Page 100 of Painting Celia

She set the brush down.

“What did you paint?” he asked.

She took another brush and made a blue line at the bottom.

“Is it water under a bridge?”

She shook her head weakly. The pool.

There wasn’t more to paint. She existed, the bridge existed, the pool existed. Conflict in the picture but no story. No resolution. She never progressed.

He gently nuzzled his unshaven cheek against hers, the rasp of stubble rough and familiar.

“I know it’s scary,” he said. “Honesty is hard. I struggle with it too. But it’s just you and the canvas. You can tell it what you’re thinking.”

Thinking? She was done thinking.

You’re such a quitter, Celia Rose.

“Can I be in the painting with you?” he asked.

She still had blue paint in the brush, so she painted a line for him. Tight up against her washed-out line.

“Am I blue like the water?”

She nodded.

“How?”

How? They’d first kissed with the pool’s waves ringing them, lay together for the first time in its reflected light. It was her safe place, the water supporting her when she floated. Didn’t he know?

A tiny painful spark fluttered inside her. The bridge loomed, but the pool underneath might catch her.

How was León like the—oh.

Oh.

She painted another blue line horizontally above the pool. Kelsey. Another line, Andrew. The third, Trevor, threatened to engulf the tops of her line and León’s, the level of the water now nearly reaching the bridge. The fall wouldn’t be bad, the landing survivable.

“The water is rising,” he said. “You’re telling a story, Celia Rose. Keep going.”

No, she was done painting. Her art list had utterly failed, but what if she didn’t need it?

It hurt to care, to feel a crack in her steely numbness. It terrified her, thinking about trying, hoping, one more time. She’d failed so many times before, isolated and helpless.

León squeezed his arms around her, solid. She wasn’t alone right now.

She didn’t have to be good at painting to see it right in front of her. Even if she fell again, it wasn’t the end. The water was there, the support. Opening up to people didn’t require talent, just courage.

Could she find courage?

“I’m done,” she said. Setting down the tools, she turned into his arms, resting her head against his chest.

“Okay,” he murmured softly. “Did it help? Will you tell me what you painted?”

Falling. Floating.

She shook her head against him.

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