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Thankful that we’re removing our shirts in tandem, I once more try to focus on the list of shit I know. Like how humiliation isn’t his style or signature. How telling stories is what he lives for because his father instilled that in him. Wondering what story he plans to tell me successfully distracts me from the hum of the gun starting up yet the first burst of spray startles me into the wall that’s a lot closer than I thought.
“Ou…” I whisper out, ache in the elbow immediately beginning.
“You okay?”
“Is your design gonna be bubble wrap?” My playful poking is followed by me dropping my stare to his. “Because that would be both cute and clever.”
“Not sure it would be either of those things.”
I purse my lips to one side of my face in contemplation.
“Close your eyes,” he sweetly insists, “and simply listen to the sound of my voice. Don’t think about anything else.”
After shutting them, I release a long, slow exhale to allow myself to do what he said.
Focus on just him.
His words.
“The blonde.” Stopping my voice from shaking is a feat all its own. “The dainty blonde to be exact.”
“Sounds like jealousy, June Bug,” Tucker teases at the same time he resumes his painting.
“You would be too if you were as not good with the coordination and awareness of the feets and hands.”
“Clumsy.”
“That’s sweeter than klutzy.”
His warm chuckles loosen my shoulders.
Slide down my spine.
Slink around my frame like a secure hug needed to remind me that everything is okay.
Is going to be okay.
Tonight.
Tomorrow.
Always.
“Her name was Rachel Gillian.”
It’s impossible not to notice the sadness dripping from his tone.
“Her parents and my parents as well as my grandparents were members of the same country club. It’s how we met. We actually had a shit ton in common.” Getting distracted by the budding story grows easier and easier. “We both were attending Clover Rose. We were both art majors – although her focus was on animation – and were both crazy about abstract art. She was more into Dada while I was and am still into gestural abstraction, which in retrospect might’ve been more telling than I realized back then.”
A small smile touches my lips.
“We were into the same music. Foods. Movies. In a lot of ways, she was my…reflection.”
Awesome.
No reason to be jealous of her or hope she never comes around again.
“However, we differed in two major aspects.”
Oh good!
Perhaps it’ll be the reason why they can never end up together.
Not that I get to keep him forever or anything…I just don’t need to do the whole left for the ex-storyline. It’s probably my least favorite.
“The first being that I had actual loving parents, not ones who just pretended to be that way for the press.”
Wow.
“Her mom had a severe drinking problem – still does last I heard from my grandmother – and her stepdad, a handsy one, except now instead of forcing himself on his non-related by blood daughter, it’s cocktail and towel girls.”
There’s no catching my jaw before it falls.
“The other being that when bad shit happened to me, I turned to art.” Only hearing the hum of the gun occurs for a moment. “She turned to pills.”
Yikes.
“About a month after Dad died, I wanted to get away. Go out and do something. There was this beach festival in South Haven that weekend, and I thought it’d be a good escape for both of us, so I went over to her place. Total whim. I had a key so I let myself in and in letting myself in, I…manage…to…witness…her…” his voice stumbles over itself to finish, “cutting her wrist.”
“Ohmy-”
“And the only time I see that shade of red…that particular shade is when I’m asleep.” His volume dips tempting me to open my eyes and move to comfort him. “When I’m reliving that moment of seeing her drag that kitchen knife the length of her other arm. When I’m reliving how I held her while shouting at paramedics on the phone and then later in person.”
“Tuck…”
“Most people – my parents included – believe I got there right after it happened. They don’t know that I arrived just in time to see but too late to fucking stop it.”
Having his hurt so palpable tempts me into moving, yet the feeling of his not painting hand landing on my hip to keep me in place ceases the idea.
Informs me of what he really needs which isn’t to be hugged.
Or held.
It’s to express himself in the one way he knows how.
Through art.
“That’s the other reason I scream in my sleep. The other reason I wake up screaming. One of the main reasons I can’t stay in Highland.” His choked-up explanation threatens to bring tears to my eyes. “My night terrors really only happen here. Therapist says unprocessed trauma ect ect ect but,” the tiniest pause occurs in which I envision a shrug, “how do you process trauma when everyone just fucking locks it away? Closes the door on the topic? Erases the person from existence? Repaints the canvas until you’d never know there was anything underneath? Mom did it with Dad. Rachel’s parents did it with her. And I…do it…with me.”
