But my heart sinks, because Andrew still doesn't get it.
We've been pretending to move away from our past, but instead have only been limping in huge circles around it. Together, using each other to avoid facing the things that brought us pain. I wound up back in the place I started, hurting for answers, starving for the truth.
And Andrew?
Sooner or later he'll end up back in the place he's been dreading, too.
THIRTY-SEVEN
COLE
TELLING HER WHAT I feel would've been easier than facing the rattling in my chest as I watched her walk away last night. There's still fight left in me. There's still a furious need to win her over. I just don't know how much of that is greed. I've always been greedy when it came to her. I've never stopped to consider what I want might not be what's best for her.
And so I fight back the impulse to go after her, at least for a night.
Because impulsivity has always been part of my problem. The man I try to be, the man I've crawled through hell to become, knows how to sit in discomfort. Even if it means tying my own hands behind my back long enough to see the bigger picture.
Last night, I resisted the immediate gratification that showing up at her doorstep would have brought me. Instead, I headed back to my studio and painted until the sky behind the windows was light again. Then I slept for a few hours, waking up when Grant called my phone, though I didn't answer.
This morning, I'm still overcome by the need to create, to exorcise the demons that won't ever stop chasing me. And for hours on end, I turn myself inside out and splatter everything I am onto canvases. It's like I'm looking for answers in the abstract shapes to quell the need inside me to see her again. Looking for definitive words to spell it out for me once and for all.
It's over, man. Let her go.
But I don't find those words. All I find is her, in everything I make. And after countless hours and a dozen paintings, I start to wonder if she'll ever leave my head. My heart. My soul.
I look for reasons why I shouldn't try to talk to her again and all I find is confirmation that I'm not ready to let her go. And by the time the sun sets, I decide I should at least tell her how I feel. She should know I'm still in love with her. I don't know if it will change anything, it probably won't. But if I tell her, then at least I'll know I did everything I could.
I'm going to go try to talk her again, tonight.
With the decision made, I relax for the first time, tired from the marathon of thoughts and colors my brain has created. When a knock comes from the studio doors, I freeze. Somehow, I know exactly who it is. And when I open the door, I find the breath of air I've been struggling for from the moment she walked away.
It's as if my decision whispered out into the night and lured her right to my doorstep.
"You're here," I blurt out.
She seems nervous.
"Hi," she says. "Can I come in?"
"Of course, yeah, come in."
I run a hand over my hair as she walks inside and turns to face me.
"I was at work today and couldn't stop thinking of an idea I have for a painting," she says. "I couldn't think of where else to go."
My mouth opens long before sound comes out. "You came to paint?"
I don't know why the suggestion squeezes my chest, flooding me with pure contentment.
"If that's okay." She fiddles with her hands in front of her, as though expecting me to say no.
"Absolutely," I rush to say. "I'll get everything set up for you."
She nods, then moves past me to stroll around my studio. There are canvases scattered throughout. Some are as big as a wall, others small enough to hold at arm's length. Aside from the pieces I've been working on over the past few days, there are canvases scattered throughout the studio, among other art projects.
She walks around the wooden table littered with pieces of multicolored glass, which were glued to a column to make a mosaic. She runs her fingers over the clay mold of a woman with her hands covering her face. On another table a few feet away, there are floor plans to another exhibit that I've been teasing away at for the past year.
Seeing my studio through her eyes makes me realize what chaos it is. Most artists have a preferred medium to express themselves and once they find it, they hone it. My head works in a million directions. Sometimes, I need color spread on a canvas. Other times, I need clay between my fingers. Most days, my ideas are intangible, concepts I could not make myself but need the help of technology to bring to life.
As I watch her, I soak in her curiosity and fascination in the pieces. It's far from what I remember. She had been only mildly interested in my art before, but now she seems lost in it. Granted, I didn't do much of it when we were together. Rare were the days inspiration struck. It had been dulled much in the way I'd dulled a lot of things. In running from my demons, I ran away from the only thing that could help me tame them.
I tear my eyes away from Mila and head to a nearby shelf to grab a canvas. I manage to set it up a few feet away from one I've been working on before she notices.
She walks over, her thumb between her teeth the way it is when her thoughts are loud.
"Full disclosure," she says, "I don't know anything about painting."
"Lucky for you, there's no experience required."
She opens her mouth to disagree, the doubt in her eyes as loud as her thoughts.
I raise a finger to stop her.
"I'll be right beside you, finishing up this painting. What is it you want to make?"
"I see it in my head, but I don't even know where to start."
I busy myself setting up a workstation for her on a side table with brushes and paints, a rag to wipe the brush on. She surveys the items I've laid out.
"I'd need water."
I smile. "I thought you knew nothing about painting."
"Well," she says, squinting up at me, "I'd guess water is part of it. Don't I need it to thin the colors? How will I clean the brushes?"
"You don't. Just wipe the excess paint off. Don't clean the brush, don't use water to dilute the colors. Let the colors mix, let them be raw. These are premixed with a slow-dry medium. It will help give you time to blend without any water."
"You're bossy," she says, amusement stirring her expression. "I think you were right the other day, you really are more like me."
Her playful retort takes me off guard. I think it takes her by surprise, too. Her eyes dart away to the empty canvas. It's as though, for a minute, she slipped into the Mila I used to know. The smartass who kept me on my toes.
I take her hand. She draws in a breath at my touch. I place the handle of a brush in her palm and close her fingers around it.
"Just don't overthink it," I say. "Art can't be wrong."
I pull my hand away from hers, my fingertips still prickling the way they do whenever I touch her. She lowers her gaze to my lips, and I swear she's going to throw the brush aside and jump on top of me the way she used to, wrapping her legs around my waist and bringing her arms around my neck. I know her so well I can see the thought of movements flash before her eyes. But that's all it was, a flash. She turns and heads to the door. The question of where she's going lodges in my throat, as I'm plunged into disappointment.
She stops at the door and removes her jacket to reveal a light blue blouse, then rolls up her sleeves. My eyes are drawn to her tattoo. Words along her forearm, disappearing under her sleeve again. I was right, it wraps all the way around. I could see it in my head even before I knew what it looked like. I'm dying to know what it says, but I'm hanging on to hope she'll stay longer.
She walks back over to her canvas and her chest rises as she takes in a deep breath.
"Okay," she says. "I think I can do this."
Sensing fragile deliberation, and fearing it could break, I remain silent. I move past her, closer than I need to, to my own canvas to recommence my painting without a word.
I work in silence with her standing mere feet a
way. She glances at me a few times before she pours out globs of colors to use. I pretend to focus on my task but really, my body is tuned to her every move. Even to the small sigh of uncertainty she lets out as she dips a brush in paint and lifts it to the canvas.
Her movements are stiff at first, just a single stroke of the brush before pausing. I risk a glimpse at the deep gray she's smeared against the center of the canvas. She lifts the brush once more, hesitates, then dips it back into paint. Black this time. She layers the color over the gray then goes still again.
The first mark is always the hardest. It ruins the canvas and solidifies your intent.
"You're doing great," I say.
"You're a liar," she shoots back, but I catch the twitch of her lips.
Minutes pass where she makes several short and indecisive strokes on the canvas. I take a step back from my own, lifting the brush and flicking paint across it. She watches me do it then imitates the same thing, only there's too much paint on her brush and specks of it fly across to me, landing on my shirt.
"Shit," she mutters.
"It's fine," I say, not looking at her directly.
She nods, before continuing to layer on paint, sticking to a scheme of black, white, and gray. She stops a few times, and shifts her footing. I've never seen her as unsure of anything as she is painting. The Mila I remember would never try anything she wasn't certain she'd be good at. Succeeding had been more important to her than anything. Art could not be measured in terms she craved, in numbers and certainty.
Her brush strokes grow more confident, moving outward on the canvas. She experiments with setting down a thick layer of white paint and letting it drip down onto the gray and black. I can tell when her enjoyment kicks in, the moment she allows herself to stop thinking and just go with what feels right.
I've stopped working to watch her, but she doesn't seem to notice. It's like she's forgotten where she is or who she's with. She paints like she's taken over by the vision that drove her here in the first place, until the canvas is saturated and her face an emotive reflection of it.
Over the years, I've gotten good at not letting a single drop of paint go to waste, but it's taken me a long time to get there. Mila on the other hand, lets paint fly everywhere.
When she sets down the brush, her hands are covered in specks of black and white. Not just her hands, her face, her clothes. Even my painting has specks of black where I didn't intend for there to be. But I'm pleased.
She seems to freeze as she stares at her canvas, her head tilting. A frown forms on her face.
"It's hideous," she says.
"It's not—"
"No, I wasn't fishing for a compliment, I mean, it's very obviously hideous." She wipes the back of her hand over her forehead, not realizing it only smears paint from over her eyebrows to her temples.
I stare at her, the smears and specks of paint on her skin leave me twisted up in a strange combination of need and regret.
She catches me staring and blinks a few times, thrown off guard. "What?"
"Do you realize how beautiful you are?"
Her lips part, but she swallows instead of speaking.
I take a step toward her and the air shifts around us, growing tense and warm all at once. Her pupils dilate as she stares up at me. One step, two steps, three steps before she takes in a sudden breath. I stop, then take her hand again and guide her about a dozen feet from the canvas.
"Look at it now," I say, though my eyes remain on her face.
She fixes her attention on her painting and nods slowly. I leave her there and head off to the bathroom to grab a washcloth. I'm over the sink, soaking down the washcloth when she says something.
"Yeah, I guess it looks better from here."
Coming back out, I go stand beside her. I take her hand in mine and turn the palm to face upward. Her brows pull in, but she doesn't resist. She watches as I use the tip of the washcloth to wipe the paint from her fingers. The colors smear further on her skin before dissolving away.
She grows more tense as I work the wet cloth down her palm over her wrist, where the first few words of her tattoo form an ink bracelet. The font is a thin messy script and parts of the words are hidden under specks of paint.
With my head bowed toward her, I begin to make out some of the words. I wipe away at them, paint drops breaking up and diluting to reveal the crispness of the deep black ink.
The words twist around her wrist and I can only read the end of them.
…because it felt like home.
A second sentence wraps around her forearm, but that one disappears behind where her sleeve is rolled up just above her elbow. Again, I can only make out the last part of the sentence.
…ruins that she found herself.
We're standing closer than we have in a long time. My head is bowed low over hers, and my breathing slows as her scent works to dull my thoughts. I lower her hand to her side and move the cloth up to her face.
Her eyes connect with mine, growing a fraction when I wipe away the paint on her temple. Her gaze softens and I can tell her inhibitions are dulling away at our proximity. And for the first time, it seems she also realizes there's still something left between us. Like thin threads of what we used to have, tethering us to each other.
It's there in her eyes.
"Your painting," I say. "What do you see when you look at it?"
"What?" She tenses up as though I asked her how she felt about me.
"It's okay, you don't have to say it out loud, just acknowledge what you see."
My eyes follow the washcloth as it glides over more flecks of paint on her skin.
"I see…clouds of gray and darkness," she says. "I see wayward thoughts and seething remorse…"
Her words are low, settling over the tightness in my chest. When she trails off, silence creeps into the moment and nuzzles the space between us.
She painted what she saw in me.
Regret balls up in my chest, my voice lowering as I wipe away her other cheek.
"You see it, then. You know I would take everything back if I could, but I don't know how."
"You can't," she says. "You can't undo any of it. What we had is gone, Cole."
"Maybe it is," I say, swallowing back the burn the words bring. "Maybe what we had is gone, but maybe there's just enough left for something new."
Silence.
She gives a soft shake of the head, but her lips remain pressed together and her breathing slows down to match mine.
My fingers brush against specks of black on her blouse, just over her collarbone. The fabric is smooth under my fingertips, and I swear she stirs right before dropping her gaze.
"Mila, I didn't come to get you back. Honest to God, I never thought I could."
"So why did you come back, Cole? Why now?"
If there's any hope in her voice, it's smeared with fear. It's as though she's still terrified I'm going to ask for her heart again. She's afraid of all the things she sees in my eyes. And I realize the words I intended to say will fall short.
I have a long way to go to even think of earning her heart back.
"I came back because everything I've done, every single piece of art I've made…it always comes back around to you. Everything, Mila. Everything leads me back here. For years I've been circling around this, too afraid to face it. I've tried to move on. I've tried to leave you alone. But I can't, Mila. I just can't."
THIRTY-EIGHT
MILA
MY SKIN TINGLES FROM all the places his fingers grazed as he dabbed at me with the washcloth. He's cleaning me up and I didn't realize until I was already frozen under his touch.
Now my heart is lodged in my throat, right where it went the moment he took my hand and stared at the words written along my arm. His expression pensive as he eyed one of my tattoos. I hadn't thought of it when I rolled up my sleeves, but I'm thankful he can only see half of the words and that the context is safely hidden behind the material of my blouse.
He lifts the washcloth and wipes away at my temples with a tenderness that steals my breath. It's simple and enticing, but makes me ache in ways I'm not sure I like. I want to stop him, but I can't because there's still a part of me that doesn't want him to stop.
It's always been like this with him.
He has a way of turning me around and making me forget which way is up. It's a frightening sort of bewilderment because even as I begin to drown, I cannot move and I don't even want to try.
"I miss you," he breathes out.
I stare up at him, not knowing how or when he came this close. My attempt to keep a safe distance between us failed, gravity luring us inward, millimeter by millimeter, and now it's too late.
"God, Mila, I've missed you so much."
I shut my eyes tight, shaking my head.
"You can't say these things to me," I tell him.
He drops the washcloth and brings his fingers under my chin, lifting my face to his. My jaw tenses in resistance, but my gaze locks onto his.
"Why not?" he asks. "Why shouldn't I tell you how I've missed you like crazy?"
"Because, Cole, it's not fair. It doesn't change anything. It doesn't fix anything. You…" I shut my lips to stop the words, but they burst through anyway. "You broke my fucking heart."
He blinks then swallows.
His eyes swim with all the intensity I painted on the canvas. All of the clouds, all of the remorse. It churns up like a storm. He cups my cheek and caresses my face with his thumb while struggling to speak.
"I'm sorry," he says. "God, I'm so sorry. I see what I did in your eyes, in the way you look at me, and I hate it. I don't know how to make it better, I don't know how to heal you, but all I want is to just…make you forget. To take away your pain, even for just a little while."
I swallow, delightful goosebumps running up my arms.
"What do you mean?" I ask.
"I want you, Mila. I want to…make you feel good."
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