This happened every time she tried to envision what came next with April, and she always ended up pushing it into a dusty corner of her brain, leaving a trail of question marks all the way there. So she didn’t think too hard about it all. She didn’t daydream, didn’t dread. At least, she tried not to, but when she spent four hours a day painting her past—her own evolution—onto canvas, it was hard not to feel every emotion all at once.
She had three full paintings, bringing her to the point in her story when she left home. The first, of course, was her wildflower field piece. After this, she’d painted her vision for the chapel on her old church’s property. The colors for this one were more muted,the sanctuary all gray-brown wooden pews and dried leaves on the dusty floor. The walls were whitewashed and dingy, the pulpit a rough rectangle with no embellishments and a simple wooden cross hanging on the wall above.
Next to the pulpit, Daphne stood as a young teenager, maybe fourteen or fifteen years old. She had on the same white dress she did in the wildflower painting, except this one was shorter on her growing legs and arms. Her hair was longer too, the curls more defined from puberty, and small breasts swelled underneath the cotton.
Her face was still a blur of paint.
But in this piece, the viewer could make out a few features, though undefined—the slightest green of her eyes, a shadow where her nostrils might be, a slash of pink below that.
The third piece was set at the small Crestwater bus station. The girl in this painting was eighteen, still in that white dress now far too small for her, her hair long and wild. She stood next to a green bench with a rugged brown suitcase in her hand, the ticket window just behind her. The sky was stormy, angry, and billowing with clouds. Rain poured down on the scene in sharp diagonal slashes and appeared to be pulling at the girl’s blurry features, tugging them away.
Or rather, tuggingsomethingaway to reveal what was underneath.
The viewer still couldn’t see her face clearly, but Daphne could see herself emerging, a moth from a cocoon. The next piece, already in progress, was set in Boston—in Elena’s art gallery, in fact—but she had no idea what to do for the fifth and final piece. Biographically, she could paint a thousand pieces, a thousand moments of becoming and unbecoming. The few she’d chosen felt right, but the conclusion…
She still wasn’t sure what that looked like.
She still wasn’t sure whatshelooked like.
So she sat on a stool in the art studio staring at her fourth painting and thinking about her last birthday.
Her birthdays had always been quiet affairs. Even when she lived with her family, her parents hadn’t believed in making a big deal about them—too self-indulgent, her father had said. They’d celebrated stoically, with a simple cake and exactly one gift that was usually something like highlighters for studying or a new cover for her Bible, and absolutely zero parties.
Elena had known this.
So when Daphne had turned twenty-five, Elena had thrown her a party, filling their apartment with catered food and music and people who wore fancy cocktail dresses and sipped on sparkling glasses of Veuve Clicquot. Granted, they were mostly Elena’s friends and colleagues, but Daphne hadn’t cared, had barely noticed, reveling in the idea that someone had planned an elegant soiree for her.
Looking back, it wasn’t Daphne’s kind of party at all, but it was better than any other birthday she’d ever had. Today, her phone hadn’t made a sound—she’d blocked the only person who might call or text—and no one else at Cloverwild even knew it was her birthday. It felt strange to tell them, to tell April, even. The mentality of making herself small—third after God and others—was a hell of a drug, one she knew she was still detoxing from, no matter how brave and bold she felt when kissing April Evans.
Her chest hitched, her eyes stinging as the light outside started diminishing, the sun sinking into the lake. She took out her phone and opened her call app, put in a Boston number she knew by heart. Didn’t matter if she’d blocked it or not. She stared at the numbers, her thumb shaking over the green call button.
“Hey, there you are.”
Daphne straightened on her stool at April’s voice, wiped hereyes in case a rogue tear had escaped, and stuffed her phone into her pocket. She knew her face was probably blotchy anyway.
“Here I am,” she said as April reached her side, cupping a cool hand on the back of Daphne’s neck.
“You okay?” April asked.
Daphne nodded. They hadn’t seen each other very much today. They’d woken up together, but Daphne had quickly gotten up and showered, claiming she needed to run some errands in town before their one o’clock class. Really, she’d taken the Cloverwild shuttle to Mirror Cove and watched the water for a while, feeling sorry for herself as the day of her birth ticked across the sky. After that, they’d had class. When it was over, Daphne had worked with a guest who was trying to perfect a watercolor portrait for her sister’s birthday. They’d worked until April had eventually said goodbye to go work on her own project.
Daphne had spent the rest of the afternoon alone in the studio, staring at her latest painting of a girl in a too-small white dress with undefined features playing at being a woman in a Boston art gallery, about to meet the only person who had ever really loved her.
Except Daphne wasn’t sure if Elena had ever loved anyone. April, Daphne herself, any other girlfriend she’d ever had. But it had felt like love, and something deep inside Daphne missed it so much.
Now, April looked at Daphne’s fourth painting, head tilted. She wore black jeans and a teal racerback tank top, her favorite style. It was Daphne’s favorite too—she loved the way April’s tattooed shoulders looked in them, strong and a little butch.
“That’s going to be gorgeous,” April said.
“You think so?” Daphne asked, looking up at her. This was the first piece after the wildflower painting that April had seen.
April smiled, her thumb caressing the skin at the base of Daphne’s neck. “I know so.”
Daphne smiled too, then reached out and pulled April closer by her hips, resting her forehead against April’s stomach.
“Hey,” April said, her arms soft as she cradled Daphne’s head. “I’ve barely seen you all day.”
Daphne didn’t move, just breathed April in. “I know. I’m sorry.”
