And I hope it fucking hurt.
I broke the stare first, running down the steps and sliding into the car I’dbooked to take me to class. I didn’t need this right now. Not when I was just starting to get a grip on my life again.
chapter four
cora can't come to the phone she's trauma dumping
My first love wasn’t a person. In fact, I’m pretty sure I fell in love with painting so much over the years that it was my second, eighth, and ninety-fourth love, too.
But like all great loves, the flame had died out. Entirely, since December.
Since… you know.
And it was probably the biggest heartbreak of my life. To the point wherelooking at the blank canvas in front of me now was as painful as a knife being plunged in the centre of my chest and ripping me in two.
Turns out I won the bet with myself I made earleir. I did leave my class at noon.
After an hour of sitting there I’d convinced myself that everyone could read my thoughts and could tell that I wasn’t all there. That I’d lost all inspiration and I’d probably join the other dropouts within the next month or so.So, I subtly packed away my dry brushes and untouched paint and snuck out before anyone noticed I'd gone.
I thought that easing myself back into painting at home would have been a better use of my time. My bedroom felt nowhere near as daunting as the aging stone walls of Liberty Grove, and when I sank onto the stool in my room I wondered why I'd ever even left this morning. But the paint I’d squeezed into my palette an hour ago had officially dried, and any ideas I’dhad were nothing but TV static in my mind.
The groan I let out as I straightened out the curve in my spine scared me atfirst, but then I remembered I was on my own and I wouldn’t be caught for sitting here.
“Sitting here doing absolutely sod all because I can’t fucking paintANYTHING!”
My voice broke as the scream tore through the silence, right as I launched mypalette against the canvas, knocking it from the easel and waiting for its crash against the hardwood floor.
Defeat forced my head into my hands, my fingers tugging my hair and pullingjust enough to force a sob out of me.
I didn’t know why I hadn’t been able to paint anything since the attack. Orperhaps I did and admitting it was just going to make me realise how broken I really was. But every time I lifted my brush, white canvas taunting me, all I could see was Jamie’s face. That sick, nightmare-inducing smirk that made me feel like I was being hunted.
The slight sheen of sweat over his forehead. The determination in his blue eyes that I’d never seen darker than dusky.It was in every corner of my mind, as though I was wandering through a galleryand every picture hung on the wall, skied to the ceiling, was of him.
I let go of my hair as it slipped through my fingers and pulled my knees from my chestslowly, until I was sitting cross-legged on the floor. And like the universe wanted to haul me from one worry to the next, my phone buzzed with a notification.
£5,000 has left your account.
Two seconds later, another appeared from the care home's app.
Thank you for your payment!
Sadness settled over me like a weighted blanket as I re-read the words. Itwasn’t the money that stung. I’d hand that over without blinking. No, this ache came from the reminder of what it was funding.
Mum.
I’ll paint you the picture, seeing as though it’s the only thing I can paint rightnow.
My dad barely made it past the prologue in my life. DNF’d at chapter threewith Harriet, my big sister. He showed up for my first birthday, smiled for the photos, then realised he didn’t want to be a family man after all. By morning, he was gone. Tale as old as time.
Mum held it together. She had to. Raising two kids under ten in a Camden flatthat barely fit one was near impossible, but she made it work. Until Harriet turned eighteen, packed her bags for the States, and left us behind. Mum without a babysitter for her hormonal teenager, me without a guide.
That was the year everything cracked.
At first, it was little things. Mum forgetting to eat, staring out the window likeshe was waiting for someone who’d nevercome. Then the dark days stretched longer. She’d sleep through alarms, miss work, stop answering the door. The bills piled up. The fridge emptied. She said things that didn’t sound like her. That scared me.
And before I knew it, I was dialling 999.
That whole night was a blur, the only memories willing to stick in my headbeing the way the living room was stained blue from the lights and the thousand and one questions the paramedics asked me. All of which I couldn’t answer. All I could do was cry. My mum wasn’t my mum anymore, and I didn’t know where she’d gone.
