“I’ll never?—”
He slams his fist against the metal table. The sound rings out, making the bulb sway wildly. My breath catches.
“Don’t lie to me!” he snarls. “You need this. You need to hurt to make something real again. I’m giving you that.”
Then, just as fast, his expression softens, the anger bleeding out. He runs a hand through his hair and forces a smile. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to shout. You don’t have to be afraid. I just get… excited.”
He crouches again, his tone coaxing, gentle. “Listen. You’re free to make whatever you want. Anything. I even brought your paints.” He gestures toward the shelves, pride shining in his eyes. “I found your brand. Hard to get, but I wanted it to be perfect.”
I swallow dryly, my mouth feeling like sand, as I look at the Farrow & Ball brand logo that Vincent insists on buying me even though I tell him the cheaper version works just as well.
He crouches beside me and works the knot loose, the rope rasping against itself before it falls slack around my right wrist. The skin underneath is raw, ringed in angry red, a faint trace of dried blood where I’ve fought it before.
For a second, I think about hitting him. My hand even twitches. But he’s watching me too closely—chin tilted, smile faint, eyes unblinking. Waiting. The air between us feels like a test. Every inch of his calm is rehearsed control, a leash he’s holding tight. He wants me to break first.
“There,” he says, voice low, soft enough to make my stomach turn. “Better, right? You can use that hand. That’s all you need to start.”
He reaches for the table and picks up one of my brushes. I recognize it instantly—the chipped lacquer on the handle, the faint stain of ultramarine under the ferrule. It’s mine. He must have taken it from the gallery.
The wood is warm when he presses it into my palm, still damp from where his fingers touched it. “Go on,” he murmurs. “You’ll feel better once you start.”
I stare at the brush. My fingers barely close around it. The weight of it feels wrong here—too familiar in a place that isn’t mine.
“I’m not painting for you,” I manage, voice rasping from disuse.
He leans closer, breath sour with coffee and turpentine. “Yes, you are.” His mouth curves into something too bright. “You’ve been starving without it. You want this more than food. You want to go back to your roots.”
He moves to the worktable again, humming under his breath as he lines up the materials. Every motion is precise, methodical. Tubes of paint click open one by one. Thick ribbons of color spill onto the palette—alizarin first, deep and wet, followed by ochre,then Payne’s gray. The smells hit in waves: oil, metal, the faint sweetness of linseed.
He mixes the colors with the edge of a knife, slow and steady, scraping the blade until each hue bleeds into the next. “Start with red,” he says, without looking at me. “Always red first. Blood before beauty.”
He steps back, folding his arms across his chest. The bulb above us hums and sways, throwing slices of yellow light across the room. The drain glints at my feet.
My fingers tighten around the brush until my knuckles ache. The canvas looms in front of me, white and blank and waiting. My chest rises too fast, breath stuttering like a broken engine.
He watches me like he’s watching a ceremony.
Every part of me wants to scream.
But I lift the brush instead. The bristles drag across the surface, leaving a thin, trembling line of red.
He exhales through his teeth, a sound too close to relief. “Yes,” he whispers. “That’s it. That’s the beginning.”
The paint glistens wetly in the light. Something in me snaps.
I move again—harder this time. The brush slices another line, then another, faster, the strokes losing shape. Color spreads over color until there’s no pattern left, just chaos, just noise. The sound of it—the scrape, the breath, the wet slap of pigment—fills the room.
Behind me, Justin’s breath hitches. His delight falters, confusion edging in. “No,” he says, a nervous laugh bubbling under the word. “No, no, you’re doing it wrong?—”
“I’m doing it my way,” I bite out, paint splattering across my wrist.
He crosses the space in two steps and grabs my arm. His fingers clamp down hard, grinding bone against tendon. The brush jerks sideways.
“Don’t ruin it,” he snaps. The grin is gone now. “Don’t ruin what we’re making.”
The pressure burns now, the rope grinding against my wrist until I feel the skin start to tear. I twist again, teeth clenched, the fibers biting deeper. “You wanted me to paint, right?” I snap, my voice raw and shaking. “Then I’m fucking painting. Or do you want to control that too? I thought you cared about my artistic truth—about freedom.”
The slap cracks through the room. My head jerks to the side, cheek blazing, the metallic taste of blood blooming where my teeth catch my lip. The sound rings in my skull long after his hand drops back to his side.
