Page 63 of Painted

Maybe it was because he’d still been a little tipsy, but his next memories were vague. As he dotted larger and larger spots of dark green, deep blue, and black across the canvas, he remembered stumbling, then someone holding him back as Raina’s lifeless body was lifted into the ambulance. He remembered sirens in the distance and people, strangers, calling out orders and instructions.

“No,” he gasped, forgetting for a moment that he wasn’t at the scene of the crash anymore, that it had been over a year ago, and that the world had moved on. Even Nick had moved on, resigning himself to a life as a single father of two young children instead of beating himself up because Raina wasn’t there anymore.

Grief and heartbreak caused Rhys to take a huge step back from the canvas. His eyes scanned the work, desperately trying to latch onto something that he could fix. There had to be a way to make it right again, to bring life back to something he and Raina had enjoyed so much.

But there wasn’t. There was no possible way he could make the painting in front of him perfect. There was no way it could be right again. Raina was gone, she was never coming back, and thelife he knew he needed to make the painting right would never be seen again.

Sudden fury rose up in him. Instead of weeping out the pain that consumed him, he growled, then shouted, flinging his brush at the canvas as hard as he could. It bounced off the taut canvas and clattered to the floor, leaving a glaring streak of black right in the center of the otherwise sunny scene.

Chest heaving, emotions swinging wildly within him, Rhys blinked at the painting, then grabbed his palette with both hands. With another roar, he hurled the palette at the painting with all the strength he had left in him.

It landed flat against the canvas, paint to paint, sticking where it was for a moment. With yet another cry, Rhys snatched at it, pulling it down and away from a year’s worth of his hard work. A large, black splotch now marred the center of the work as heavy blobs of oil paint clung to the sunny scene. Everything he did made it worse, every move destroyed the scene as he remembered it a little more.

“No, no!” he cried out, loud enough to hurt his lungs. “Raina!”

He hurled himself forward, slamming his hands against the dark mess of paint, sending it smearing in an even wider arc across the canvas. It was like the darkness was growing in front of his eyes, destroying every bright good thing it touched as it did.

He pulled back, sucking in a breath, his eyes going wide. Something about the sight of the ruined painting, all that work and all that effort, felt caught in a knot in his gut. His heart raced and his lungs burned, but he also felt something vital and prickling inside him, like a creature breaking out of a hard eggshell, or at least trying to.

Not letting himself question what he was doing, he spun back to the table where his palette usually sat and grabbed the tube ofblack paint waiting there. It was a relatively new tube, and when he opened it with trembling hands, he was able to squirt large amounts of inky darkness directly onto his hands.

It was mad what he was doing, but he chucked the tube aside then turned back to the canvas. With a roar of anger and grief, he slammed his hands against the ruined landscape, not once, but over and over. The black marks left by his hands, by his rage and grief, spread at an alarming rate, but he couldn’t stop. He hit out at the scene, something that had once been such a comfort, forcing it to reflect the gaping hole that Raina’s death had left him with.

“Raina!” he called out at last, as grief overtook anger and left him weak and shaky.

He slammed his hands against the canvas one last time, then left them there as he sank to his knees, dragging black streaks down across the sky and the grass with him. He left his hands there, dropping his head forward, and wept as grief spilled out of him.

In all that time, through all his therapy, it was the first time he’d let himself cry because Raina was gone.

He wasn’t sure how long he stayed there, letting everything seep out as the scent of oil paint and linseed oil surrounded him before Early’s calm, quiet, anxious voice spoke, “Rhys?” into the cold, quiet night.

Rhys sucked in a breath, still shaking a little, and turned to see Early standing in the doorway of his classroom wrapped in a dove grey robe. Their hair was loose around their shoulders, and their face was a reflection of his grief as they stood there watching.

He didn’t know how long Early had been watching him, but it didn’t matter. He hoped they’d seen the whole thing, the entire journey from grief to…to whatever it was he was feeling now.

He dropped his hands away from the painting with a sob and half turned toward them.

Early swayed into action, rushing across the room and dropping to their knees along with him.

“It’s okay,” they said in a breathless whisper, throwing their arms around Rhys and pulling him close. “It’s okay. I’m here. It’s going to be okay.”

“She’s gone,” Rhys sobbed, burying his head against Early’s shoulder.

Early held him tighter, rocking a little and stroking his head. “I know,” they said, so softly and tenderly that it made Rhys weep harder. “I’m so sorry. I know.”

It took every ounce of strength he had to fight against the voices that told him he was supposed to be strong and tough, that he should be the brave one comforting Early and not the other way around. Men didn’t show emotion. They didn’t experience grief, regardless of who they were or who they’d lost.

A bigger part of him knew that was complete bullshit. He clung to that part as he gathered Early into his arms, leaving black handprints on their robe, and held them like he needed to breathe the air they were breathing to be whole again. Maybe he did.

“Let it out,” Early continued to soothe him, though he imagined the explosion of his emotions must have been terrifying to them. “Cry as much as you need to.”

Paradoxically, being told it was okay to cry and he could take whatever time and emotion he needed went a long way to calm him. His tears and sobbing stopped, but he continued to clasp Early to him as he took long, deep breaths.

“It’s okay,” Early said, still stroking him and making him feel infinitely better. “I’m here.”

Rhys tightened his hold, lowering his head to Early’s shoulder and just breathing. From deep within him, possiblyfrom inside of whatever it was that had cracked in his soul, something sweet and warm was beginning to fill him. It almost felt too trite to say it was love, but that was definitely what it felt like. The feelings were entirely for Early, but they had a connection to Raina and the love he’d felt for his sister. It was like she’d taught him what he needed to know to really fall in love with someone.

“I—” The confession of love caught in his throat. It was too early to declare anything like that to Early. They were at the very beginning of whatever journey they were on. They needed to be with each other a lot longer, learn each other inside and out before they could commit to things like love.

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