I nodded up at the canvas on the far wall, covered in dark blues, dull lilacs, depicting the tiny river behind our house, where we grew up in the smallest town in Chile. “I was non-verbal until I was thirteen. Painting was the only way I could express myself without saying a word.”
Her eyes softened. “Oh.”
I studied her as she let that thought swirl around in her head, before her eyes glided up to trace the canvas above the fireplace. I watched her watching it, wondering what on earth was floating through her head when her mouth fell open.
“So when you could talk, did you stop painting?”
I shook my head, enjoying hearing the little pitches in her voice. She hadn’t spoken this much around me for me to clock them before, so I licked away the faintest smile,and answered, “I still paint. Just because I can talk now doesn’t mean there’s time when I don’t, or I can’t say what’s going through my head.”
She sat with that for a few moments, her eyes gliding to the canvas above me, before they were all mine again. “Can I ask you something?”
My nod was soft. “Sure.”
Her thumbs twiddled over the handle of her mug, her bottom lip wedged between her teeth. “Have you ever had so much you wanted to say that trying to paint suddenly became impossible?”
She kept her gaze fixed on the tea, steam curling over her, but mine stayed on her. And somewhere in the quiet, my mouth betrayed me, tugging into a smile I hadn’t meant to give. The silence stretched, heavy enough for her to notice. Then, as if she could feel it too, her eyes lifted and met mine.
Her head pulled back when she saw me, her eyes jumping up and down my face. “What the fuck are you smiling at?”
I shrugged, my smile softening. “I’m just thinking about how a month ago, I’m sure you would have rather sat outside in the rain and waited for your friends to come home than sit here with me. And now you’re letting me in.” My smile pulled tight. Genuine. “Thank you.”
She rolled her eyes, like she was scrambling for a comeback. “Yeah, well… when you’re not being a total dick and micromanaging every second of my life, you’re not half bad.”
I didn’t answer. Not right away. Instead, I let myself look at her. Really look.
Her fingers tightened around the mug, knuckles pale against the ceramic, even as a strand of damp hair slid loose across her cheek. She didn’t brush it back. The sarcasm on her lips didn’t quite hide the softness in her tone, and for a moment longer than I should’ve, I let it land. Sat in it.
And as I felt myself slip, I pulled myself right back out, forcing motion into my body. I pushed to my feet and headed for the canvas before she could notice me lingering.
I cleared my throat as I reached it. “I painted this after something awful happened in my family.” She kept her eyes on me as she set down her tea. “It was that bad that I only painted this six months after it had happened. I didn’t paint in between, because I couldn’t. I had too many thoughts to even process what was going on, let alone how I was going to deal with it after… I knew—” I stuttered, then caught myself. “What I mean is, the time will come when you feel like it’s right to paint what happened.”
She didn’t need to tell me what was stopping her from painting. That part was as obvious as it was my fault.
Cora stood and headed over to the canvas, her hand resting along the fireplace as she looked up. “How will I know when I’m ready?”
I shrugged, eyes fixed on the peeling strip of paint, my arm resting parallel to hers. “You won’t, until you do.”
“Well, that’s helpful.”
“It’s not something you can force,” I said, my voice lower than I meant it to be. “One day you’ll just… pick up a brush, choose your colours, and you’ll paint again.”
My hand drifted, slow, until it hovered a breath from hers.
“And if I don’t?”
Her fingers edged closer, brushing mine. The contact was fleeting, but it detonated low in my stomach, heavier than I could brace for. My gaze snapped to hers, caught there, tethered in the quiet.
A response trembled on my lips, but before it could escape, the sound of footsteps outside the door shattered the moment.
“Who’s fucking key is stuck in the door?” It was the other British accent that frequented the house, and as both of our heads turned toward the sound, our hands fell.
I cleared my throat. “I think someone’s home—”
“Me too.”
She rushed forward, tucking her now-wavy strands of hair behind her ears, before wrapping her arms around her torso. She turned to me, picking up her bag by her feet. “Thank you for letting me in.”
Thank you for letting me in.
