22
CIARA
I’ve hunkered down in the basement all night painting with the music at the max and a desperate need to drown this pain the only way I know how: getting lost in my colors.
Usually, I use all of the different shades, from the lightest and most delicate tones to the bolder hues: I like mixing the different gradations to find the perfect shade for my state of mind but today I’m only able to make use of the darker tones and what is taking shape on the canvas is a perfect reflection of my state of mind.
All I see is gray—an infinite string of clouds that run angrily through the heavens, threatening to pour their vengeance out in a violent tempest.
I let myself fall back onto the stool next to the wall and set my brush down with a sigh of sadness. Everyone is all together by this point, celebrating Patrick and Erin’s return, laughing and enjoying that warmth life provides in these moments while I’m here alone, hiding out from the world, from this absurd pain and from him.
I stare at the canvas blankly, almost absently coming to the realization that this is not who I am. I do not let myself be battered down in this manner. I don’t lose faith in the future and embrace hopelessness.
And what’s more, I hate gray, in all of its shades!
I don’t want to feel it now, it’s oppressive, it’s an emotional vampire sucking all of my energy and leaving me hollow inside.
It’ll pass, I tell myself, even if that seems quite impossible at the moment.
I stand up, intent on going back to the house and trying to get some sleep. I clean my hands the best I can using the drop cloth and I turn off the music.
I go to the up-and-over garage door that was left ajar to let in the pleasant sound of the quiet rainfall, when it is opened quite briskly from the outside, making me jump back in panic.
The door stops at halfway up and someone stoops down to pass under it and closes it again. He stops moving, embarrassed and clumsy, his hands jammed in his pockets.
“What are you doing here?” I ask sharply, turning my back to him to avoid showing him how shaky I am.
“Why didn’t you come to the pub?”
He ignores my question.
“I was busy,” I say unconvincingly, although I feel myself falling like the pieces in a child’s game of dominos, falling piece after piece.
“We need to talk.”
“I don’t have anything to say to you.”
“Okay, that means I’ll do the talking.”
He steps towards me and all of my senses go haywire. His scent infests my mind and the very sound of him breathing so close to my face sends my senses into overdrive.
“I’m not a good talker, I never have been,” Aaron says. “See, I’m a person who reacts to things. I base my beliefs on fact and on convictions that were sacred to me until yesterday. My whole life went to hell a long time ago, Ciara. I lost my parents, I almost lost Rain… And my music, the only thing that kept me on two feet. And then there was the woman I told you about. She left me empty, arid and hopeless. I was in love with her but I didn’t know how to keep her close to me, I wasn’t able to give her what she needed. She accused me of not having enough to give. She told me I’d never have enough to give any woman and I believed her because I was hurt, in pieces and completely alone. I thought I wasn’t cut out for these things, that I couldn’t handle a relationship, a real, romantic, intense melding of two lives together.”
“Don’t talk to me about her.”
“I need to because it’s important for you to understand how much this terrorizes me.”
“What ‘this’ are you referring to?” I say, confused.
“Me and you.”
“There is no ‘me and you’, Aaron. We had a night of sex. We can put it in the archives and pretend like nothing happened.”
“I can’t do that.”
I watch him move in, dangerously close to my lips.
“I can’t help wanting these lips.” He brushes them slightly with his own and I feel my legs tremble. “Not after knowing how they taste.” He kisses my cheek before going down to my neck and breathing me in. “I can’t live without your scent. I want to feel it on me every day,” he whispers against my sensitive skin. “What if I told you that I already miss it, more than the air I breathe, all of it? That I miss everything about you.”
