Hailey

I couldn’t believe my eyes. He was standing there in my art gallery, taking stock of the art on my walls. I was rooted to my spot as I took him in, his broad shoulders rolled back while his eyes surveyed everything. I could hardly breathe, I was so shocked. There I was, trying to figure out where to put my newest additions I’d painted last week, and now I was looking at the man my heart still soared for, the man who still brought me to my knees.

I watched while he lost himself in one of Max’s paintings. It was the only one of his that was left, a nighttime scene of a man crying in the woods. The trees were painted crimson and the small glow of the sun was just barely cresting the tops of the trees. The story behind that painting was one I knew would call to Bryan, and I was stunned as he gravitated toward it.

That painting had come to Max in a dream, one that had left him breathless when he woke up, or so he’d told me. The man had been stumbling in the woods all during the night, attacked by rabid animals and being chased by his ghosts. Many people thought the man was crying with fear as the sun sank beneath the earth’s horizon, but the man was actually crying with relief as the sun rose above the treetops to usher in the day.

The painting was one of relief, not sorrow, and I was shocked as Bryan slowly walked toward it.

The way he looked at it, the way his eyes danced around it, it was as if the painting sang to him like the moral of the story he still didn’t quite see in its quick brushstrokes was pulling him in. I watched while his fingertips danced along the peaks of paint, the almost three-dimensional image popping off the canvas while his eyes devoured the scene.

I wanted to rush to him and tell him the story. I wanted to wrap my arms around his body and give it to him as a gift. I would gladly pay for the two-hundred dollar painting myself if it meant he could take home a piece of artwork he felt wholly and completely drawn to.

My body was pulled toward him like a magnet to its partner. I knew I should be angry with him. I knew I should be livid. I knew I should kick him out like he had done me and forbid him from every gracing this place of mercy with his merciless presence. But even in our darkest moments, even when it seemed like there was nothing more for us, he always seemed to find his way back to me.

We always seemed to be drawn toward one another, and all I wanted to do was hug him.

I threw my arms around him and pressed myself into his body. I clung to him for what seemed like ages before I pulled back. I studied the anger and distrust that was still in his eyes. The way he looked at me as if I still disgusted him. Guilt rolled around in my stomach, and I could feel the bile rising in my throat, and that’s when he spoke those beautiful words.

Even as he spat them at me, I could hear the beauty of his voice trickling down into my ribcage.

He was going to give me a chance to talk, and I threw my arms around him in joy.

I pressed myself against him, memorizing how he felt. I could feel his chiseled body pressed flatly against mine, and I was shocked when he wrapped his arms around me. His warmth flooded all the way to my toes, and I could feel the way his fingers splayed across my back, curling lightly into my skin as if he was attempting to hook himself into me. I could feel his body trembling within my arms as I pulled him closer, burying my face into his neck while I breathed in his scent.

“Let me go get us some chairs,” I said into his ear. “Then we can sit down and talk.”

The moment was soon gone as his hands grasped me by my waist and pushed me away from him. I swallowed deep, my heart leaping into my throat as I stood and studied him. His eyes seemed far away like he was looking past me instead of at me. But he stood there and waited, so I backed up and reached out for a couple of chairs.

His eyes held me in their grasp the entire time. I was so fearful that if I looked away, he would leave. I grabbed the chairs and brought them to the middle of the floor, not knowing where else to sit us. I planted us right beside the pile of paintings that had now been forgotten, and as we both sat down I saw his eyes drop to my lap.

My hands were covered in paint, and I was picking it off my skin nervously while they shook.

“You can begin,” he said blankly.

“I, um, I met your brother while he was still addicted to drugs.”

I studied his reaction, but he continued to stare mindlessly at my hands.

“He was still living on the street, and that was where I first met him.”

“On the street,” he said.

“Yes. In Los Angeles. At the time, I was only passing through. I’d just come down from Seattle, where my first attempt at an art gallery of my own doing had failed.”

I saw his eyes slowly trickle up to mine, and for the first time in weeks, I felt like I actually had his attention.

“This isn’t your first gallery,” he said.

“No, but it is my first professional one. The one in Seattle I tried to do in a park with all my things. You know, sort of a deviant, self-made type of deal.”

I smiled lightly, trying to lighten the mood, but his eyes soon fell back to my hands.

My hands and their nervous picking.

“Anyway, um, when I was wandering through L.A., I spotted him on his corner. He was selling sketches for money, and I decided to buy one.”

“He was what?” he asked.

“Selling sketches for money,” I said. “I didn’t realize until later that they were his sketches, and they were good, Bryan. They were really good.”

“What sketch did you buy?” he asked. “I mean, what was it of?”

“The one I bought was a little sketch of a dog, one he apparently saw around there a lot. It had no collar, and it was pretty shaggy, but he sold all sorts of sketches. Sunsets and purses. People he saw on a regular basis and lampposts. He drew what was in front of him, what he knew to be his own truth in that very moment.”

I saw Bryan nod his head, but he stayed silent while my hands continued to pick.

“John was always artistic,” he offered up. “Always. I learned I was a decent sketcher and shader from him. It was one of the ways we bonded.”

“That’s wonderful,” I said.

“Yeah, but my parents didn’t support him. They supported me because I spun it into architecture but not John,” he said, snickering. “Never John.”

I wanted to reach out to him and take his hand. I wanted to comfort him as the pain rose in his eyes. I wanted to let him know that it was okay to talk and say anything he wanted to during this time, but I was petrified that if I made one wrong move, he’d be gone forever.

He might’ve been angry as hell at me, but at least he was still sitting in front of me.

“I set up a little shop in the small, six-hundred-square-foot space. The owner wasn’t even charging me rent. Just said to keep it up and not get into any trouble. He couldn’t ever do anything with the space, and he figured if I could attract people to his little plaza, that was an investment in and of itself.”

“Six hundred square feet?” he asked.

“It wasn’t much, especially since I was living in it at the time. It was enough to display two or three paintings and have art therapy classes that held about five people at a time,” I said.

“You were living in it, too?”

“Yeah. I did what I had to,” I said, shrugging.

For a split second, I saw a flash of something I’d never seen behind his eyes before. But it was gone so quickly, I had no chance of identifying it before his eyes fell back to my hands again.

“I kept passing by him for several days on my way to various artistic gatherings, and I guess I started to feel bad. It was obvious he was on drugs, selling his sketches to eat and fuel his habit, but something inside me just wanted to help like I tried to do in Seattle and like I think I did in Denver.”

“How many places did you live?” he asked.

“Many, but that’s not important,” I said quickly. “The point is, I decided to do what I could for him. I invited him over to the art studio and gave him a place to safely sketch. I let him use my utensils to really do up his pictures, so he could sell them for more. I figured if he charged more than ten dollars a sketch, maybe he’d feel compelled to, I don’t know ...”

“Do better for himself?” he asked.

“Yeah. I guess that was it. I don’t really know what possessed me to reach out to him, but I did. Usually, I only reached out to those who actively came to my art therapy classes. People coming into the class were taking the first step, so I already knew they were wanting help. That sort of thing.”

“Makes sense.”

The silence hung heavily between us as tears threatened to rise up into my eyes.

“I threw myself into helping him out,” I said. “I gave him a space to concentrate more on his art and taught him how to paint, how to use colored pencils and watercolors and full brushstrokes to fill in his pictures.”

“You taught him how to shade,” he said.

“I did, yes.”

“I could never get the concept across to him when we were younger,” he said, snickering. “It just seemed beyond him almost. He preferred to—”

“Work in gray tones,” I said, grinning.

Our eyes connected for a moment before he sat back in his chair. He crossed his arms over his chest, almost like he was trying to put a physical barrier between the two of us. It ached me to see him like this, to see him so hurt and so guarded, and all because of the mistakes I made.

I wanted to throw my arms around him again, but I settled for continuing my story.

“Eventually, he got clean,” I said. “Truly clean. He started selling his sketches and paintings for more money and ended up renting a room not too far from my small little excuse for an art studio.”

“If he was clean, if he was living somewhere and doing well, why didn’t he contact his family? Why didn’t he contact me?” he asked.

“I guess because he was ashamed. He talked about you, you know. A lot. How he never wanted to be a disappointment to you and how he didn’t know how to approach you. He talked about how he didn’t want to go back to his family permanently until he was completely back up on his feet. Said something about proving his parents wrong.”

“He talked about me?”

“Mostly he talked about how he felt he let his brother down and how he felt he was a disappointment to you because he knew you thought he could do better. He talked to me on one particular occasion, about three months before he was killed. He visited, and you guys had a fight or something.”

“Did he tell you what the fight was about?” he asked.

“He only said that he still hadn’t proved his worth yet and that his family still felt he was a charity case. He wanted to prove them wrong. He was upset for days, stumbling around and in a haze, eyes constantly red. At first, I thought he’d broken his sobriety, backtracked and all that. Instead, he was just crying himself to sleep every night, so I kept the studio open for him at all hours,” I said.

“Every night?” he asked lightly.

“Every night. I made a studio key for him, so he could come and go as he pleased. He replaced the crying with painting, and that’s when he started doing all those paintings you found in my shed.”

Bryan sat silently for a long time after that. I could tell he was processing everything, and I resisted the urge to reach out and take his hand. I sat there in my chair while I continued to pick at the dried paint on my hands, but I could feel my skin burning. I was millimeters away from picking my own skin off my hands, and suddenly, I felt a warmth descend upon the top of my skin.

I looked down and say Bryan’s large hand encompassing both of mine, and tears rose to my eyes before they started dripping onto his skin. It was the most tender touch I’d felt in weeks, and I could no longer contain the emotion welling in my chest.

“I’m so sorry,” I said breathlessly.

“What happened to John?” he asked.

“Bryan, I’m so sorry I killed him—”

“Hailey,” he said sternly. “Look at me.”

I lifted my gaze to his, my eyes filled with tears as he pulled his hand away. I almost lurched for him. I almost begged him not to go. I almost threw myself into his lap. Anything to not have to tell him this part.

Anything to not rehash what had happened that night.

“What happened?” he asked.

“There was an art student of mine. She was—”

I drew in a shaky breath and tried to calm the trembling of my body. I looked over at my bare walls, feeling my chest swell with pride at the fact that I’d done it. I’d created my own gallery. My own successful gallery that sold my paintings as well as the paintings of others. I closed my eyes and allowed the grief and sadness to overcome me, and when I them, I could feel myself slipping into another world.

A darker world that matched the black of my hair.

I panned my gaze over to Bryan, who I could tell was stunned by the change in my demeanor as a black cloud slowly loomed over us.

“An art student of mine was pedaling drugs in my therapy class,” I said. “At one point in time, I had three separate classes going. Seventeen people looking for help, and she was at all of them. I was so proud of myself for bringing something to the community that could help. But John was the one who found out she was selling drugs to all of them, pulling them back into that world I thought I was saving them from.”

“They were coming for the drugs,” Bryan said.

“Yep. One night while John was there, some guys came into the studio looking for me, ripped me out of bed and held me by my neck and—”

I swallowed hard as I brought my hand up to my skin. I could still feel the tightness around my throat as the guy held me right up into the air, images of blood and screaming and John flashed to the forefront of my mind, and for a moment, I thought I was going to vomit.

“He held me by my neck and told me I’d be responsible for the money he was missing. Apparently, the art student was selling as well as giving out samples of her stuff. The guys who came sniffing around were looking to be repaid, and they were holding me responsible for it.”

“That’s bullshit,” Bryan said.

“I know. And John thought so, too. He was there. He was the one who got the guy to let me go so I could breathe.”

I could feel Bryan’s eyes on me as I closed mine and sighed.

“I kept telling them I didn’t know anything about it. I didn’t know what was going on until they stormed my small little corner of L.A., and John was the one who eventually ran them out of the studio.”

“What happened after that?” he asked.

“John tried to convince me to lock up everything and come stay with him. He told me that he’d figure out a way to get me out of this, but I refused. I refused to let those thugs chase me out of my little slice of heaven, even if I had to build my classes up from scratch. I didn’t care. The only thing I had was that six-hundred-square-foot corner of L.A. I couldn’t let them take that from me. So, John came by every night. He brought a sleeping bag and slept on the floor when he wasn’t painting. He said he was watching out for me, wanting to make sure I was safe.”

“My brother did this. Sober.”

“Yes,” I said. “Your brother did all of this completely sober.”

I opened my eyes and connected them with Bryan’s. I felt tears sliding silently down my cheeks as his body slowly leaned forward. He was completely entranced with this side of John, a side of John he was obviously not familiar with.

But he wasn’t going to like how this story ended, and my responsibility would end whatever it was between us.

I could feel it.

“One night I woke up, and he wasn’t there. I just felt something wrong in the air. I left and kept calling out for him, but as I rounded the corner a few blocks away, I could hear those same voices, that same husky voice at my ear while he tried to squeeze the life from me.”

I watched Bryan straighten up and pull himself taut as I hastily continued.

“John was chattering about how they needed to leave me alone. How I didn’t know anything and how he could find a way to get them their money. All they had to do was leave us both alone long enough to do it. I heard a gun cock, and I pulled out my phone. I called nine one one in the hopes that someone would get there soon, b-b-but they just didn’t.”

I swallowed hard and took in a quaking breath before I hunched over and continued.

“The guy who grabbed me by the throat was telling some other guy to shoot him, and it was the other guy who mentioned covering it up. The guy who grabbed my throat noticed the pockmarks on your brother’s arms, so they took some of the drugs they were selling and shot him up.”

I put my face in my hands as my shoulders began to shake.

“He was gurgling a-and choking. They just left him there, and I was petrified. I sank to my knees and crawled to him. I covered his body with mine while I tried to keep him conscious. I could hear the sirens wailing in the distance, and I knew if I could keep him talking, he’d be all right.”

I felt my sob wracking my chest as my fingernails dug into my forehead.

“He just stopped. Everything just stopped,” I said breathlessly. “I rode with him to the hospital and tried to leave an anonymous report of what happened. I was petrified they’d come after me, petrified that everything John went through would be for nothing. But no one pursued my anonymous claim. I stayed on it for days before I appeared at the police station in person to talk with them, but no one listened to me. They told me it was obvious the guy overdosed and threatened to arrest me for making false claims or some shit.”

I drew in a shaking breath as my tears poured down my forearms. I could feel the bile rising in my throat while Bryan sat there rigid, listening to my words while my mind ran at a thousand miles a second.

“What prompted your move here?”

His voice startled my gaze up, and his eyes were trained on the wall behind me.

“What prompted your move to San Diego?” he asked.

“Well, um, I moved here originally because I was scared. I thought those guys were going to come after me, and I wanted to get away. I abandoned everything and fled, but then I saw that guy’s face on a news report. The guy that pulled me out of my bed that night died in some shootout when he was pulled over for reckless driving. That’s when I decided to make San Diego my home. I thought it was my good luck charm or some shit,” I said.

“So you opened this gallery.”

“Yes. When I was finally free of that man I was so scared of, I wanted to make sure John’s artwork saw the light of day. H-he gave his life to try and protect me. To try and get me out of trouble. It’s the least I could do. I thought maybe if I tracked his family down, since I knew your name, I could convince you guys to come see the show.”

“That’s why you were at the memorial service,” he said.

“Yes. That’s why I was there. But you seemed like you were still searching for something, and you talked about him so emotionally, like he was still there with you, and all of a sudden I felt like I was invading a place I shouldn’t be in since I was the reason he died, and I thought maybe my presence would’ve been disrespectful and—”

I put my face back into my hands and sobbed. Bryan simply sat there, staring at the wall while my body shook on the stool I was sitting upon. John’s body flashed in my mind, his eyes dead and cold while I held him close to my body. I could still feel my tears dripping onto his lifeless neck, his pulse point still as his chest settled back down for good because of me.

“I never meant to lie. I never meant to run into you again after intruding on that ceremony. I never meant to fall in love with you, and I sure as hell never meant to hurt you, Bryan. I’d hoped to contact you eventually when I wanted to do a gallery show centered around John, but I never expected any of this.”

“Why did you do it?” he asked.

“What?”

“The lying. The maliciousness. The deceit. Why did you do it?” he asked.

“I just didn’t know how to face you. I didn’t know how to look you in the eye after falling in love with you and telling you I was the one who got your brother killed.”

I looked up into Bryan’s eyes, and I was shocked to see tears trickling down his cheeks. I tried to reach out to him, but a searing headache peeled through the front of my forehead. I leaned back in my chair and sighed, placing the heels of my hands deep into my eye sockets as I groaned.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

There was an almost urgent tone to his voice that made me believe for a split second that he cared.

“Nothing. Just headaches. Stressed over this conversation,” I said.

“Everyone’s got a little bit of blame of their shoulders, I guess,” he said.

His words rattled around in my mind while my head continued to pound. I opened my eyes and tried to see him through my shaking vision, but I couldn’t get a read on him. His eyes weren’t angry, and his fists were balled up. His body wasn’t tense, and his shoulders weren’t rolled back. His eyes were on me, but they seemed glazed over.

Almost as if they were very far away.

There was no anger and no sadness. No fury and no shock. All there seemed to be in the eyes of the man I’d loved and hurt desperately was a blankness.

An empty darkness that fully consumed his soul.