“I mean what got you into it?” he asked. “Every artist has a story.”
“True,” I said, guiding him toward one of the forest trails. Even though I was still a little on edge over being alone with a guy, being on campus made me feel safer. This was my territory. I could tell we were both skirting Jane’s death and our night’s plans. It felt like being an actor in a play, only I was also part of the audience, watching it all with detached interest. “I like painting because it’s so mutable. Everything about it changes. A shift in light or shadow might mean you need to remix all your colors. One stray brushstroke can alter the whole composition. It’s like people . . . or life, if you want to get really deep and pretentious. It’s different every day.
“Besides, figure painting means I get to stare at naked old man penis, and who doesn’t love that?”
He laughed so loud, I honestly think he surprised himself.
“What about you? What got you into painting?”
“Parents,” he said. He sobered immediately.
“Ah. Not old man penis then. Let me guess: brush in your hands before you could talk sort of thing?”
He shook his head.
“Not quite. I started painting about five years ago, the first time they almost got a divorce. They separated for a few months—over my birthday, no less—and that was how I coped. We’d just moved to Vermont and I didn’t know anyone, so I signed myself up for a painting class at a nearby studio. It was my therapy.”
“That’s . . .” Horrible? Poetic?
“Yeah.” He sighed. “I dunno. It’s kind of like you said—painting always changes, but it let me change my world. If I was lonely I could paint a bunch of people. If I hated the snow I could paint a beach. And it also meant I got to play with colors, which was pretty cool, since I’d spent most of my life afraid of them.”
“Afraid of colors?”
“I’m colorblind,” he said. He gave me a small grin. “Kids made fun of me a lot when I was really little, when I drew the grass the wrong color or made people blue, but the painting world kind of embraced it. It was nice having something I’d always seen as a shortfall heralded as innovative.”
“I hadn’t ever really noticed. And I definitely don’t think I’ve ever been heralded for anything.”
He chuckled. “Overstatement. I was always a loner, so there wasn’t much heralding in my world either.”
“So is that your cross to bear?” I asked. I don’t know why I was pushing it, but I’d always liked learning people’s secrets. It made them seem more human. And if I focused on this—on Chris, who was very human and very normal—I could stop focusing on Jane and Brad and the parallels my unconscious mind wouldn’t stop drawing. “You’re the misunderstood colorblind artist?”
“Not quite,” he said.
“Well then, what’s your deep dark secret?”
“Not yet,” he said.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, not yet.” His voice became firm, though not exactly angry. I knew that tone—it was precisely the same one I used when someone was prodding into my past a little too much.
“Gotcha,” I said.
We walked deeper into the woods, the only sound our footsteps on the gravel and the occasional gust of wind through the bare trees. When we reached the lake we stopped and stared out, our breath coming in silent little puffs. It was comfortable. In a way, it felt like all the times I’d come out here with Ethan—the closeness, the openness. I don’t know how the hell Chris managed to make me forget all the shit going on and everything we were going to do tonight. Being with him just felt natural.
The moment I realized that, though, I felt my walls inch up. The crows watching from the trees weren’t helping. He isn’t Brad. This isn’t all an act. I don’t need you to protect me from him.
Unless he’s the one who needs to be protected from me . . .
Immediately I stepped to the side and forced down whatever feelings of comfort I’d had.
“Whoa, what just happened?” he asked.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean you just went really cold. Did I say something to offend you?”
“No. It’s just . . .”
“Just?”
“This whole thing doesn’t make any sense. I shouldn’t, I mean . . . you shouldn’t fall for me.”
He chuckled humorlessly and started walking again, trudging a new path through the snow.
“Don’t worry, you already told me a dozen times we weren’t going to date. I’m not a masochist.”
“It wasn’t a dozen.”
“Maybe not verbally.”
I glared at him. He put his hands up.
“I get it, really. It’s okay. But I’m trying to get to know you and you keep pushing me away.”
“It’s safer that way. Trust me. You don’t want to get to know me.”
He took me by the shoulders. He did that eye thing, that you will look me in the eyes and see I’m really listening thing.