Page 43 of River & Rue

“When I was younger, I also believed the source of art was the heart. But I was wrong. Art comes from the gut, River. From our deepest center of knowing and identity. We can’t hope to truly see the world, much less share pieces of it, unless we’re willing to face ourselves first.

“What breaks art isn’t pain but self-doubt we’ve watered over time with our regrets. And regret is born from the unwillingness to accept lessons from the past.

“My advice is to start with some cannibalistic self-reflection. Starve your regret with honesty and your doubts will wither.”

Unable to stomach his implication that I wasn’t being honest with myself, I told him if I’d wanted vague, pseudo-spiritual advice, I would have called my psychic grandmother. Then I stomped out of the room like an angry child and didn’t speak to him for two days.

I still owe him an apology for that. Now I owe another one because, as usual, he was right.

I haven’t been honest with myself for a long time.

For too many years, I defined myself through my art instead of the other way around. It was safer, easier, than facing myself. My loneliness. My fear that I’d never be seen—and that if I was seen, I’d never be accepted. That I’d forever be on the outside looking in.

My perspective grew so warped that somewhere along the way, I decided I was done looking for the love I wanted. The love shared by my parents, by Wilder and Eva, by Gideon and Deirdre. If I couldn’t find it, I’d create it.

In my hubris, I did exactly that.

There’s no question Elise betrayed me in a vile way, but I betrayed her too. From our first date, I was more focused on our composition than our truth. I stretched and stapled trust like a canvas. Mixed and swiped my way into a tableau of happiness. Added dimension for milestones. Smeared pigment over imperfections. I painted Elise as who I wanted her to be instead of who she was, and in return, I offered a flawless facsimile of myself instead of the honest, imperfect man.

A brutal epiphany, but unfortunately not the worst.

The worst was finally admitting to myself that the pain of losing Elise was the same pain I felt kneeling in the remains of the paintings I destroyed. I wasn’t mourning her. I was mourning my failure to create a masterpiece.

I can’t say I’ve been freed of every regret, or all my doubts have withered, but I have started feeling more like myself again. And it’s not because I actively decided to be honest with myself. Left to my own devices, I’d still be swimming in shades of gray.

I had nothing to do with it. It was her. Rue St. James in all her stubborn, intuitive, capricious glory.

It was seeing her waiting on the steps of our cabin, mud flaking off her arms and legs, and her refusal to look at me when I called her on it. That damned flower crown, now pressed into the pages of my sketchbook. Her expressions, moving like rapids between relief, annoyance, reticence, and something that—if I didn’t know better—I’d think was desire. And it was her eyes, filled with familiar fire one minute and worry for me the next. Real worry. Not on behalf of Ivy or my family, but on behalf of herself.

I’ve relived our conversation a hundred times, wishing I’d reacted differently to her questions. That I’d softened instead of deflected, been open rather than defensive. But I dismissed her instead, then made that flippant comment about implosion sounding messy. And now I’m tormented by the anguish in her eyes when she said it always is.

That was the moment I started questioning everything. Her pain—so vast, desolate, unremitting—diminished mine by comparison. What were a bruised heart and ego compared to what she carried? Nothing. A tickle weighed against an amputation.

The bitter irony of it is I can’t even thank her for what she did for me because she’s avoided me ever since. When I do see her, usually in the Lodge, she won’t even look at me.

I don’t know how to fix it.

Or even if I should.

Rue doesn’t owe me her forgiveness or her time. I’ve never acted worthy of either, never shown her that her opinion matters to me.

But it always has.

She has always mattered.

18

rue

​. . .​

survival instinct

Splayed across my yoga mat, I stare at the dim ceiling. Toes to scalp, my body vibrates at a distinctly unpleasant frequency. I might lose consciousness. I might vomit. It could go either way.

“Doing okay over there?”

I turn my head sluggishly toward Maya. She’s upside down in some complicated pretzel-like pose, smiling at me like we didn’t just endure an hour of torture at the hands of a woman named Moonbeam.