Page 74 of There is No Devil

“That one might be,” I nod toward the painting nearest us, which depicts a girl and a cat curled up asleep in a bed of tulips.

When I was very young, maybe three, I woke up from a nap in an empty apartment. It might have been the silence that woke me. I slipped off my little mattress and wandered through the apartment, which didn’t belong to us, but where I’d been staying with my mother for several weeks. I navigated the empty bottles and trash scattered everywhere, afraid to call out and break the eerie silence.

I found the front door, which stood partially open.

I wandered out into the hall, and then down the stairs, never seeing another person.

When I came out onto the sidewalk, a large calico cat sat waiting on the steps, gazing at me with unblinking eyes. Being three, I was certain the cat waited for me. It jumped down off the step and began strolling around the corner. I followed after it.

Eventually, it settled down in the tulip bed of the back garden, stretching out in the sunshine. I climbed up onto the warm dirt and lay with the cat, my head against its body. We both drifted off with the gentle buzz of bees all around us.

Later, an old woman found me. She took me up to her apartment and fed me coconut cake. I had never eaten coconut before.

That was a memory I returned to in times of stress or pain. I believed the cat was there to take care of me. I believed it for years.

But I don’t tell any of that to Gemma.

“Even that one’s lonely,” Gemma says, tilting her head to the side as she examinesThe Nap.“The dark color palette … the smallness of the child next to the cat …”

It’s true. The cat is oversized, a calico tiger, larger than the girl herself, who almost disappears amongst the jumbled stems of tulips.

“The girl’s always alone,” Gemma persists. “Where’s her parents?”

“I have no idea,” I say before I can think better of it. “Excuse me—I’ve got other people I need to speak to.”

My heart twitches uncomfortably against my ribs.

I don’t like Gemma’s bright eyes trained on me, or her line of questioning.

The rest of the show passes pleasantly enough. Shaw only stays twenty minutes, slapping a few backs and shaking a few hands, but keeping his distance from Cole and me. It gives me a chill when he stands before each of my paintings in turn, examining them closely before moving on to the next.

I don’t like that he’s looking inside my head.

That’s the nature of art. You open yourself for everyone to see, to judge. You can’t make art at all unless you’re willing to lay yourself bare and risk what follows.

Shaw’s date lingers by the buffet, shifting her weight on her towering high heels, bored and probably a little lonely.

I want to sidle up and whisper in her ear to run far, far away.

“You don’t have to worry about her,” Cole says.

“Why not?”

“He’s not going to kill someone he dated publicly.”

“He killed Erin.”

“Only on impulse. He was there for you.”

I imagine Shaw’s heavy hand clamping over my mouth while I lay sound asleep on my old mattress.

Going to Cole’s house that night saved my life.

It will lose Shaw his.

* * *

Three days later,Gemma Zhang publishes her article about me.

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