Parker assaulted me. He put me at risk without thought for my well-being. Without my consent.
Now I’m the one facing the consequences of his actions.
After today, I will never be the same, and he’ll never even know it.
The shades of indigo, lavender, and soft orange across my canvas blur behind my tears, matching the sky in front of me. I was painting the sunrise, but all I see now is my own pain.
I didn’t sleep last night at all. Not a single minute. The moment daybreak lightened the sky just enough for it to fade from black to blue, I crawled out of bed and walked down to the cove. I like the West Coast sunrise. It’s less dramatic than sunset. People don’t flock to the beach for it. Nobody notices except those of us who wake before dawn to appreciate its quiet beauty.
Soft and pastel—the slow awakening of a new day.
I haven’t painted in the month and a half since I’ve been home, and this morning was the first time I felt the urge. I think part of me is afraid that after today, I’ll never want to paint again.
I don’t know how to feel about any of it, so I find myself anticipating every emotion possible: fear and relief, freedom and shame.
I channel my emotions through my art—it’s how I express them. It’s the path I planned to explore for the rest of my life. The name I aimed to create for myself. I’ve been double majoring in art design and psychology, hoping to someday help others as an art therapist, treating patients through the guise of their creativity, teaching them how we can heal ourselves through the act of art.
But after what happens today, I don’t know what emotions will pour out of me, or how they’ll alter the way I create. If I don’t know what comes next, at least I knew the sun would rise this morning, and that was something I could paint. A Celestia Covesunrise is as familiar to me as my own breath. I could paint it with my eyes closed.
So, even through the tears, I swipe my brush across the canvas.
I wipe my eyes with my forearm before I swap the feather brush in my hand with a mop brush and mix pink and white before swirling the sky’s wispy clouds, softening the edges with a brighter shade of fuchsia.
My breathing is choked, tears cascade down my cheeks and drip off my chin, but I keep going. I lose myself in the blur of colors and the brightening sky. The movement of my arm swiping across the canvas is a feeling akin to floating weightlessly in the cove when it’s calm.
Just flowing. No direction, but not directionless, either. The purpose finds you.
My emotions even out, and the rocks rattling around my chest cavity settle. I’m entirely focused on the current moment, my existence centered on the painting in front of me.
Until the clearing of a throat nearby breaks my concentration.
I whip around, findinghimstanding on the bottom step of the staircase that leads from the house and down to the cove. “Sorry,” he says gruffly. “I didn’t think anyone else would be down here.”
I turn away, wiping beneath my eyes and willing the tears to stop flowing.
“It’s fine.” I laugh, but it comes out in broken pieces. “It’s your beach now too.”
Weston is undeniably handsome, standing in front of me with his wetsuit folded at the waist, his toned and tapered chest on display. His skin is smooth and sun-kissed, hard jawline clean-shaven. All of his features are hard. Broad nose, wide mouth, deep-set brows over stormy-blue eyes.
He doesn’t have the kind of eyes that reflect the sun or portray the shades of the sky. No, his eyes are the kind of blue that absorb light and create shadow—as if they’re hiding whatever lies behind them. A raging sea and thunderous clouds.
He blinks at me, descending the final step and propping his board into the sand beside him. “Am I... Should I come back?”
Somehow, a laugh bubbles out of me. I don’t even know why. I know he’s not trying to be funny. It’s just... for how different he looks now than the day I met him when we were young, he seems just as lost as he did back then. A little overwhelmed by the world around him, like he’s searching for his place within it.
Back then, I just wanted to help a kid who looked a bit scared feel better.
Now, I wonder why the hell I relate to the feeling so deeply when I’m standing on the same foundation that’s held me up my entire life.
“No, you’re fine. I was just about to leave.” My painting isn’t finished, but that honestly feels like the most accurate representation of my current emotions anyway. “But, uh, just so you know, my dad is going to be pissed if you go out in the water before he gets down here.”
Weston sighs, placing his hands on his hips as he lifts his head to the sky defeatedly. “I was attempting to be proactive.”
I smile, gathering my brushes off the tray attached to my easel and slipping them into the pouch of the smock tied around my waist. “He’s strict about surfing alone—especially for amateurs who are a bit too fearless. The person most at risk of being caught in a riptide is always the one who thinks they can outswim it.”
“It’s a cove. There aren’t any riptides here.”
I lift my head, raising a brow as I give him a once-over.
