“Did you cry?”
Her question makes me laugh. “No, I didn’t cry. I was pissed. I get involved with these girls who claim they can handle it when I need to lock myself up for a week at a time. Then when it actually happens, we spend the time we are together fighting about how I love my art more than I love them.”
She turns and walks backward so she can peg me with her stare. “Do you? Love your art more?”
I look straight at her this time. “Absolutely.”
Her lips curl up into a hesitant grin, and I don’t know why this answer pleases her. It disturbs most people. I should be able to love people more than I love to create, but so far that hasn’t happened yet.
“What’s the best anonymous confession you’ve ever received?”
We haven’t been walking long. We aren’t even to the end of the street, but the question she just asked could open up a conversation that could last for days.
“That’s a tough one.”
“Do you keep all of them?”
I nod. “I’ve never thrown one away. Even the awful ones.”
This gets her attention. “Define awful.”
I glance over my shoulder to the end of the street and look at my studio. I don’t know why the thought to show her even crosses my mind, because I’ve never shared the confessions with anyone.
But she isn’t just anyone.
When I look at her again, her eyes are hopeful. “I can show you some,” I say.
Her smile widens with my words, and she immediately stops heading in the direction of her apartment in favor of my studio.
Once upstairs, I open the door and let her cross the threshold that has, up to this point, only been crossed by me. This is the room I paint in. This is the room I keep the confessions in. This is the room that is the most private part of me. In a way, I guess you could say this room holds my confession.
There are several paintings in here I’ve never shown anyone. Paintings that will never see the light of day—like the one she’s looking at right now.
She touches the canvas and runs her fingers over the face of the man in the picture. She traces his eyes, his nose, his lips. “This isn’t a confession,” she says, reading the piece of paper attached to it. She glances at me. “Who is this?”
I walk to where she is and stare at the picture with her. “My father.”
She gasps quietly, running her fingers over the words written on the slip of paper. “What does Nothing but Blues mean?”
Her fingers are now trailing over the sharp white lines in the painting and I wonder if anyone has ever told her that artists don’t like it when you touch their paintings.
That’s not true in this case, because I want to watch her touch every single one of them. I love how she can’t seem to look at one without feeling it with both her eyes and her hands. She looks up at me expectantly, waiting for me to explain what the title of this one means.
“It means nothing but lies.” I walk away before she can see the expression on my face. I lift the three boxes I keep in the corner and take them to the center of the room. I take a seat on the concrete floor and motion for her to do the same.
She sits cross-legged in front of me with the boxes stacked between us. I take the two smaller boxes off the top and set them aside, then open the lid on the larger box. She peeks inside and shoves her hand into the pile of confessions, pulling out a random one. She reads it out loud.
“?‘I’ve lost over one hundred pounds in the past year. Everyone thinks it’s because I’ve discovered a new healthy way of living, but really it’s because I suffer from depression and anxiety and I don’t want anyone to know.’??”
She places the confession back in the box and grabs another. “Will you ever use any of these for paintings? Is that why you keep them in here?”
I shake my head. “This is where I keep the ones I’ve seen in one form or another before. People’s secrets are a lot alike, surprisingly.”
She reads another. “?‘I hate animals. Sometimes when my husband brings home a new puppy for our children, I’ll wait a few days and then drop it off miles from our house. Then I pretend it ran away.’??”
She frowns at that confession.
“Jesus,” she says, picking up several more. “How do you retain faith in humanity after reading these every day?”
“Easy,” I say. “It actually makes me appreciate people more, knowing we all have this amazing ability to put on a front. Especially to those closest to us.”
She stops reading the confession in her hands and her eyes meet mine. “You’re amazed that people can lie so well?”
I shake my head. “No. Just relieved to know that everyone does it. Makes me feel like maybe my life isn’t as fucked up as I thought it was.”
She regards me with a quiet smile and continues sifting through the box. I watch her. Some of the confessions make her laugh. Some make her frown. Some make her wish she’d never read them.
“What’s the worst one you’ve ever received?”
I knew this was coming. I almost wish I had lied to her and said I throw a lot of them away, but instead I point to the smaller box. She leans forward and touches it, but she doesn’t pull it toward her.
“What’s in here?”
“The confessions I never want to read again.”