After overdoing it at the pool tonight, she would normally have stayed in her wheelchair and given her sore muscles a chance to rest, but with Jack here that wasn’t an option. She needed to show him how strong she was, and to do that she had to be upright. She ignored the nagging truth that the illusion of feeling in control was just that.
Jack was here and she was scared to death. What was even more frightening was her reaction when he had asked if she wanted him to stay. All she heard after “if you want me to stay, I will” was a resounding “yes!” blazing through her subconscious. It had been all she could do to keep from shouting it out loud. Part of her wanted to hide in her room until he left. But the part of her that wanted to talk to him won, and she found herself turning around and heading out of the bedroom.
As she made her way across the hall to the living room, she heard movement in her studio. With mounting apprehension, she turned towards the back of the house instead, stopping in her studio doorway. Jack was standing in front of the painting she was currently working on, his back to her.
“It’s not finished yet,” she said quickly.
He turned to face her, doing a double-take to see her standing. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to poke around. I was just curious.”
“It’s fine,” she lied.
He nodded graciously, turning his attention from the unfinished canvas in front of him to the stack of finished paintings that leant against the studio walls. The tension mounted. It was like he was inside her head, poking through her most intimate thoughts. She felt sick, watching as he ran a finger over one of the canvases.
“These are amazing,” he murmured.
“Thanks.”
He moved slowly along the stacks of finished pieces. Stopping in front of a stack of two, he eased the front canvas aside and stared at the painting behind for several moments. She frantically tried to stem the rising flood of panic that threatened to choke her as she followed his gaze.
The background was midnight blue. A deep red torso floated in the foreground, the limbs feathered away to mere wisps, a mass of dark, tangled hair suspended in mid-air. The face was featureless except for black eyes, which stared out emptily from within their sockets. There was a ragged hole in the chest, where the heart should be, and the chest cavity was exposed and bleeding a deeper red, dripping down the torso to pool at the bottom of the canvas.
The empty eyes captivated her as much now as they did then, transporting her back in time.
She had spent weeks creating the haunting image he stood staring at now. It was a dark time, everything was a mess, nothing seemed to fit – she didn’t seem to fit. Nightmares plagued her. She couldn’t eat. The pain in her back seemed constant and frequently overwhelmed her. She went days on end without ever leaving the house. She couldn’t see a way out of the darkness, the tunnel seemed to get longer and longer, and the light at the end had disappeared.
So she painted. She worked relentlessly until she thought she had exorcised the demons from her mind. But the painting had not had the cleansing effect she had hoped it would.
She was still in two minds about exhibiting it. Her desire to exhibit the entire ‘Evolution’ series meant that she had to, but she wasn’t sure she was strong enough to allow the world to see it just yet. Seeing Jack looking at it now reinforced that fear. She felt violated.
Don’t. Please don’t.
But he asked anyway.
“What is it?”
The silence that followed soaked up his words and the air seemed pregnant with anticipation.
Taking several moments to gather her frayed emotions, she smiled tightly. “Self portrait of the artist?”
The silence grew heavier as he stared at her from across the room, the sadness in his face hitting her squarely in the chest. She had to get out. Turning away from him, she moved toward the kitchen.
“I wasn’t much fun to be around for a while there,” she said over her shoulder, relieved to hear him following her across the hall. “Ready for that coffee?”
“Sure.”
She positioned herself between the table and the countertop, setting the coffee pot and two mugs on the table. Jack took a seat opposite her as she rested her crutches against the table, lowering herself into a chair. She was grateful when he began to pour the coffee, afraid that her trembling hands would betray her. Small talk seemed beyond them so they sat in silence.
“You didn’t have to ditch the wheelchair, not for me,” he said, handing her a mug of steaming coffee.
“I didn’t do it for you, I did it for me.”
The lie stuck in her throat as she took the coffee mug from him, her fingertips brushing against his. His eyes reached into her soul until she couldn’t stand it any longer. Her gaze fell to her hands instead, firmly grasping the coffee mug on the table in front of her.
“Can I ask you something?”
Her heart pounded so hard she thought it might leap out of her chest. “Sure.”
“Dad and I, we didn’t talk about… I mean, I’ve been wondering. What changed? I thought the damage was irreparable – permanent. And yet, here you are, walking, and it’s like some kind of miracle. How did it happen?”