I cried unabashedly. I didn’t care that I looked unattractive, or scared, or tired; I cried until there was nothing left, until I was dried up. Terry sat beside me and put his arm around my shoulder. He held me like a big brother, saying nothing, just letting me cry out my anger and guilt until I settled down and the hitching in my chest eased.
“I’ll help you get them, Brooke,” Terry said. “But you have to promise me you’ll kill this crazy idea about setting yourself up as a rape victim.”
“I told you I had,” I argued.
“No, you never said that. You said you think you messed up the chance,” Terry countered. “You have to promise me, Brooke. We’ll get him and all the others, but you have to promise me you’ll stay safe.”
I nodded.
“Say it.”
“Come on, Terry.”
“Say it, Wright.”
I sniffed and wiped my face. “I promise.”
Terry met my dad for the first time that night. He drove me home, introduced himself as the head chef, and told my dad he was escorting me to my car when I fainted. Dad was sick with worry, and he crushed me a little too hard against his chest, but I was glad to be home and in his arms. I realized in that moment that, despite all the bad I was learning about Cal and Parker and their friends, there were still good men in the world. Terry and my dad were two of them.
***
“This is daunting,” Ryan said, staring at the blank canvas, holding my brush.
“No,” I replied. “This is the fun part. When it all starts.”
We were standing on my back patio Sunday afternoon. I thought it would be fun to paint a picture together. Ryan was unsure when I explained my plans over the phone, but he agreed to try. I stood mixing the colors on my palette while he stared, obviously frightened, at the awaiting canvas.
“Now don’t be nervous,” I said. “There’s no right or wrong to it. That’s what makes it art.”
“Hmm.” Ryan sounded dubious.
“I’m serious. Create whatever you want.”
“Yeah. I’m more concrete than that,” Ryan said. “We’ve got to have some sort of idea in mind.”
“Okay. How about a winter scene?” I suggested.
It was surprisingly mild outside for mid-November. But the striking fall leaves had long since vanished from the trees. Everything outside looked like winter, even if it didn’t feel that way. Bare trees. Muted sky. Gray.
“You gotta narrow it down, Brooke,” Ryan said.
“All right,” I said, and came up behind him. I stood on my tiptoes and spoke into his neck. “Snow.”
I handed him the palette, showed him how to hold it, then placed my right hand over his to help him guide the brush.
“A sloping hill,” I suggested, and steered the brush to the paint, swirling the tip in a light green and bringing it to the canvas.
“I thought it was snowing,” Ryan said, giving up control of the brush as I grazed it over the canvas fibers.
“Soon,” I said. “Now feel what’s happening with the paint. Notice how it glides effortlessly over the canvas? How the brush doesn’t pull or tug?”
Ryan nodded.
“That’s because this is primed canvas. If it weren’t, you’d see the paint soak deep into the fibers immediately on contact. But this canvas forces the paint to hover on the top, waiting for you to let it dry, rework it, whatever you want.”
I dipped the brush once more and continued the curve of my line, creating the rolling hill that would be the backdrop of our snowy scene.
“You wanna try by yourself?” I asked, releasing his hand and backing away.
“I don’t know, Brooke,” Ryan said. He shifted on his feet.
I grabbed another paintbrush and stood beside him.
“You can’t mess it up,” I said.
“I’m sure I can,” Ryan countered, and I giggled.
“No you can’t,” I said, and showed him by dipping my brush in gray paint and swirling it all over the top half of the canvas.
“Wait! Shouldn’t that be blue?” Ryan asked. “You know, for the sky?”
“Sure,” I replied, and waited for him.
He cleaned his brush and dipped it in blue, hesitating before bringing it to my gray swirl.
“Don’t be afraid,” I encouraged.
He took a deep breath and ran the blue on top of my gray, mixing the colors to slate, and I thought our snowy scene had just taken on a blustery effect.
“A winter storm,” I said, and continued with my gray, dotting and gliding, twirling and smashing until the sky was filled with the promise of snowflakes. Ryan mingled his blues, discovering by accident the effects of flicking his brush to create a 3-D impression with the paint.
“That’s so cool,” he said, staring at his work.
We painted all afternoon, creating the winter sky, stopping only to kiss once. Neither one of us was interested in making out. We wanted to create a different kind of art together, one Ryan could hang in his bedroom.
“And why do you get it?” I asked.
“I figured we’d share it,” he suggested. “I’ll take it for a few months, and then you can. We’ll switch off.”
I liked that idea. It meant that Ryan planned to keep me around for awhile, and suddenly I thought of many more paint projects we could undertake together to make me a permanent fixture in his life.