Page 27 of Beneath Your Beautiful
It was a stupid movie, but if you took the humor away from the quote it had a deeper meaning. I got the feeling Killian wouldn’t ink his arm with those words unless they meant something to him. Maybe it was his life motto. Never give up, never surrender.
“What’s your tattoo?” he asked.
“Wings. For my mom. I’m not sure if I believe in Heaven, but I like to think that if there is a heaven, she’s an angel, watching over me.” I scrunched up my face. “Does that sound stupid?”
He shook his head. “Not at all. Your mom passed away?”
“Yeah. When I was twelve. Cancer.”
“I’m sorry,” he said quietly, and I could tell he meant it.
“Yeah, me too. My mom was great.” Losing my mom left a gaping hole in my life that my dad tried to fill but sometimes he was at a loss. I still remember the panic on his face the first time I told him I needed tampons. It was almost comical. “She was a high school English teacher, but she was a good artist too. She taught me how to use watercolors and acrylics and how to sketch…I’m not sure how I would have treated her when I was a teenager. Probably horrible. But when I was young, we never had those mother/daughter fights like some of my friends did.” I looked down at my coffee, wondering how much hurt one heart could hold. “I miss her every day.”
“But it’s nice you have good memories.” He gave me a soft smile I’d never seen him use before. I’d caught the wistfulness in his tone, and I got the feeling he didn’t have a lot of good memories from his childhood. I hoped I was wrong and he had hundreds of good memories, just like I did.
Turned out that an hour in Killian’s company went fast, and we powered through so much coffee I was all jangly now. The summer shower had been a quick one and now the sun was shining again, and the air was hot and heavy. As promised, Ava was waiting outside the graffiti-covered art gallery, the bottom floor of a four-story brick apartment building. She looked cool and fresh in a 1950’s-style black and white polka dot dress, flip-flops, and cherry red lipstick.
Ava gave Killian a little slug on the shoulder. “You should come with us. Get a little culture in your life.”
Killian squinted at the art gallery and rubbed his jaw, like he was considering it, but his phone rang before he could give us an answer. He slid it out of his pocket and squinted at the screen. “I need to go.”
He turned on his heel and headed down Bedford Avenue, his phone pressed to his ear. I watched him walking away. Correction. Killian didn’t walk. He strode, stalked, or swaggered. Sometimes all at the same time. Ha-ha. Skills.
“So…how was your coffee date?” Ava asked as we entered the gallery, an all-white space with exposed pipes in the ceiling, and spotlights trained on the art pieces.
“It wasn’t a date.”
“No need to get all prickly. Did you have a good time?”
“It was fine. But Killian didn’t appreciate being tricked.”
Ava snorted. “Trust me, if Killian was unhappy about it you wouldn’t have enjoyed your coffee. He wouldn’t have stayed long enough todrinkthe coffee.”
True. But he stayed. We talked about a million things, some of them deep, and some of them fun and silly. We laughed, we had a good time, and I got to see another side of him, a side I really liked. Maybe that was my problem. I thought about Killian all the time. He took up so much headspace it prompted me to stalk Luke on Facebook. Why? To remind myself that guys couldn’t be trusted so I needed to guard my heart? Keep my walls up to protect myself?
It wasn’t my nature to be cautious, but I needed to be smarter and guard my heart more carefully. Not that Killian had ever given me any indication he was interested in me. Except maybe the way he looked at me in the coffee shop, the way he listened to everything I said and gave me his undivided attention. It made me feel like I was someone special to him, if only for an hour.
Ava and I wandered through the gallery, checking out the special exhibition called Destruction and Renewal. Abstract landscapes lined the walls and sculptures sat on Perspex cubes. I stopped in front of a sculpture made from scraps of fabric, recycled debris, wire, and string, all pieced together to create a three-dimensional art object.
Just as I was thinking that thisDestruction and Renewalexhibit felt like my life, Ava beat me to it, “Looks like my life,” she mused, almost to herself.
“I know the feeling.”
“Did someone break your heart?”
“Yeah,” I said with a heavy sigh.
“It sucks.”
“Big time. But I’m working on rebuilding it.” I hoped it was true and kind of felt like it was. Maybe I was gearing up to let go of the hurt and pain and move on to a new and better version of myself. Like the art exhibit, the destruction was behind me and now it was time for the renewal. “Did someone break your heart?”
“Yeah,” Ava said. “But it keeps happening with the same person. I mean, he’s still a big part of my life. I’ll always love him. I just can’t be with him.”
“Did he cheat on you?” I couldn’t think of any other reason not to be with a person you love. Which just went to show how narrow my focus was.
“No. He’d never do that. He’s…damaged. I thought I could fix him. Like, maybe my love would be enough. But you can’t fix another person. And now he’s gone…and I have no idea if he’s okay or not.”
“Are you talking about Killian’s brother?” I asked, taking a wild guess.
