Page 15 of Accidentally Forever
Ineeded to call Crew.
It should have probably worried me that I had that thought on a constant loop in my head more often than not. And not just because I had put him in this difficult situation.
Difficult.
That seemed like such an odd word for this callous series of events. Yet perhaps it was the only word that made sense without me screaming into the abyss—something I did often these days.
My phone buzzed in my pocket, startling me out of my thoughts. I pulled it out, checking the screen once more. Noticing the familiar name, I immediately sent them to voicemail, knowing it was far past time that I blocked them completely.
Only doing that felt as if I was giving up on them, not just on who I thought they could be.
If I blocked Travis completely, and he did something to harm himself, I wasn’t sure I would ever be able to forgive myself. And while I knew I couldn’t put all of his actions on my shoulders, that didn’t help the sleepless nights. I might be pressing charges on him for the assault, but he was out on bail, had his family name to keep him out, and there was nothing I could do in this moment.
I slid my phone into my pocket and rolled my shoulders back. I had plenty of things to do today, and focusing on a friendship long since broken wasn’t going to help anyone. Instead I needed to get back to work.
While my father and his talent had made our family far past comfortable in terms of money, it wasn’t as if I was going to touch my trust after using part of it to build the family business.
Alexander Montgomery was one of the most world-renowned photographers in the world. He had won countless prizes, and people knew his name. And it wasn’t even the recognition that truly set his career apart from others. It was the depth that he brought to every single piece he showed the world. My father could bring out raw and unending emotions within his subject withthe simple click of his finger. Though I knew there was nothing simple about what my father did.
My father was an alcoholic—something he told us whenever the situation arose. He had been married before he had fallen for my mother, and while I didn’t know the details, I knew the situation had been horrific. And my father had turned to alcohol in order to ignore his pain and demons. It wasn’t lost on me that Travis did the same thing. Though I knew Travis did so because he wanted to prove his art was something, and not because of the tragedy that had befallen my father.
My father hadn’t had a drink in over thirty years. He didn’t stress out about it around us, and it was just something that was part of who he was. He told us so we knew that he wasn’t perfect. That all humans were fallible.
Though in my eyes, my father was the perfect man. He was my hero, the one who could literally hang the moon if he so desired. The way that he looked at my mother made me believe in true love, happiness, and the connection that came when you found your person.
Maybe that’s why I had tried so hard to prove that I could be the person Travis needed. In the end, however, the connection we’d had paled in comparison to my parents’ happiness. And perhaps it worried me thatanything with Travis couldn’t hold a candle to how I felt when Crew stood near me. But I couldn’t think about that now. Not when I needed to find a way to make things right with him.
Before I could do that however, I needed to find the words. So I stood in my studio that happened to be in the back part of the Montgomery Gallery building. I knew one day we would outgrow the place and have to move into another building, but I loved what we had now. While the other three businesses in the building were one level, ours was two story. It used to be a bicycle shop before things went terribly wrong, but now everything was family.
The Gallery was our peace. There were separate sections for different mediums and needs. If we needed the community feel of working next to another person, we had sections for that as well. Though I knew most of my family tended to want to work alone. Sometimes, however, it was nice to work on the matting for my project while my cousin Nate painted in a corner, or Colin held a piece of clay.
Sometimes Oliver would have his sketchbook in hand, leaning against the wall as he talked me through my next project. And all the while, Riley would bounce between us, making sure that we were ready for the nextshow and forcing us to teach these small classes pro bono. Something we would do anyway, but it was nice watching Riley get forceful in keeping us on our toes.
We were a family business, and I loved every part of it. Only it wasn’t just family. Crew worked right beside us. When he wasn’t in his home studio, he’d have his paintbrush in hand, music blaring, and he would justwork. Watching the way that he painted took my breath away. And I wasn’t ashamed to say that many of my hidden photographs were of him—still photos of the intensity of his work. The way he would frown at his piece, his brows lowered, his teeth biting into his luscious lips.
Those photos would never see the light of day.
And not only because I wasn’t a portrait photographer. Instead the world was my canvas and I tended to focus on the landscape. The way that the earth shifted from our doing, and its own. Part of me knew I had focused on that and not people because I didn’t want to stay in my father’s shadow, but I had leaned into this. And I enjoyed it.
Only, I felt as if I had nothing left in me.
No art, no desire to bring my camera with me.
And that worried me.
“Aria?”
I closed my computer and looked up as my fatherwalked toward me, a smile on his face. While it did reach his eyes, I saw the worry there. His gaze went to the bruise on my cheek, and his jaw tensed.
While Sebastian had done his best to keep the family away, there was only so much you could do to keep the Montgomerys out of your business. Especially when one of us was hurt. So the next day my parents had been over, both of them trying to act calm, and yet I knew all they wanted to do was take me home and tuck me into my childhood bed.
I didn’t blame them, but I had needed to be alone.
My other two siblings had come over as well, the second set of twins my parents had somehow brought into the world. They had been louder, ready to kick some ass. And then they had left when Sebastian forced them out.
I knew Sebastian was only giving me so much of a reprieve because I had done the same for him. I wouldn’t have much time left before the cavalry arrived. I had a feeling that some of it stood in front of me now.
Though part of me tensed, the rest of me couldn’t help but set everything down and run to my father. His eyes widened only marginally, before he opened his arms and caught me just as he always had.
