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Chapter 14
Danica
“Get your shit together, and please put your shirt backon.”
“You can’t keepavoiding him, Danny.”
“What? I can’t hear you!” I shout into my phone.
“Nice try, asshole.” Melanie laughs. She’s annoying me right now, but I love how comfortable we’ve become with each other in such a short time. “You turned your music down as soon as you answered the phone. I know damn well you can hear me.”
PJ Harvey’s “Down by the Water” does indeed play at a more acceptable volume right now out in the garage than the wall-rattling level it was at when I felt my phone vibrate in the back pocket of my paint-spattered blue jean overalls.
“You shouldn’t have answered my call if you didn’t want me to lecture you,” Melanie continues. “I repeat, you can’t keep avoiding Ryan forever.”
“Don’t tell me what I can’t do,” I mutter to Melanie with my phone pressed against my ear with one hand, while I carefully pour a small bowl of blue paint onto the canvas on the table in front of me. “I have successfully avoided him for four days, and it’s going quite well.”
No, it’s not. You’re miserable.
Melanie laughs, and I ignore the voice in my head while I exchange the bowl of blue paint for purple, slowly pouring it in a line right up against the blue.
“One of these days, he’s going to come into that garage because he needs something out there, and then you’ll have no place to hide,” she reminds me.
Setting the bowl down next to the ten other colors I’ve used when I finish, I sigh and look around the space that has become my home for the last four days, since I screwed everything up and made a complete ass of myself.
I’ve got a drop cloth laid down that covers the entire garage floor, and one covering the only wall that doesn’t have windows. My easels are set up in front of it with projects I’m working on that I’ve got covered up with cloth. All of my paint, brushes, and other work tools are organized on a metal shelf against another wall, and I have a stack of finished canvases on a table in the corner that are ready to be shipped out to customers. I love it in here, and I’ve been working nonstop since I woke up the other morning feeling like absolute dog shit. And when I start working, it’s hard for me to stop until I’m finished, and I’ll paint at all hours of the night. I forget to eat, I’m too wired to sleep, and I don’t want to be disturbed, or I’ll lose my focus.
It just happened to be a very convenient time for me to finally feel creative enough to paint. Inspiration started pouring out of me as soon as I opened my eyes that morning… along with a lot of vomit and shame. Any sleep I’ve gotten in the last few days has happened in the corner of the garage, on a pile of extra drop cloths with a pillow and blanket from my room.
No matter how much I try to tell myself I’m doing it so I can be close to my work and can just pop up and get back to it quickly without any distractions, or not bother Ryan if I’m opening and closing doors at three in the morning, I know it’s a lie. The fact that I’ve waited until Ryan goes to work every day or to sleep every night before I even dare enter the house is proof of that. I’ve made the fastest dinners known to man on my nights to cook and left them on the stove for him before scurrying right back into the garage and turning my music back on.
For the first time since I left Chicago, I’m being a complete chickenshit. The worst part of drinking too much isn’t the hangover. It’s when you don’t drink enough to completely black out and forget all the stupid things you did.
“I sniffed his shirt,” I mumble, my cheeks heating with embarrassment just thinking about it as I tip the canvas to the side to get some of the colors to start running together and cover more of the surface.
“Don’t forget the stripping!” Melanie helpfully adds, my humiliation growing by the second, remembering every minute after my forehead was pressed to the front door, and then I just fell right into Ryan’s arms when it opened.
“It’s a little hard to forget when a man covers his fucking eyes when you take your shirt off, but thanks for the reminder.”
I can still see him slamming his eyes closed as soon as I drunkenly flung my sweatshirt off in the living room. Not to brag or anything, but I have pretty nice boobs. And I was wearing one of my good bras, dammit. Waking up the next morning after Ryan had already left for work and finding my sweatshirt neatly folded on the floor right outside my bedroom, with a bottle of aspirin and a bottle of water resting on top of it, was pretty much like a neon sign blinking in my face that readGet your shit together, and please put your shirt back on.
“Did you want him to take advantage of you?” She scoffs as I carefully set the canvas back on the table and wipe the paint that dripped onto my fingers off on the front of my overalls.
“No! But he could have at least looked,” I mutter petulantly. “I don’t think I have ever been so mortified in my life, and the guy I gave my virginity to in high school sent an email to the entire student body about it, two minutes after it was over. Which, coincidentally, was the amount of time he lasted.”
“Jesus, what kind of school did you go to?”
“Boarding school, baby,” I inform her with a sigh. “Don’t worry. I got my revenge. I told everyone he gave me syphilis.”
“I don’t think that’s how you make yourself look better in that situation.” Melanie snorts.
“Like I really wanted toeversleep with anyone from that godawful school again. It was worth it just knowinghenever got laid again during his time there. And every year on the first day of school, someone would pack his locker full of hundreds of pill bottles with stickers on them that said penicillin.”
“Someone?” She laughs.
“I can neither confirm nor deny my involvement in this matter.”
Melanie’s laughter trails off after a minute, and right when I think I’ve successfully changed the subject, she proves she won’t be deterred.
