Page 55 of The Muse
Tussling with the thought of swiping surfaces of objects or attempting to calm down, I end up standing by the screens. Anger and confusion burn through me, all of it making me question everything. I’m at a blank canvas before I know it, picking it up and roughly shunting it into position on a spare easel. Vandyke brown and Ivory black paint seeps onto the palette, a mixture of Prussian, Windsor and Cobalt blue following it, and I’m harshly cutting in strokes that reflect my mood before I know it. It’s all livid and hateful; all filled with animosity and pain. No care. No sense of order. It’s as chaotic as I am—as frenzied.
Brushes and knives get thrown to the floor in my feverish actions, new ones picked up to slash in darker lines. The background gets filled in with more colours, all with sombre undertones and layers of thick paint to cast the canvas in darkness. I barely even know what I’m painting. Me maybe, her, us. I don’t know. The canvas is just attacked; short-tempered and irritable fingers producing something that feels like I do. Until I’m so lost and focused that my muscles start flowing less angrily.
The relief of it calms me slightly, making my shoulders droop and soften. It gives me a chance to breathe fully again, feel the rhythm I’m creating rather than fight it. There’s nothing else at the moment—just this and how it fills me with that passion I’d lost before her. The knife wipes across my stomach, attempting to clear the congealing paint off it so I can get a new clean line. And then fresh strokes go down, highlighting ridges and lines I hadn’t even acknowledged painting.
They’re her—all her.
My head shakes, hand hovering in the air rather than continue. So blue. So dark. So fucking angry and cold. It’s not right. None of it. She isn’t dark and cold; she’s light and craving, thirst and desire. This isn't that. This is me in her, what I could do to her. What I am doing to her.
Both the palette and knife drop from my hand and splatters of paint scatter as they crash. Wrong. All of it. But, it’s who I am, or who I was without her. And now, all this anger is pulling me back there, making me question where the hell we go from here.
Too lost in my mixed emotions, regardless of the ache consuming me, I stare until I’m so enraged that the piece isn’t finished, I can’t stop picking the knife up again. More blue, and then more greys to enhance those fingers against a barre she’s barely touching. My growling and grumbling continues to echo around me, and I keep feeding my despair into it all. A charcoal outfit, lighter shades shortening her limbs until they’re tucked up tight under her in her own anguish on the floor. Taut and tight.
I stop, suddenly remembering she’s actually here—hurting. Because of me.
Turning at the thought, and still unsure what the fuck I’m going to do about that, I’m startled to find her standing at the island unit. Tears streak her face, all of them falling without care to the vulnerability she’s showing me. The vision makes everything on that canvas seem relevant in so many ways. Pain, that’s where she is. Pained and broken-hearted because of my actions. Christ, I’ve even drawn it for her, showing her how I see her in this moment. How I feel.
“That’s me, on there. Can you see that? Is that what you want?” I grate. No reaction, just more tears and sniffs as if she doesn't know what to make of anything. “That’s what I should do to you. What I want to do to you.” Not because of her, but because of who she is under what I thought she was. “You’re not who you were. I lost you.”
“No, you didn't. I'm still–”
“Yes. I did.” The knife and palette get thrown again in my confusion; bare, paint-splattered feet walk me to her as my hands wipe more paint on my body. “And this is all me because of that, Seffi. I’m furious with you for hiding who you are and fucking livid at your family for what they’ve done to mine.”
She backs away a few steps, her hands come to her face to wipe those tears away. I’ve knocked them away before she manages it, partially happy to keep seeing those tears falling. They mean something to me, far more than her temper ever could. “Keep them coming, prove to me that you’re not one of them.”
She chokes on a sob, eyes filling with tears again. “I’m not. I … I love you. You. I just … I just want–” she splutters, her hands reaching for me.
I knock those away too, too incensed at the moment to even think about physicality or accept talk of love. She wouldn’t enjoy what I’ve got locked in this head of mine anyway. It’s raw and as pained as she is, broken and yet trying as hard as it can to find solace again. I need more from her, though. More of that passion and more of that agony on show. Maybe I’ll feel it with her then. Maybe I’ll find a way to overcome the vengeance that wants to claw out and destroy what’s left of her just to show Landon my power.
“Scott, please,” she splutters again. “I can’t do this. I need–”
I keep staring at the tears streaming, damn close to pulling her to me to avoid them. More, though. I need more from her. This isn’t child’s play. This is real and deep and more emotional than I’ve had to contend with before.
“The painting. I want that again," she cries. “Just you and me and what that was.” But it’s more than that now, as proved by this piece I’ve just produced.
“We’ll never be what that was.”
Her hands reach for me again, and this time, either through need or stupidity, I let them land on my bare chest so she can feel the fury embedded in there. She almost jumps on contact; her fingers vibrating with the rise and fall of my chest. “We will. We can be. I’m not just my family, Scott. I’m not.”
“Yes, you are. I won't play with that. I can't.”
My body turns and drags her with me so she can look at the piece I’ve just created, forcing her to acknowledge the look of herself in it. That’s what we’ve become now. We’re a mess of conflicted feelings and loyalties. And yet, as I feel her body quivering and listen to the sobs still resonating, I want nothing more than to ease that from her.
“It’ll be pain, Seffi. Your family, mine. It’ll be anger and hostility.” She sniffs again, her back shaking against my chest. “This is not a fairy tale. And I’m no white knight. There’s no running from this.”
She spins in my hold, her fingers reaching for my cheeks until she’s up on her tiptoes and trying to get to my lips. God help me; I don’t stop her either. I let them roam and kiss, and find something no one else has before her.
“I don’t believe that,” she murmurs, sniffing. “I won’t.”
More kisses land on my face as her fingers thread into my hair. The tears she’s still crying wet my face, mingling with the taste of her mouth on mine. Salt, that sweetness she always seems to hold—it all comes crashing down into me at the same time as my heart kicks up a gear from its dull throb. “Make love to me,” she whispers. “Show me who we were.”
Who we were.
My own lips engage at that thought, hands barely restraining as they should because she needs to go now. She should go and find someone else, use that passion she has and live a life free of the guilt she’ll carry if this carries on. We both should. But instead of giving that the weight it deserves, and instead of pushing her away or being the bastard I should be, I’m falling through memories of what we were.
My knees buckle, and my hands take her down with me until we’re both on the floor, and I’m starting to strip the clothes from her. “Keep crying. Show me.”
It’s all I can feel on my face, all I can see in my vision, as our mouths keep wandering over each other. They help somehow, make me consider a life beyond this discord we’re in. And as her skin starts emerging, as the clothes peel off and she unbuckles my belt, I realise how much I need those tears as much as I need her without them.
