Page 3 of Love Me

Chapter 3

In the morning, I soaked in the image of Owen lying there: his broad shoulders, the light on his stomach, those soul-crushing thighs, and his green eyes that drank everything inside of me, even in the darkness.

As he showered and dressed, I scheduled a rideshare to a hipster coffee shop. I needed to get out of the condo before I spent the rest of the day rearranging my belongings amongst the seven rooms. Owen didn’t blink when I asked him about Misty, but his response was what I imagined: she could stay in one of the other condos he owned in the same building. I knew that condo would be elegantly furnished too, and I knew she wouldn’t mind having her own space.

After Owen left for work, I took a shower, paying special attention to the sticky mess between my legs that I had attempted to get rid of the night before, but had apparently failed to properly clean. I smiled to myself, remembering the passion of the night, feeling him pulse inside of me without anything separating us. With everything we had done, it was the closest I had felt to him physically. I guess it was the risk that we knew we were taking, and taking it together.

But part of me dreaded that responsibility, that I knew I was tempting fate. But I told myself that so many people tried to get pregnant and failed, and for us, it wasn’t about that. At least not for me. Letting him do that was sharing something I hadn’t done before, something that he hadn’t done before either. It was our first.

The chances were slim, I told myself. It wasn’t anything but passion.

I stared out the window of the rideshare, watching everything move past like it was a movie I was barely interested in. My stomach churned with nerves that had been building, as if I were in a cart slowly inching to the top of a roller coaster. Twenty minutes went by. At a stoplight, a mother held her daughter’s hand, waiting on the corner to cross the street. I thought of my mother, living with her new boyfriend, Rupert, in Southern California. I hadn’t heard from her in a while.

I felt my own stomach, imagining what it would be like to feel a life growing inside of me. The creation of art was something I knew—molding, twisting and breaking, running my hands over each piece of material until it was just right—but the creation of a human being? It was an act I would have little control over. I couldn’t tell it to be healthy, to come out at the right time, to trust me with its life. I could only eat healthy, force myself to exercise, and go to doctor’s appointments, all in the hopes that everything would be okay, and that didn’t cover what happened after it was actually here, born in this chaotic world. It made me feel nauseous thinking about it. I started to wonder why I had wanted Owen to come inside of me in the first place. We hadn’t ever spoken of the potential consequences, not even in passing.

We passed a hospital, and my thoughts immediately went to Grayson. It wasn’t fair to Owen to compare him to my biological father, but my mind was running wild. I knew Owen would protect me with everything he had, but could he do it for a child? His child? Could I trust him not to leave us for his career? And how did his darkness fit into parenthood? More than anything, if I did happen to become pregnant, I had to protect the child. I needed to give it a good home, a stable one, unlike my own, filled with love and hope. And I knew I couldn’t guarantee that Owen would be okay with that. At least not right now.

“Pharmacy,” I said. The driver’s bushy eyebrows lifted in the rearview mirror. “Please take me to the pharmacy,” I repeated. He switched lanes. I sunk further into the chair, wondering if the morning after pill would have any side effects. I shook my head. I should’ve gotten on birth control months ago. I’d been seeing Owen for months now. Even if we had only been exclusive for a while, I knew better. I should’ve been proactive about this kind of thing.

We turned the corner. Buildings ranging in size, smacked against each other, signs labeling all of them, but the word Gallery drew me in like a black hole. Paula Cooper Gallery, 303 Gallery, Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, Gladstone Gallery, 72 Mason Gallery—I knew instantly that we were in Chelsea, an area with galleries I had heard of while at the Foundation. Only the most prestigious could get into the galleries in Chelsea, but I knew I had to try. I didn’t have my portfolio with me, but I wondered if I could get by with pictures on my phone like I had seen some of my peers do back in San Francisco. I told myself it was the modern way to show your work.

“Pull over,” I said.

“You’ll have to add it to—”

“I know,” I said. He parked in front of 72 Mason. I sucked in a deep breath and straightened my clothes. “It’s now or never,” I muttered.

Inside, ice-cold air conditioning chilled my skin. A few people were scattered throughout, but I saw a desk to the side with a man, young like me, with slicked black hair doodling in a notebook.

“Hey,” I said. He kept drawing what looked like a sketch of a park, but with gnomes, disguised as bushes, slowly coming to life. I cleared my throat. “I’m looking for the owner.”

“James Proft isn’t available right now,” he said. He clanged his charcoal pencil into the jar in front of him. “May I take a message?”

“I’d like to make an appointment to see about showing my work here,” I said.

“Have you exhibited anywhere else?”

“With Contemporary Storefront Gallery in San Francisco,” I said. “Briefly,” I added, wanting to be honest.

“Briefly?”

“It’s a long story.”

“Do you have any credits? Awards? Any reason Mr. Proft would know who you are?”

I thought about the scholarship to the Foundation for the Arts, but that was ancient history. Any sort of awards I had received during my undergraduate studies didn’t seem appropriate. I shook my head. “I’m an emerging artist.”

“Aren’t we all?” He rolled his eyes. “I’ll let Mr. Proft know you stopped by.”

I expected snobbery after being in the community for the last few years, but that didn’t mean I had to take it. “You didn’t even ask for my name,” I shot back.

“Look,” he said. He leaned across the desk. “Try Grand Street.”

“Where’s that?” He looked at me like I was a sack of potatoes. “I literally moved here yesterday.”

His face changed to an expression of understanding. “Lower East Side.”

My phone buzzed, and the man took that as the opportunity to dismiss me with a hand. I scowled, then looked at my phone as I made my way towards the exit. Misty, it flashed.

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