Page 66 of Into Pitch

I shuffle toward the duffle bag I watched him drop on the bedroom floor last night and pull the clothes out from within. All lazy, athletic type wear that has no purpose really but would be comfortable for lounging in. Yanking it on, I stomp from the room and right to where the sunroom sits off the back of the cabin, all windows and rough wood beams, jutting out toward the forest.

Morning light spills through the glass in pale sheets, catching dust motes and turning them gold. Beyond it, the trees stand tall and indifferent, the forest breathing slow and deep like it always has—long before me and long before him.

I shove the door open and snatch up the art supplies I’d tossed within the night before. Settling with dumping everything on the floor at the center to take stock of it.

I don’t bother setting anything up neatly. Instead, I drag the easel into place, prop the canvas up, and sit cross-legged on the floor with my back against the wall. Choosing to ignore the subtle chill that seeps through my clothes from the stone below.

I tell myself that I can make this mine. I don’t have to let him interpret it, nor ask a thousand burning questions that he can use to manipulate me with. Even if I know he will certainly try it.

No, this can just be paint.

I squeeze black onto the pallet perched on my knee first. Then white. Then a deep, bruised blue. Red comes last, thicker than the others, dark enough it almost looks brown until the light hits it just right. It looks like nothing now, not with the way it’s glossed on the white plastic. Not that anything worth building looks halfway decent before its started.

Alex and I might be a prime example of that.

Because no matter how badly I want to rip away from him, the truth is it would be exactly that—a rip. An ugly tear that I would always look back upon and never close because a fucked up, twisted part of me doesn’t want to. I can try to rationalize it until the cows come home, but I’m stuck right here. Right here with Alex.

Sighing, I snatch my brush up and begin.

I don’t plan an image. Planning is for people who want control, so I just let my hand move, dragging color across canvas in long, aggressive strokes. Wild in a way that the brush audibly scrapes, the bristles splaying violently under the pressure.

A part of me wishes it would hurt, that my wrist would ache and my fingers would cramp from the grip I’ve got. Just so that any of this would make sense in some lane or another. And from the wild, unpredictability of the paint meeting canvas, shapes start to emerge whether I want them to or not.

Vertical lines that stretch and narrow and confine themselves into something like walls, trees, and corridors. Things that all look the same no matter how many times you walk them.

I press harder. Until the red begins to bleed through the blue, cutting jagged lines where there shouldn’t be any. I smear it with my fingers even, ignoring the way it stains my skin. The texture matters more than the precision, I tell myself. The way it resists and clings to the canvas and layers of paint already placed beneath it.

I think of the mirror room and the cabin. Or the way he looks at me like I’m a question he intends to answer even if he has to pry it out of my skull.

He doesn’t get to decide me though.

I just wish the paint gave a damn about my thoughts or wishes, because the image forms regardless. One I wish didn’t, just as I wish what I feel for Alex wouldn’t.

And the minutes begin to stretch into hours. My back aches from the time spent on the floor and my fingers cramp from how hard I grip the brush. All of it is the point. My world narrows to color and motion and the steady, rhythmic scrape of brush against canvas.

A part of me wonders even if he could understand this if he tried. If he could see it not as regulation of some sort, but the confrontation that it is. If he could see past the image as it begins to sharpen as I go.

It’s not pretty by any means, but it is honest.

A figure takes shape in the center, abstracted enough that it could be anyone or no one at all. The edges blur and the face is unfinished, but it’s deliberately done this way. The posture however is unmistakable.

It’s contained and surrounded. It’s watching as the forest bleeds into the walls and the walls bleed into the body. Everything is layered, claustrophobic and expansive at the same time. It is so very ugly, but it is mine.

By the time I finally stop, my hands are shaking for reasons that have nothing to do with the stiffness in my knuckle joints and everything to do with the hollowed out feeling in my chest. The inside of me scraped clean in a way that hurts but also leaves space behind for thought.

I flop back against the wall at my back and stare at the painting. Worth something or not, it exists now. All of its unholy glory right there on display for the scrape of obvious boots beside me as they slip into the open doorway.

I brace myself as he steps further into the room to inspect my creation. He doesn’t speak as he comes to a halt before it, and I watch his reflection in the glass instead of looking directly at him. The way his head tilts and his gaze tracks the lines and layers, the places where I pressed hardest.

My stomach twists without my permission, because I don’t want to want his approval, but I do.

“Tell me,” I mutter flatly. “Is it pathological enough for you?”

“No,” he murmurs.

My brow arches. It’s not what I was expecting.

“It’s coherent though, and clearly intentional.” He continues.