Page 45 of Paint Me Love
My question only gets a thoughtful hum from him as he puts on some quiet music. “Remember—for the next two hours, you are not allowed to distract me. I really need to focus, okay?”
The rebel in me wants to say fuck it and sabotage him, but I force that urge down. I’ve been wanting to witness Daniel paintsince his art first spoke to me, so I’m not about to ruin this just because I find it difficult to keep my hands to me. Two hours I can manage, and once they have passed, I’ll have my fill of this stunning man.
“Okay. I won’t bother you. It will be like I’m not even here.”
Big words. I regret them as soon as Daniel turns his back to me and grabs his paint tubs. But I vow to keep my promise—it will be worth it.
Once he’s done mixing the colors he’ll be using today, he shifts his attention to the painting. From then on it’s pure magic, the way his hands move with ease and confidence, as if they are twenty steps ahead already and know exactly where each brushstroke needs to land. He hums to the music, pausing now and then and taking a step back to evaluate his progress.
I’m mesmerized by the process, by what he’s creating. It’s beauty and skill unfolding before my own eyes, a sacred ritual that takes my breath away and squeezes my chest until it feels like my heart is about to get crushed.
I hate it. It’s too much, too intimate, too potent. Art is pointless. A waste of time. I’ve believed that for so long and I still do, but this before me… It’s stronger than that, it’s violent, it’s merciless, and it’s sweeping me away, chipping away at my resolve.
It’s what started this, what drew me to Daniel. This budding anticipation, this shivering need, this immense urge to give in to the raw feelings his art evokes in me.
I force my gaze away, I need to, as stabbing pain suffocates me. It’s the truth I’ve buried deep inside trying to surface, to overtake me now that I’ve given it a way to do so.
Art was my passion too, once upon a time. It gave me excitement, something to strive for, meaning, an end-goal, a way to express all these things that lived inside me. Picking up a brush… It was cathartic, it was soul-lifting freedom. I craved itlike a drug, I wanted to live the life Daniel has, to entangle myself with art and paint. Just paint.
But art didn’t make money. Not then and not now. For a lucky few, maybe that path was an option, but the odds were never in my favor. I thought I was decent, but I wasn’t a protégé like Daniel. I didn’t have the skill, the intuition and talent he has. My life was meant for far greater things, and my parents made sure that I knew it.
My eyes lock on Daniel again, unable to look away for too long. My throat constricts as a surge of fear and sadness and anger courses through me, tightening my chest.
Daniel embodies everything I couldn’t have. He’s poor, yet he shines. He’s himself, he doesn’t hide, he doesn’t play roles. He just paints, and he does it with such passion it makes me want to scream and cry and break something.
Watching him strips me naked, destroys my carefully constructed walls. It forces me to face things I thought I’d forgotten, to fight with myself so I can stay afloat. Each precise brushstroke as he brings to life more of the painting is like a knife to my heart, sinking deeper and deeper until it eventually ends me.
I hate this so much I could die. But I can’t look away, I’m mesmerized. He’s a god and I am his servant—I cannot give him up even if it might kill me.
Heaving, I close my eyes and try to find my center. It’s hard, almost impossible. I need something to ground me, an anchor. When I open my eyes again, I search for that something. My attention lands on Daniel’s sketchbook, which is sitting on the couch’s armrest. I pick it up. A pencil has been used to bookmark a page. I open it. It’s a recent doodle of a human figure sitting on a chair. Is it from the classes at Jesse’s studio? It’s roughly blocked in, and the focus is on the shapes and proportions.
I flip to the next page. It’s blank, untouched.Waiting. Taunting me, daring me, mocking me, laughing at me.
My breath catches. My fingers itch. I start to drown, there’s no saving me.
“You can use my sketchbook if you want,” Daniel’s soft voice breaks through the darkness engulfing me like a single ray of scorching sunlight.
“Huh?”
He’s turned around and is watching me with his arms crossed over his chest. There is a splotch of green on his left cheek, and a bit of blue on the right one, but he doesn’t seem to care. “You can use my sketchbook if you want.”
Goosebumps erupt all over me. I didn’t hear him wrong then. “Why are you looking at me? Shouldn’t younotbe getting distracted?”
He smiles and shakes his head. “You were so quiet I thought you might’ve fallen asleep.”
I poke the top of the pencil with my finger, then press it to my chest as I inhale deeply. “I am not bored, Daniel. Quite the contrary. I love watching you paint so much it makes me want to try it, too.”
My confession catches me off-guard. I didn’t mean to say this, but the words just came out of me on their own. Panic surges through me, vile and unforgiving, once again clamping its powerful hands around my neck.
Daniel uncrosses his arms and puts his brush down. “You used to, didn’t you?”
The cat is out of the bag. There’s no point denying it now or trying to hide it, he’ll know I am lying.
Swallowing down the sensation of drowning, I look out the window, unable to hold his inquiring gaze. “For a bit, a long time ago. But it was pointless, so soon after, I gave it up.”
He walks over to me and cradles my chin, gently rubbing it. “I don’t think that’s true, or you wouldn’t know so much about art.”
“That’s not—”
