“It’s fine,” he said. “It’s fine.” And it was. If he ripped off the bandage like a big boy, it would be done, and he’d be able to enjoy the fact that she’d asked, that she wanted to know about the hidden parts of him, the parts that didn’t help anyone or make people smile. The parts that weren’t fit for exhibition.
“I went to London because I thought I had to. I spent years there, trying to break into a world that wasn’t exactly welcoming. I worked as a laborer to support myself and at night I’d run around crashing galleries and handing out my card, which was actually made of paper because—” He laughed, because this was funny, though at the time he’d been embarrassed. “Because I made them myself on the library computer, you know, using Word? And I’d print eight on a page, then cut them out.” He shook his head. “I never could wrap my head around online networking, but it would’ve made life a lot easier.”
“You are a technophobe,” she said triumphantly. “I knew it!”
“Maybe,” he admitted. “Maybe just a little bit.”
“Well, you’re lucky you have me to keep your website updated,” she said smugly. And he was struck by happiness like a bolt of lightning because he was pretty sure—pretty fucking sure—that she didn’t just mean that in an I look after all my clients long-term sort of way. His mind focused on three words, blew them up, and made them flash a thousand different colors: you have me.
Did she know that she had him, too, no matter what? She was skittish about things like this. If he told her just how much feeling burned inside his chest, it might freak her out.
He’d have to show her first. Get her used to the idea. He wanted to squeeze her to him and tell her that she had him, and that she could drag him along on all her wild schemes forever and ever, amen. Instead, he kissed her temple and went on with the story.
“My old-fashioned ways did work, in the end—or at least I thought they did. One night, I met a woman on her way out of some glamorous party. Her name was Pippa. She wanted to look at my stuff. I asked where she worked, and she laughed and told me she didn’t work. But I let her look anyway because she was confident and I was desperate.”
He felt Chloe tense as if she was worried about what came next. God, he wanted to kiss her again. But it was too easy to hide in the comfort she offered, so he squashed the urge and kept talking.
“Long story short, me and her got together. Turned out, her dad was an art dealer, and he liked my stuff. She took me places, and instead of sneering at me or throwing me out, people listened when I talked. I finally started making money, enough that I could quit laboring and focus on my work. Everything was great. Everything was perfect. Except Pippa. She was . . . well, she was abusive.”
Chloe twisted round to look at him. “What?”
“She was abusive,” he said simply. “Not that I realized at the time. I thought she was just bratty. I mean, she was so little; it’s not like it hurt when she hit me. And when she treated me like shit or fucked with my head . . . somehow she always managed to convince me it was just a disagreement, and I was being sensitive. But after a while, that got old. I remember she tried to stop me going home to see Mum. I used to visit once a month, then once a fortnight when I got more money. I brought Pippa once, but, ah, Mum didn’t like her.”
Understatement of the fucking century.
“She told me Pippa wasn’t treating me right. Hearing it from someone else made it easier to hold on to. And then when Pippa tried to stop me visiting again, I started to realize what was going on. Maybe it would’ve taken me longer to leave her, only she got pissed and stabbed me with a fork.”
“She did what?” Chloe thundered, and he realized he’d never seen her angry before. She was angry now. She scrambled onto her knees and looked down at him like an avenging god. Her voice came out like thick, choking smoke just before a volcanic eruption. “What the fuck?”
He held up his right hand and wondered if she’d see the four tiny scars under his knuckles. “Lucky I’m a lefty.”
She grabbed the hand and studied it for a second before pressing a kiss to the marks. “Wow. Wow. So this is what murderous intent feels like.”
He smiled despite himself. “It’s fine. I’m over it. Healed fast.”
“You might be over it, but it is not fine.” The words were sharp, but her voice cracked and her breath hitched.
“Hey, no, Chloe.” Heart breaking, he cupped her face, met her shining eyes. “Don’t cry, love. It’s okay.”
“It most certainly is not! It is not. You’re not. You can’t even talk about London, and—”
“That’s not why I don’t talk about London,” he said.
She blinked up at him. “What?”
“I mean, the whole relationship was a fucking nightmare, and I’m still . . .” He grimaced. “Well, you know. But I haven’t finished.”
She looked horrified. “What else happened?”
“Sit down, and I’ll tell you.”
Slowly, reluctantly, she turned and sat again. Back where she belonged, in his arms. He kissed the top of her head and kept going. “So I broke up with Pippa, and kind of lost it. She told me . . . well, she told me I was nothing without her anyway and she’d been slumming it, and blah blah blah. She said that her dad had only promoted my work because I was with her. And that people only bought it because she’d made me someone. I think she said she created a, uh, cultural moment around me. She was always saying shit like that.”
Chloe’s hand came to rest over his, and the soft, warm pressure jolted him out of the cold, hard place his words had dragged him into. He blinked at the realization that he’d been drifting away as he spoke, back into years of imposter syndrome and paranoia and constant, toxic whispers chipping away at him. Grateful for the touch, he squeezed her hand. She squeezed back.
He cleared his throat and said, “I think the success coming all at once after so many years of trying so hard, it fucked with my head. I didn’t think I deserved anything, so I believed her. I yanked my work from just about everywhere, shut down the website and social media I’d finally gotten set up. I cut off the friends I’d made in the art world—before and after her. Anyone. Everyone. Like Joanie, like Julian. I burned bridges and disappeared in a blaze of glory. ’Course, it didn’t feel so glorious when I finally stepped back enough to realize what I’d done, but . . . It was too late. I almost got somewhere, and then I took myself back to square one. And when I thought about trying to fix it, I just . . . froze. I spent over a year frozen.” He shrugged. “Bad choices and fucked-up decisions. That’s me.”