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No one answers. There’s no one here to answer. I’m going after an innocent canvas, and not even wholeheartedly. It’s me who sounds like a dick. Leo, my perfect, overbearing, irritating brother has been gracious about the fact that I don’t want to eat meals with him. His housekeeper, Mrs. Page, brings me everything on a silver tray. Coffee in the morning. Tea in the afternoon. Occasional snacks.
There’s absolutely nothing to be angry about, except that I am angry. My chest aches with the thought of disappointing Leo. Being pissed off constantly has to be a disappointment. The fact that I’m suffocating here has to be a disappointment. If he even knows I’m suffocating. If that even matters.
Which, of course, it does. Guilt crawls up my spine and latches on. Even in the privacy of my pissed-off feelings, I can admit that Leo’s reaction is reasonable. Part of me knows that. Emerson was way out of line. He broke into my apartment. It is not okay to break into someone’s apartment, even if they are leaving you something you didn’t know you wanted.
Part of me knows that. And part of me is still fascinated by him. I am. I’m fascinated by the way he tasted, which was so clean and good and not like a stalker should taste. I’m fascinated by the way he touched me. By the way he scared me. Everything about him fascinates me. I wanted to go with him, damn it.
I put my brush to the canvas and fix the splotch of Prussian blue, blending it in with the rest of the wave.
I don’t like to be angry. It feels bad, and more than that, it feels risky. My parents’ house wasn’t a place I could go around being angry. That would get the wrong kind of attention, and anyway, I don’t want it.
My phone buzzes in my pocket. Leo, probably. Inviting me to eat with him, probably. He doesn’t come up here to badger me about it. He texts, and I either give him a one-word answer or tell him I’m busy or say nothing at all.
It’s the middle of the night. He’ll be up. I could pretend I’m sleeping, though I’m in the studio in my nightgown. I couldn’t make my eyes stay shut. It wouldn’t surprise me if the message was a casual invitation for tea or something in his den. He doesn’t seem to sleep that much. Plus, he’s trying to patch things up with me. I haven’t been letting it happen.
None of this feels right. I don’t like using the silent treatment, especially with my brother. But saying nothing seems like a better option than saying what I want to say.
Even if I did say it, none of it would make any sense.Stop keeping me here. I understand why you feel like you should do this. I know I’m not safe at the apartment now that someone broke in. I almost got in a car with him. Be mad at me, the way I’m mad at you. I don’t want to be mad at you. Don’t be disappointed. I don’t want to care if you’re disappointed.All very rational and good, right?
I put down the brush and take out the phone.
It’s not a text from Leo. I don’t have this number stored in my phone.
That doesn’t matter. He’s announced himself in the first text, the way he stood up tall in the gallery and looked me in the eye when I stepped into the room.
It’s Emerson, the text reads.
My hands shake. He got my number somehow. Robert isn’t supposed to give it out. I let the phone drop back onto the table that holds all my paints.
Emerson: Daphne.
Where is he right now? Sitting in his SUV outside my apartment? At his house by the beach? I can see him with his head bowed over his phone. His wetsuit from when he was surfing. Maybe he’s standing at the shore now despite the whipping wind. Maybe he has his phone in one hand and his surfboard in the other, his feet crunching on snow-covered sand.
Emerson: Are you okay?
My heart clenches. I expected anger from him, not concern. More anger wells up alongside the ache in my chest. It’s not only Leo I’m pissed at. It’s me, for telling him anything in the first place, and it’s Emerson. If he’d never fixated on me and broken into my apartment, I’d still have my apartment. I’d be going to my job at the gallery and selling paintings. I’d have my freedom.
Emerson: I’m calling the police.
I move so fast to pick up the phone that it clatters to the floor.
Daphne: No
Daphne: Emerson
Daphne: Don’t do that. I’m fine.
Emerson: I don’t believe you.
Daphne: I swear. I’m staying with my brother!
Emerson: Why?
Because he thinks you’re a psycho.I type it out and delete it. I wonder how he’d take that.
Daphne: Because I need some space from overbearing rich assholes
Also, stop texting me in the middle of the night.Doesn’t anyone have any sense of boundaries?Or…keep texting me. More and more until I fall asleep with my phone.
