by Celeste, B.
He reached out, wiggling his fingers for me to take his hand. I stared at it for a moment and debated staying where I was. When I’d woken up on his lap over a week ago, I hadn’t known what to say. He was sleeping, his cheek against the back of the couch cushion, with an arm draped over my side. I knew if he woke up, he’d make a big deal out of it, say something, so I snuck out before he could with nothing more than a note that I’d be back to take care of Ramsay after classes.
He hadn’t said a word about it, so I didn’t either. We moved on with our lives like we’d been doing since the night I found out what it was like to kiss a man like Theo West. I never let myself linger there long because it hurt too much to come back to reality knowing that he’d walked away without one look back at me the morning after.
“Christ, Adele, that was a fucking mistake.”
“Take my hand, Della,” he commanded.
“I’m good.”
He sighed and squatted beside me. “Is there a reason you’re being more stubborn than usual today?”
“No.”
The way he eyed me called me out on my bullshit without so much as a word.
I palmed my lids and exhaled softly. I’d gotten a few hours of sleep but was stressed about exams and a final project for Contemporary Art I still hadn’t started. All those things were weeks away, but professors were keen on reminding us that they lingered.
“School,” I admitted. Life. Dancing. Art.
He moved his pantlegs up before sitting down with his knees bent and arms resting on top of them. “What about it?”
I blinked at the expensive light-colored gray pants he adorned before meeting his gaze. “You’re going to get grass stains.”
“So are you.”
Glancing down at the cheap tee and denim shorts I wore I shook my head. “My stuff doesn’t cost as much as yours. Plus, most of my clothes are stained anyway.”
He didn’t say anything. Instead, he waited for me to indulge him on my problems. Why did I always do that? Theo should be sick of me by now considering how much of his life I’ve taken up with my burdens.
They’re not all yours, a small voice reminded me. I flicked it away.
“I haven’t been able to paint much, that’s all. It’s not a big deal, except I’ve got a big project due that happens to be a large chunk of my grade. I’ve stayed up late trying to come up with ideas, but nothing helps. I start something that I love, then lose all interest in it.”
It didn’t help that I’d been getting minimal sleep at night. There were times when that happened more often than not, and I’d cave and take a sleeping pill that Ripley prescribed me. Considering the bottle was nearly full, I didn’t do it often. I had hoped if I got a full night’s rest, I’d be inspired the next day. It didn’t happen, though. Instead, I felt the nagging feeling in my gut telling me to do anything but paint. Run. Bike. Dance until I sweat through my clothes. Whenever my mind conjured ways to exhaust itself, I had to pull back and remember why that wasn’t a good idea.
The soft hum that came from him had me turning to study his face. He looked off in the distance, his eyes seemingly following the running puppy. According to the vet I’d taken him to, Ramsay was only eight months old. Since I took him in, he’d gained a few much-needed pounds and had more energy than I knew what to do with. He was happy, though, so I was too.
“Did you talk to your professor about it?”
No, I hadn’t. I knew what Professor Ambrose would say. It was the same thing she told everybody. You’re blocked. But that didn’t help figure out why. What was causing me to lose the one thing I got to control? The one thing I was able to do to take my mind off everything else? I didn’t need to run, bike, dance, or exercise my thoughts away. I could do that with paint, and it was like my mind was setting me up to walk down the only other path I knew to take when I needed an escape.
“I’ll take that as a no,” he said.
“She would have told me to meditate or do yoga or something,” I grumbled, sitting up. I brushed some grass shavings off my arm. “Which, I am. I joined yoga again and it has relaxed me. I just need to find inspiration.”
“How can I help?”
His question shouldn’t have thrown me, but it did. I stared at him in all his genuine six-foot-five glory and acted like he’d never offered me help before. It was a ridiculous reaction considering all the times he’d done just that, but he limited those moment now.
“Uh…I’m not sure.”
Head cocking, he watched me carefully before his eyes went back to Ramsay. The dog was laying in the middle of the yard like he’d run himself right out of energy. Maybe he’d take a long nap so I could go home and try working on my project, which would equal hours of staring blankly at a canvas and screaming into a pillow afterward in defeat when the image that came into my head didn’t transfer onto the canvas.
It was always the same one. A ballerina whose body was too little, too brittle, too…dead.
“Come on.” He stood, offering me his hand again. That time, I took it. It was hesitant, but I was curious as to what he was doing.
I followed him inside, with Ramsay close behind us when Theo whistled for him and walked up the stairs to a room I hadn’t been in, in a long time. It looked like storage now, but once it had housed his ex-wife’s art collection from over the years.
“What are we doing in here?”
He ignored me and opened a closet, rifling through something before pulling out a covered canvas. Setting it against the wall, he carefully pulled the sheet off and stepped back. I stared at the colored lines and paint splattered piece with parted lips. My eyes went to the corner to see a signature. MM was etched into the bottom right, pinching my brows.
I hadn’t gone to many exhibits with her, but usually I knew which pieces she had in her collection because she let me study them. She loved an artist from further upstate, River Tucker, who I became obsessed with as well. It was how we bonded because I knew that was important to Theo. He’d always said he wanted his two favorite women to get along. Maybe it was how he referenced me as a woman and not a little girl that made the tingles shoot down my arms or the flutters settle into my stomach, but it made me want to please him. It wasn’t hard to do considering Mariska wasn’t that bad of a person. Her personality wasn’t the friendliest, but she didn’t set out to be mean on purpose, least of all to me. Then again, she probably knew Theo would never allow it.
“Who is MM?”
“Mariska Maase,” he answered calmly.
My brows went up.
“Her maiden name,” he explained, fingering the edge of the painting. “She commissioned these under that even after our wedding. That alone should have been enough of a clue that it wouldn’t last. Wishful thinking, I suppose.”
I stared harder at the painting knowing she’d created it, in awe over the harsh brushstrokes, long lines, and darker colors. It was moody, like she was trying to set the tone. Was it about how she felt? There was no date like some artists put next to their initials, which meant I couldn’t be sure if it was during the rough patch of their marriage. It wasn’t exactly something I could ask Theo considering there had to be ill feelings toward the subject matter. From what I remembered, it wasn’t a drama-packed separation. They both seemed to want it, but they still had years of history between them.
“It’s beautiful.” It wasn’t a lie. Mariska had talent and I’d known it from the start. I rarely saw paintings she made, but she would sometimes share tips and tricks with me on my own if she were around when I worked on my pieces.
“It is.” He stuffed his hands in his pockets and cocked his head. “She told me to keep it and I could never figure out why until I stared at it for a solid hour one night. It’s us. Or, who we became. Dark. Distant. Angry. I was never good at reading paintings like you two could, but she wouldn’t have given it to me if she didn’t want to make a point. We became strangers in our own home, and she told me the only way she could.”
I swallowed, sad for him but knowing words wouldn’t help. We both stared at the painting, and I could see it. The lines were in dark blue and black, distanced but nearly touching. They could easily be silhouettes of people, a couple. The somber mood certainly called for what he analyzed, so I couldn’t argue with his summary.
All I said was, “I’m sorry, Theo.” But I wasn’t sure what I was sorry for. For Mariska leaving? For her giving him this? Both of those things? It was hard to tell. I cared for Theo, that much was sure. I didn’t want to see him hurt, and even though he looked fine now, he had to have felt a certain way about it.
As expected, he gave me a terse shrug. “I didn’t show you for pity. But I thought maybe it would spark something. She used her experience, her feelings, to make something that told a story. So, what’s yours?”
I blinked. “My story?”
A nod.
“I…” I nibbled my lip. My story wasn’t pretty, certainly not beautiful. Mariska had the kind of ability to turn something sad gorgeous. A lot of artists did. But what would mine turn out to be? A black canvas. White paint? That was what my world had become. Black and white. Nothing more or less—nothing technicolor and hopeful like I wanted. “I don’t think I have one worth channeling. Not one I’d want people to critique any more than they already have.”
My past was no secret. In fact, it was broadcasted for everybody to see. It took my father dying brutally in prison before the media decided to act like they felt bad about what had happened rather than insisting me and my family deserved the kind of pain that we’d all suffered since the scandal broke.
“Bullshit.”
I drew back. “What?”
He crossed his arms over his chest, the button down he wore stretching over his broad muscles. “That’s bullshit and you know it. You’re scared of opening yourself up to what you’ve shut away, but maybe that’s the problem. People can only take so much, Della, even you.”
I said nothing. All I could do was stare, not sure if I was offended or just irritated that he was right. Maybe a little of both. I mean, he wasn’t wrong. I knew there’d be a day in the not so distant future that I broke from keeping it together. I just figured I’d shut myself in my apartment to do it and ignore the rest of the world. What was wrong with that?
“Do you really think Mariska wanted to paint something like this?” The yes was at the tip of my tongue, but I held it back. He must have sensed that because he shook his head. “She was a lot of things, but she wouldn’t have put herself out there like this unless she felt a reason to. And you know what? If I think hard enough, I can probably remember the day she finished this. Not long before she left, she looked lighter. Like a weight had been lifted. The truth, I suppose.”
“The world already knows my truth.”
“You are the only one who knows your truth,” was his argument. His voice was hard, not willing to give me room to disagree. “You told me how angry you were, but it isn’t for the same reasons people probably think. Paint that. Hell, Della. Paint whatever makes you feel something.”
I looked at him for a long moment, knowing what was about to pass my lips was pushing the boundaries he’d drawn. “What if what makes me feel something involves you? Us?”
He didn’t even pause. “Then paint us how you see us. Scarred. Broken. Beautiful. Make it real, because reality fucking hurts, Della.”
“Is that…how you see us?”
That time, there was hesitation. “I see two people who have seen what the world can do to those less deserving of its wrath.”
It became hard to swallow as I absorbed his words. Did he think we somehow deserved what was coming to us? What had happened? That wasn’t normally how he spoke, not about anything I’d endured.
“I see.” Forcing out the words through my tight lips, I brushed off the hurt and stepped away from him.
He cursed when he realized what he said, reaching out to cup my arm just above my elbow. I stared at the contact, waiting for him to draw back like he normally did. “I didn’t mean it like that. How many times have I told you that you were never at fault for what’s happened? It’s me, Della, that the world would punish in a heartbeat. It’s gone after people who didn’t warrant that type of treatment, but me? It’s only a matter of time before shit hits the fan and I’m not taking you down with me when it does.”
“Why?”
He scoffed. “What do you mean ‘why’?”
“Why would you assume the world is after you when you’ve been nothing but kind? You took care of a child that wasn’t yours. You sacrificed your time to a person you didn’t need to. Pretend you’re some ruthless businessman, but that isn’t who you are to me. If I don’t deserve being treated like shit because of things I couldn’t control, you shouldn’t either.”
“That’s your viewpoint, little Della.”
“Stop.” Abandoning the naivety that told me to flee the room, I opted to crowd him where he stood by his ex’s painting instead. “You no longer get to act like I’m too young. I can’t handle the hot and cold from you. One second, I’m an adult and the next, when it’s convenient for you, I’m little Della again. I know what you’re doing, and it won’t work.”
His features hardened, not in offense but something else. Caution. Jaw ticking, he remained silent on his own accord which only fueled my agitation further.
“You can’t have this both ways, Theo. I won’t play a part in your life as anybody but me. Adele Maria Saint James. Twenty-two. The little girl you taught to slow dance, to ride a bike, the one you learned to braid hair for, she’s gone. She grew up. She is standing right here waiting for the man she adores more than anything in this world to see her for what she is instead of what he pretends to view her as for his own protection. You want to be the big man on the block—the person the world should fear and punish? Then own up to it for once.”
The low growl that rose from his throat should have told me to back down, especially when he closed the gap between us and towered over me. I kept my head held high just like he always told me to do. It was that moment when he knew he’d raised me to be his biggest downfall, I could see it in his wavering demeanor. His walls were crumbling. All. Because. Of me.
What did he expect? We’d been circling around this pent-up frustration for over a year. Longer, even before he stormed into my apartment and made the first move. I’d crushed on Theo West ever since I knew what that was, and whether he knew it or not, it’d been brewing to this inevitable outcome since.
“Fuck,” he rumbled, before his hand gripped my jaw and tipped my head to meet his dark gaze. “Are you trying to ruin this?”
I took a deep breath. “Maybe I’m doing the exact opposite. Pretend all you want, but even if we are scarred and broken, that doesn’t mean we aren’t deserving of some good in our lives.”
His fingers tightened but not enough to hurt. We stared at each other like that, his eyes piercing mine, refusing to blink. The first one who did would lose, and we were both too prideful for that. He wasn’t the only one pretending to be somebody else, after all. I was selfish. I’ve wanted Theo West for most of my life in any way I could have him. I wanted all his attention, affection, and time. I got along with his wife for him, his “friends” who I learned were no more than associates as I’d gotten older, and anyone else I knew was important. All for me, so I could call him mine.
“I’m not the one who showed up drunk at your house,” I reminded him breathily. Maybe I shouldn’t have, but that would be backing down. We never talked about it because I’d been too afraid. But in moments like this, with his hands on me, I felt confident.
“Don’t,” he warned.
“I’m not the one,” I said despite his protesting, “who made the first move. Who begged you to kiss me. To touch me. To lick me because I needed you to know what I tasted like. That was you, Theo. All of it. That doesn’t mean I didn’t want it or that I don’t think about it. I do. A lot. Especially knowing that you made the choice to push m
e against that wall and—”
He cursed again before his mouth was on mine and my back was pushed against the wall similarly to how this unraveled the first time. I knew the painting was still there, pressing against the back of my calves, and I didn’t care. What I cared about was barely recognizable because his lips and teeth and tongue were dominating my mouth until all thoughts were hazy at best.
Grip tightening on my jaw, I winced as he rolled his hips into mine to pin me there. He was hard, and heat instantly pooled between my legs when I tried getting the friction I needed to get myself off, but he refused to let me move. One of his hands trailed down my side and grabbed my hip, kneading the muscle as his tongue twisted with mine and his teeth nicked my bottom lip. He wasn’t too rough, but he wasn’t gentle either. It was a combination I wouldn’t expect any differently from a man like him.
Just as I started lifting my leg to wrap it around him, he pulled back and slammed a fist into the wall. I flinched at the abrupt change as he backed away, his fingers going to his hair. What I didn’t expect was the harsh glare that he gave me, like I was somehow to blame for him kissing me. Again. Had I egged him on? Yes. But he was a grown man who made his own decisions.
“Don’t you dare say it,” I warned, trying to hold back the sting of tears. My nose burned as I watched his jaw lock. He was in his head, thinking, overanalyzing, and all I wanted him to do was stop. “Christ, Adele, that was a mistake.”
Those words hurt even still.
“Maybe you’ll have some inspiration now,” was what he said instead, walking to the door.
What. The. Fuck. “Is that what we’re going to pretend that was? You helping me find some sort of emotion to use for my project?”
He paused by the door. “That was me giving you what you wanted, but stopping it before I couldn’t take it back.”