“I don’t get it. You were my mother’s brother. Shouldn’t that mean something? Why the fuck do you hate me so much?” I finally voiced what I’d wondered for years.
David glared at me through narrowed eyes. He chuckled humorlessly. “I don’t hate you, Maxx. I feel fucking sorry for you.”
I reared back as if he had hit me. “Excuse me?”
“Because you’re exactly like me,” he sneered.
“I’mnothinglike you!” I said through clenched teeth.
David leaned in close, his face contorted with anger and bitterness. “You’reexactlylike me, Maxx. A waste of skin. Making the same stupid mistakes I did. Look around you, because this will be your life.”
He pulled his arm out of my grasp and slammed out the front door. Landon came in from the garage a minute later, and I was still standing in the middle of the living room, hardly able to believe that my jackass uncle had just given me the ultimate wake-up call.
“Was that David? Is he home?” my brother asked.
“Uh, yeah. But he went out front. I think that’s my cue to bounce,” I told him, my chest uncomfortably tight.
“Yeah, you’re probably right. I’m almost done with the scooter anyway,” Landon said, wiping his hands on a towel and tossing it onto the table.
“I’ll come by next week and see how it turned out, okay?” I said, picking up my keys to leave.
“Sure. Text me or something,” Landon said.
I looked around David’s house again before I left.
Look around you, because this will be your life.
I walked out to my car, but my uncle was nowhere in sight.
I pulled out my phone and tapped out a quick text to Marco.
I’m going to have a look at some other options.
I went back home and started going through the pile of canvases that sat in the corner of my bedroom. Shit, I sure had done a lot of painting in the last few weeks.
Going through them, I realized that these were the best pieces I had ever done. I pulled out two paintings that caught my eye. One was of Aubrey standing on a bed of snakes that was done in long, vivid strokes. The second was a self-portrait I had only finished two days ago.
I didn’t make a habit of putting myself in my art. I wasn’t sure what had possessed me to do it. But when I had sat down in front of the canvas, this is what had formed.
In the painting, I looked sickly and tired. Strung out on drugs and dying on the inside. Miserable and weak. The shadowed image of my skull was visible through my wasted skin.
Looking at this painting, I saw death. A glimpse of what might have been.
I had exposed myself completely in this picture. It was raw, it was gritty, it was harsh.
Without thinking twice I grabbed both paintings and headed back to my car.
“These are unreal!” A squat, bald man named Dandy Veers held up my self-portrait and stared at it in awe.
I had ended up leaving my apartment and driving into the next town, Blackham. From there, I had driven until I found an art gallery still open at this time on a Saturday evening.
If I had any common sense, I’d wait until Monday and make some calls. But the truth was, I was terrified that if I waited, I’d end up going to the club and find my way back to the Maxx in that painting.
I walked into a small gallery in the center of town. I carried my two paintings under my arm and asked if they’d be interested in purchasing my pieces.
The gallery owner had looked at me like I was a nut job. Which was understandable, given the impulsive nature of my visit.
But I had shown him my paintings, and then his entire demeanor had changed.
