lower back and latch on to red.
A gasp jumps from my lips, and I cover my mouth with my hand.
How can that be?
Instantly, my knees buckle, and I have to reach out and grip the wall to prevent myself from falling to the floor.
But my eyes? They’re fixated. Stunned. Locked on to a tiny, red heart etched onto the girl in the painting’s skin.
And my heart starts to fold in on itself as vivid memories of the day I got my first tattoo show like a movie behind my eyes.
The memories stab like a knife, and the realization of how deep this connection between Ansel and me goes shocks me to my very core.
I am the girl in the painting. I don’t know why, but I know without a single doubt, that girl is me.
The urge to flee the situation, to try to run away from my own thoughts, is so strong, I find my feet moving of their own accord. I make my way out of the studio and into his bedroom and get myself dressed as fast as humanly possible.
Just calm down, Indy, I tell myself. Calm down. You can’t just go sprinting out of here without saying goodbye.
Shit. I have to get it together.
But how? How do I get it together after seeing that?
Ansel
Soft but quick footsteps move across the floor above me, and I smile to myself as I wait for the coffee machine to finish brewing.
I don’t know what Indy is up to, but it’s obvious she is no longer in my studio.
I open the oven to check the Pillsbury cinnamon rolls and find the dough rising and browning with the heat. One quick check of the timer and I see they have less than ten minutes left to bake.
The coffee machine beeps, and I grab two mugs from the cabinet.
Footsteps move down the stairs and make their way into the kitchen, and just as I’m pouring the fresh brew, I glance over my shoulder to find Indy walking into the room.
“Hey,” I greet with a smile before turning back to the coffeemaker. “I was just about to bring these up.” But something makes me look again, and when I do, I realize she’s fully dressed. My brow furrows in distress. “Are you leaving?”
“Yeah.” She nods and averts her gaze to her boots. “I just…uh…remembered I have a music lesson today. In about forty-five minutes, to be exact.”
A music lesson? On a Saturday?
“Oh.” I look down at her fingers and find them fidgeting against the material of her pants. “Are you sure everything is okay?”
“Yep.” She nods again, and the smile that slides across her lips feels all wrong. It’s awkward and forced, and I don’t like it. “But can I get a rain check on the cinnamon rolls?”
“Of course,” I respond with a hesitant smile. “Let me call Hank to give you a lift.”
“That’s okay.” She looks away from me. “I’m going to take the subway.”
My stomach roils with unease when I take in her shielded eyes and recount the strained, hesitant tone of her voice.
Something is wrong.
“Are you planning on stopping home first?”
“Yeah,” she answers. “I can’t exactly go to my lesson in yesterday’s clothes and covered in paint.”
Instantly, I know that the story she’s telling me is filled with lies. Not even the savviest New Yorker can make that kind of round-trip commute in forty-five minutes, let alone change and shower in between.
Is it guilt? Is she confused? Is she doubting what happened between us last night?
“You sure everything is okay?” I ask again, knowing the more I push for an answer, the further and faster she’ll run away.
“Positive,” she answers.
I hate that she’s leaving like this.
I hate that I don’t know what the fuck is happening.
This, whatever is going on, feels like it’s completely out of my control.
And all I can do is let her go.
But I refuse to let her go on some awkward, uncomfortable moment where she is lying to me through her teeth.
That is one thing I won’t let occur.
Between one breath and the next, I cut off the distance between us and pull Indy into my arms and press my lips to hers. A tiny gasp escapes her mouth, but then her lips willingly participate.
It’s deep and emotional, and with my lips, with this kiss, I try to understand what is going on and I try to tell her all of the things I can’t say, but mostly, I show her how much she means to me.
She means everything
This, us, it means everything.
Before Indy, I was the grumpy bastard who didn’t even entertain the idea of a relationship or love.
After her, I am a man who can’t live without it.
Indy
Time stands still, and the rest of the world is mere background noise.
Paint streaks the skin just below my thumb on the back of my hand, and I stare at it, mesmerized.
The subway car jockeys back and forth, light flashing through the window like a strobe, and my mind takes the opportunity to mirror it.
Intense and all-consuming, scenes and stills of Ansel and me together, paint smearing between our bodies, take my mind hostage and clog my throat.
His hands on me, my hands on him. I can still taste his tongue on the inside of my lips, and a memory of him running it along the vein in my neck draws my hand there.
The woman across from me notices the paint on it and smiles.
“Fun day?”
Sweet merciful Jesus, she has no idea.
The corner of my mouth hitches involuntarily, and she goes back to her sudoku.
And then I remember what made me leave.
My stomach turns, and the train screeches to a halt just in time.
When the doors open, I’m off in a dash, shoving people out of my way carelessly and fighting the stairs until I can get to fresh air.
Big, heaping gulps burn my lungs and steady my stomach, but I know it won’t be long before I take another turn.
If I can just make it to my apartment, maybe I’ll be able to think rationally enough to figure out something concrete. An actual fact I can latch on to to regain control.
With giant steps I imagine are better suited to someone twice my size, I see about doing just that.
People and buildings around me blur together as I traverse the few blocks between the subway and my apartment and climb the stairs inside until I’m standing in front of my place.
/> Salvation lies on the other side of this door, I’m sure of it, and answers are inside the memory box in my closet.
They have to be.
“Surprise!” Matt greets as I swing the door open, armed with a bouquet and a smile. Returned from his trip much earlier than expected—waiting for me to come home to my apartment from my lover’s studio.
Air freezes in my lungs, refusing to move out so the new can come in. Before I know it, he’s wrapping me up in his arms and pulling me inside. “God, I missed you,” he whispers and leans forward to press his lips to mine.
Rigid and unyielding, my lips take their cue from my lungs and cease to function as I know them.
He doesn’t notice.
Instantly, guilt and shame curl inside my gut.
His kiss feels all wrong, foreign and, ironically, like betrayal. The cynical part of me wants to laugh. I’m actually worried about what the man I’m cheating with will think if he finds out I’m kissing my boyfriend.
My hands shake and my stomach hollows with the realization of how low I’ve sunk and what it means I have to do now.
I’m shocked by how easily I lost myself in the actions of a morally devoid woman I swore I would never become.
Just before Matt attempts to take it deeper, to slip his tongue inside my mouth, I pull away and disentangle myself from his arms.
I’m the worst. And I’m only going to get more awful as the minutes tick by.
“You’re home early,” I say, and even though I don’t mean it to, it comes out like an accusation.
His eyebrows pull together, but he doesn’t make too much of it.
I guess he doesn’t automatically suspect that the reason for my upset is his interruption of my affair.
God, Indy. Affair.
How did I get so off course?
He nods, the pinch in his eyebrows smoothing out as he tries to explain himself. Like he’s the one who’s done something wrong. “I cut the meeting short. For once, I paid attention to how you sounded instead of what you said.”
Tugging at the scarf around my neck, I look to the carpet and question, “What do you mean? How did I sound?”
“Like you weren’t okay with the fact that I’m always gone.”
That’s just the thing, though. I was okay with it. Never disappointed or lonely, I didn’t mind Matt’s trips. I didn’t mind at all.
I should have realized what that meant earlier.
When Matt steps forward to help me take my coat off, I take two steps away from him and wrap myself in it. It feels like a barrier against everything I know is coming.
“Indy?” His brow furrows again, and this time, it sticks. “Are you okay?”
“Yes… No… I don’t know…” I pause and shake my head. “I just…I have something to tell you, and it’s not easy.”
I hate myself for the awful way I’ve strung him along.
I hate the fact that throughout our entire relationship—before that, even—I’ve basically been sleepwalking through my life.
And I really fucking hate the fact that it was another man who woke me up.
But all the hate in the world for what is doesn’t change that it is. And Matt deserves to know the truth, even if it makes me feel ugly.
“Okay,” he says slowly, trying to get his bearings in a storm he had no warning was on the horizon. “Let’s talk about it.”
It’s the last thing I want to do—to admit so many faults in myself—but I refuse to allow myself cowardice any longer.
I follow his lead into the living room, and when he sits down on my sectional, I have a hard time forcing myself to sit beside him.
Fuck, this is awful.
“What’s going on, sweetheart?”
Just tell him, Indy. It’s not going to go well, no matter how you word it.
I look into the depths of his hazel eyes, and my heart aches. So much time with one man that I gave so little effort. I mean, we’ve been together for a while, and I never once even considered moving in together.
“I…” I have to swallow hard just to open a path through my throat for the words. “I don’t think we should be together anymore.”
“What? Why?” he asks, his head jerking back with the blow. “I know I’ve been gone a lot, but I’m willing to change that.”
I’m shaking my head already, and the motion gets a little bit harder with every word he speaks.
“I know you haven’t been happy—”
“Matt,” I interrupt softly. “That’s just the thing. I haven’t been happy or unhappy or angry or sad or any other blessed thing. I’ve just been going through the motions for a long, long time.”
“Indy,” Matt starts, reaching to my leg to squeeze it. I pull it away, but he pushes forward anyway. “We can work on this. We can—”
The pressure of each word he speaks builds and builds inside my chest until I can’t take it anymore, and my emotions explode all over the room.
“I haven’t been faithful to you while you’ve been gone!” I nearly shout, unable to contain my sins any longer. It’s a far more aggressive delivery than I would have liked, but at least I don’t feel trapped inside my own body anymore.
His brow furrows, and his hazel eyes search mine, almost as if he’s not sure he’s actually understood the language I’ve used. “You…you’ve been with another man?”
“Yes,” I whisper.
“I can’t fucking believe this!”
All I can do is nod. Because honestly? Neither can I.
One day, I was just kind of muddling through each day.
And the next, I met Ansel, and my life was changed forever.
“What the fuck? Is that why you look like this?” he questions, and anger raises his voice as he takes in my less than stellar appearance. “Like you’re wearing yesterday’s fucking clothes? Because you were just with him?”
I don’t know how to respond to that.
But he takes my lack of response as answer enough. He runs his hands through his hair erratically and looks toward the window. It takes a good thirty seconds before he can look at me again. “Who?” he asks. “Who is he?”
I shake my head because I can’t bring myself to even say Ansel’s name. There’s too much at work here, and despite the fact that I want to be honest with Matt, I won’t tell him this.
“Fine,” he says. “Don’t tell me. It doesn’t matter anyway. You’ve already made up your mind, right? I mean, that is how you started the conversation. You and I are done?”
“Yes.” I don’t think I’ve ever seen Matt angry like this, and that only makes me feel worse. I’ve driven him to a place inside himself he’s not even familiar with. I know it doesn’t help with the shock or the hurt, but giving concise, truthful answers will at least shorten the experience for both of us.
“I’m sorry, Matt,” I say, but I know an apology given like this seems empty. Still, I try. “It wasn’t supposed to happen like this. This isn’t what I intended.”
“Oh, so you accidentally fucked him?”
I cringe at his poisonous, potent words, but I know I deserve it.
Matt grabs his coat and stands, and the effort it takes to follow him with my eyes feels Herculean. But I breathe through the anxiety and discomfort. It’s the least I can do after everything I’ve just done to him.
“I’m sorry,” I say again.
“Me too,” he says, and the silence stretches between us like a rubber band. It’s tight and constricting, and I feel like a bird locked inside a fucking cage.
He lets out a heavy breath and, with a sudden start, walks to the door without looking back.
It shuts behind him with a click, and just like that, an entire chapter of my life is over.
Indy
An hour has passed with me on my couch, unmoving from the spot where Matt left me. My thoughts are scattered and my brain is fried, and the paint from making love with Ansel feels dry and brittle now.
I don’t know what to do, I don’t know what to
think, and I don’t know where to go from here.
I’m single. Free to do as I please, and yet now, it somehow feels more wrong than ever.
I’m shaken by my actions, by the choices that got me here and the truths I’ve yet to face, and I’m not even sure I know myself anymore.
Another hour of reckless soul-searching passes, and at last, I pick up the phone and call Lily.
But when she answers, the enormity of the situation consumes me, and I lose control of my emotions. I sob into my hands, and the tears drip between my fingers, raining down onto my socks and the floor beneath me.
“Indy.” My sister’s voice is in my ear, and the concern and worry only make me cry harder, deeper.
“Indy, what’s wrong? Where are you?”
“H-home,” I stutter through my gasping breaths.
“Are you hurt? Are you okay?”
“N-no…I don’t know…” I can barely get the words out, and it only freaks her out more.
“Fuck you’re scaring me, Indy,” she says, and in a rush, she adds, “Just stay there. Stay right there. I’m coming over.”
And I don’t try to stop her.
Instead, I whisper, “Thank you.”
Not even an hour later, four frantic knocks pound against my front door.
When I open it, Lily’s eyes are wide and worried, and she scrutinizes my face. She takes in the remnants of my tears and my red eyes and my trembling lip and the paint still on my arms.
“Oh my god. Are you hurt? What’s going on?” she asks. I just throw myself into her arms.
She grunts her surprise but doesn’t push me away.
Instead, she lets me cry into her shoulder while she eases us into my apartment, shuts the door, and leads us toward the couch.
She sits me down, takes off her jacket, and then sits down beside me, wrapping her arm around my shoulders and pulling me closer to her. “What’s going on, Indy?” she asks. “You need to tell me something because I am freaking out over here.”
“God, Lily…” My voice shakes, and my lips turn down into a frown. “I don’t even know where to begin…”
“Well…” She offers a soft smile and gently rubs my back. “The beginning is generally a good place to start.”