“Why would she want to sign me?” I ask carefully.
“Because you’re a marvelous talent. I’m so happy you’re finally getting your chance. I know how it must’ve felt to see your brother get all the opportunities this whole time, but you’re as talented as he is, Bran.”
You have to say that because you’re our mum and can’t be caught showing favoritism.
“Okay,” I say simply.
“I love you so, so much, Bran. My life wouldn’t have been the same without you.”
Her words flood my mouth with nausea, but I swallow and smile. As if she can see me. “I love you, too, Mum.”
I hang up before she says anything else that will turn my stomach and send me rolling down the nearest cliff.
My hand tightens around the phone until I think it’ll break into irreparable pieces. A part of me is disappointed that it doesn’t and remains intact. Like my head.
My gaze slides from the phone to the canvas. I started to have a vision, made a few strokes, then had to physically force my hand down.
It was doing things my brain doesn’t approve of and never will. I should be working on a landscape painting, but I couldn’t bring myself to touch that.
Instead, I was thinking of eyes. I don’t fucking do eyes. Eyes send my head up a fucking wall.
I stopped painting people and animals for that reason. I succeeded for years, but now, here I am again.
My thoughts were running rampant, which is why I was thankful when I got Mum’s call. But then not so much when I couldn’t stop myself from staring at the canvas even when I was talking to her.
Things got worse when she could tell I wasn’t myself—not that I ever am—and she started probing and worrying.
I hate it when I’m a constant cause of concern for her.
It’s the worst.
My gaze falls back on my phone and my heart thuds when a new text pops in. But it sinks down so hard afterward when I see Clara’s name.
Fuck.
Clara
BABE! I got your gift! Love the LV bag, it’s sooo pretty. I already posted it on IG and tagged you! You’re so precious, handsome. Love you and miss youuu x Can I come to hang out in your room tonight? I bought the sexiest lingerie winking emoji aubergine emoji splashes of water emoji
My fingers are on autopilot as I type.
Me
I can’t. I promised the guys I’d spend time with them. I’ll make it up to you another time.
Clara
pouting emoji Ok. Love you, babe.
heart emoji
My gaze remains fixated on the conversation, specifically on the last word she sent.
Babe.
I didn’t care for it until someone else said it. Or a more intimate version of it.
Now, I fucking hate it.
My finger is unsteady as I exit my texts with Clara and scroll down for some time until I find the name that I hate more than baby.
I click on the conversation that I started two days after he called me that, touched me in ways he had absolutely no right to, then proceeded to punch my face.
Me
Hey. I wanted to apologize for what I said the other time. I really meant no disrespect and I’m sorry if you got offended.
This is Brandon King, by the way.
He read the texts but never replied.
That was over two weeks ago.
Two weeks and I still find myself checking in case I missed a text.
Like now.
What on earth is wrong with me?
I just can’t seem to stop replaying what happened that night. Over and over, like a broken fucking record. Again and again, it sneaks into my head and spreads on top of other thoughts like a special torture device.
Every day, I think of why I lost control so easily. I was cursing out loud—not once or twice, but several times. I snapped and growled and even used violence.
But the most embarrassing moment was when he had his lips on my jaw and throat, licking and exploring. My skin caught fire and I was on the edge of something nefarious.
My heart has never beat as fast as when he bit down on my throat.
And I groaned. Me. Brandon fucking King groaned because a guy was biting me.
It was like existing in the skin of an entirely different person. As if I broke apart from my physical being and morphed into an alien entity.
I hate that version of myself. I fucking despise it.
But what I hate the most is what I said because I was so livid.
I’ve never seen Nikolai as angry as when he punched me in the face and then tackled me to the ground.
He looked down at me as if I were a pest he wished to squash beneath his shoe. The switch from flirtation, skin licking to downright violence gave me whiplash.
Then I realized maybe he thought I said he was disgusting for being gay.
I really didn’t mean that.
People being straight, gay, or anything else has never mattered to me. Hell, Eli, Creigh, and Remi’s granddads are the oldest gay people I know, and I’ve always found their bickering with Grandpa Jonathan amusing.
I have nothing against gay people. But the truth remains, I’m straight. I can only be straight.
The reason I said Nikolai was disgusting was because he kept touching me when I repeatedly told him not to.
It was because I felt strange, on fire, and completely out of my skin.
It was because he can effortlessly rip at my control and tear it to shreds as if it was never there in the first place.
He clearly got the hint this time, so…silver linings, I guess.
I glare at the screen, then turn it black, throw my phone in my pocket, and pick up my palette and brush, then whip a few more strokes with red. I don’t even like red. I’m a fan of cool colors, blue and green.
But right now, I can’t help stroking along the lines of yellow with red, giving birth to some orange. Hot, fiery.
Wild.
So fucking wild and everything I’m not.
Art has always been my damnation and salvation. I have no clue what the hell I’d be without sketching and brushing strokes on a blank canvas, but at the same time, the extent it can go to scares the shit out of me.
When I was two, I was doodling small stars anywhere I could reach. The floor, with Mum’s makeup on the walls. On Landon’s forehead, chest, and back while we giggled and hid away from our parents.
Then those stars morphed into sketches of our family, small dogs, and the cutest cats. Now, my artistic style has settled on landscapes. Flowers. Trees. Seas. Gardens.
Fauna.
This is far from a landscape, my brain whispers, getting freaked the fuck out, but I can’t stop.
If I do, I’ll have no other way to cope. I’ll really have to resort to purging that ink from my veins.
Again.
Are you sure seeing the end result of this is safer than purging?
My hand suspends in midair.
The door opens and I startle, my heart lunging in my chest.
Fuck. I forgot to lock the door.
Lan strolls in, completely unruffled, comfortable in his own skin. Despite him being a bastard with not a humane bone in his body, a distant sense of comfort washes over me whenever we’re in the same room.