Page 89 of Painting Celia

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The driver had been willing to take Celia if she ordered the ride immediately, and she punched her home address in the app for time’s sake.

Run. Hide.

She held a fist to her mouth, struggling to draw choked breath.

How could he joke like that?

She turned off her phone when the first text came in. It wasn’t until the car turned up the twisty canyon roads that silent tears started rolling down her cheeks.

He wasn’t putting off her lessons. He was just done with them.

She’d lock the doors and never come out.

The driver dropped her at her front door, but Celia couldn’t go in. She stood in silence, staring at her dim moonlit entryway, mocking whispers of wind in the trees behind her.

This was no sanctuary now. León would follow her here. He lived here!

She saw herself sitting on the couch, listening for the click of the door, for the questions and recriminations.

She couldn’t do it.

Instead, she went through the side gate to her backyard, past the pool, to stare at the city lights. She wrapped her arms around herself, the chilly wind biting more in the open.

Nowhere to hide, nowhere to run. This was as far as she could go. The world dropped off in front of her, with no path forward.

The quiet tears started again. Despair, at least, was a familiar place. It was a tiny feeling, not enough to fill the empty air over the canyon, the city, the blank dark sky.

She’d known the whole time but had hidden from that too. She couldn’t make art. Her only use was cooking and cleaning.

And León, telling Andrew about the paint on the wall? Laughing about screwing the model! Casually confirming her fears. It wasn’t even what he’d said—she knew he’d been thoughtlessly joking. It was that he was right.

Her breath catching painfully, Celia stepped up onto the retaining wall. Her toes poked between the bars of the wrought iron fence, the top of it pressing cold against her thighs as she leaned on it.

He knew she was only good enough for a supporting role—that was all he’d asked for. And she’d rolled over and given him everything like only he mattered. Worse, she’d liked it!

Idiot! Stupid, ridiculous fool!

A dry leaf skittered past her through the fence, powered by the full-throated wind. She leaned over the fence to watch it fall.

Why am I never the one who matters?

A biting pain in her chest curled her up, knotted her. She grasped the railing hard, feeling the sharp cold edges in her damp palms.

You don’t have to live like that.

Dad had burdened her, Mom had demanded and beaten. León had seduced her into doing what he wanted.

Was that why she liked him so much? He felt familiar?

She was back to acting like a child, muting herself.

Celia looked down the canyon again, the gritty retaining wall under her feet pattering tiny chips downslope as she shifted her weight. The palm fronds high above her rattled.

Was this rushing din in her head, or was it the wind too? How could she not know?

What had happened to the silence inside her?

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