Page 52 of Dead Love
“What’s in his art studio?”
She smiled. “You’ll find your answers there.”
“Answers to what?” I raised my voice. My toes curled, and Catie lifted her hands defensively.
“Calm down, now. See it for yourself,” she laughed. “I’ll be here.”
The base of my neck tingled. “You’re going to let me go without you?”
“What are you going to do? Run away?”
I wasn’t sure if she was joking, or if she knew Vincent had a tracking chip in my arm. But either way, I wasn’t going to miss the opportunity.
On the trail, the dogs joined me, but when I got to the studio, the dogs stopped in the hallway, as if they were obeying a rule not to go inside. It was dark in there, so I turned on the light: a single lamp in the corner, dimmed by a shade. Every inch of the wall and ceiling was covered in canvases and thick pieces of paper with black, gray, and blue images of a woman, with round eyes and plush lips. A slim neck. A pointed chin. A dangling arm holding a cheek. Eyelids that were heavy with dread, gazing out a window. On her knees with her wrists behind my back, her head bowed. There was even a black-and-white photograph of the same woman sitting on her bed, staring at the door to her room. I didn’t remember that night. Was I upset at something my mother had said?
All of those paintings, all of those pictures, were of me.
There was pain and emotion in every painting, and while it looked like they were mine, I knew they were Vincent’s feelings, his emotions bubbling to the surface, being channeled through his art of me. It was like seeing behind the curtain for the first time, understanding how much he truly thought about me. Like an obsession. Like a curse.
My mother had a fixation with me like that. But this was different. This was lust. This was greed. This was—
Like he cared.
My eyes fluttered to the ground. Did Vincent actually care about me? My eyes locked on a piece of paper face-down on the floor. I picked it up: two eyes hid behind a divided window, peering out, black smoke swirling from inside, as if the darkness had always been there, lurking.
My eyes.
A fiery sensation crawled in my belly, a tenderness that happened frequently now. Vincent was my captor. He had burned my parents’ home. He might have killed my best friend.
But none of that sat right with me. Vincent didn’t think of himself as an abductor, but as a savior. Whether or not I disagreed, didn’t matter. Because when I was here, I had more freedom than I had ever had. I had felt things I didn’t know existed. I wasn’t chained down to an empty dream. I could have felt this all along. The joys and terrors, all the wonders of life. But I only found that once I met him.
And maybe there was comfort in that, even if it came with pain. Even if you could never untangle love from how it ruined you. Maybe someone like me could find that with someone like Vincent.
I shook away the thoughts. Vincent wasn’t in love with me. Obsessed, maybe. Fixated. Infatuated? Yes. But whatever this was, it wasn’t love. Because love didn’t steal you from your bedroom and light your house on fire. Love was where you protected someone from the world outside, from their own worst demons, where you made sure that their pain never reached the surface.
But what was pain, really? Especially when it called to me, deep down. When I liked it. Wasn’t the only true opposite of love, apathy, anyway? Numbness. And what if burning someone’s house meant you were protecting them, somehow?
None of it made sense.
I pressed the painting of my eyes in the divided window against my chest, then I slid it underneath the door to the basement, keeping it for later. I walked back to the funeral home. My mind buzzed with these thoughts all day, and when Vincent finally came back, it seemed like so much had changed since I had seen him last. But nothing had happened. This part of Vincent had always been there.
When he escorted me back to the basement, I kicked his painting to the side so he wouldn’t see it, then I snapped around to face him before he closed the doors.
“Tell me about yourself,” I said
“Why?” he asked.
“I’m curious!” I squealed. My entire body vibrated with adrenaline, unable to choose between fear and confusion and desire. I was desperate for answers, to do the right thing, because I knew that’s what I was supposed to do. Be the good girl. Help the police. Go home to my mother. Take care of her, like she had taken care of me.
I forced the words out of my mouth: “Come on. We ought to know each other if we’ll be together for a while.” I laughed, but Vincent just stared at me. I cleared my throat, then pressed on: “What’s your favorite color?”
He glared at me.
“Your favorite food?” He grunted. “Favorite part of the day?” He scowled at me. “Tell me everything.” I tilted my head, waiting for an answer, but his eyes were hard. “No? Then tell me anything. Anything at all.”
“I hate surveys.”
I raised my brows. “That doesn’t count. And this isn’t a survey or a quiz.” He was silent. I breathed through my nose. “You must really hate talking about yourself.” He took another step toward the door. I grabbed his arm. “What if I asked about your art?”
