Bryan

We were finally on the last leg of the renovations for Hailey’s art gallery. The outside had been painted and redone, the sign had been put up out front, and the inside had been fully decorated. All we had to do was gloss the floor, put in a few new fixtures for the light switches and the bathroom, and mount permanent hooks into the freshly-painted walls so she could hang her first pieces of work. If all went well this week, we could wrap up, and Hailey could officially open her gallery to the public.

I was excited for her and couldn’t wait for the grand opening.

The last couple of weeks had flown by. The crew had kicked it into gear to get it finished before the end of July, and they had really pulled through. The homeless crew started working as if they had been employed with this type of work their entire lives, and a swell of pride overcame me as I watched them go through and find studs to hang the hooks from. I walked through everything one last time to make sure all we had done was ready to go, and then my eyes began searching for Hailey.

But all morning, she had been absent.

I knew Hailey better than to think she wouldn’t be here, but there were only two places she could be. She was either in that back room that housed so many wonderful memories for us, or she was out in that storage shed. I poked my head around into the room to see if she was working on one of her paintings, but when I didn’t see her, I pushed myself out back.

The storage door was open, but she was nowhere to be found.

“Hailey?” I called out. “You around?”

The door creaked open, and I walked around to see what was going on. I poked my head into the storage unit and looked around, thinking maybe Hailey had lost herself in figuring out which paintings she would hang first. She kept talking about how she wanted her first gallery to be of paintings her art therapy students had done, so I knew she was probably digging through everything, trying to make decisions on which ones to hang first.

There were paintings everywhere. Landscapes and portraits. Some abstract paintings and some that were very primal and caveman-like. I was mesmerized by all of them as I picked one up, studying the brushstrokes of the person I didn’t recognize in the painting. It was a raven-haired woman with hazel eyes and a bright smile. Her dark skin jumped from the canvas as the light blue background played well against her features. I wondered what kind of life she might’ve led. I wondered what put such a broad smile on her face.

I wondered what she did that had landed her in Hailey’s art therapy classes.

I put it down and picked up another one, surveying the sunset that was painted across the canvas. With the sun setting over the ocean, it had to be someone from L.A., and I smiled as I surveyed all the colors that bled into one another. Even though the colors were vibrant and awe-inspiring, there was a darkness to the ocean that shouldn’t have been prevalent. If anything, the sunset should’ve been reflected in the waters.

But it wasn’t.

Instead, the ocean was dark. Almost black in nature. It pulled a sadness from deep within my soul. A sadness I didn’t quite understand. Even with the beauty of this sunset before them, this person still felt as if the waters would drown them, open up and swallow them whole.

It brought back so many familiar memories that I had to put it down.

There was something achingly familiar about all of them. The ebony-skinned woman. The darkened ocean. I picked up another one that caught my eye. Geometric patterns with lines that weren’t completely straight. Sloppy shading done with colors that didn’t quite blend together. I turned it around in my hands, trying to find the focal point. Trying to find the top of the painting so that the image the artist was trying to convey would finally come together as my eyes searched for its purpose.

But the moment the tattoo on my arm came into view, I realized why the geometry stood out so brazenly to me.

It was too sloppy to be Hailey’s work, but it was too intricate to be a simple finger painting, as my parents put it. I stared at my tattoo as my gaze fluttered from my arm to the painting. How in the world were they so similar? Had I run into one of her art therapy students during my trips to L.A.?

Then, another painting caught my eye, the painting of the cabin in the woods.

I dropped the canvas I was holding and quickly picked it up. I’d studied it once before, back when I’d first met Hailey. I hadn’t thought anything of it at the time, but now there was something gnawing at my gut, something that was telling me I knew who this artist was.

And it was killing me that I couldn’t find a name on these pieces.

Every single one of them spoke to me. Like a distant song being whispered in my ear. They resonated with a part of me that pushed tears to my eyes, except I had no idea why I wanted to cry. I had no idea why it pulled such a deep-seated sadness all the way to the surface, but as my eyes danced over the cabin painting my blood began to run cold.

The Jeep sitting beside the cabin.

The trees blowing in the wind.

The logs that were polished and shone against the light streaming through the windows and out into the summer sun.

The summer sun.

The leaves were all green, even the ones on the ground. The sun was high in the sky as it shone through the thick brush of trees, casting a deep shadow onto the ground. My eyes followed the shadow as the tattoo on my back came to the forefront of my memory. They weren’t identical. Not completely. But they were close.

They were so close they could’ve almost been ...

I studied the shadow the cabin was casting off to the side. There was something painted in the shadow. Something I hadn’t caught before because this damn storage unit had no fluorescent light. I stepped out of the shed with the painting in hand as the San Diego sun started beating down onto my back, and the moment I saw what my eyes didn’t register before I felt my entire body trembling.

There were two small boys, crouched down in the shadows with smiles on their faces.

“Bryan?”

I heard her voice, but my mind was whirling. My fingertips danced across the two boys in the painting. They were so small compared to the cabin but filled with so much life.

“Bryan, I can explain.”

I frantically searched for a name. A sign. A scribble. Anything to denote who might’ve done this painting. Anything that might denote who the fuck had painted this personal scene I’d had tattooed on my lower back.

But the moment I flipped the painting over and saw his name, I felt it slip from my fingers and crash to the ground.

“John,” I said, whispering.

John had painted that picture.

I rushed back into the storage unit as Hailey clamored for the painting on the ground. I could hear her crying and talking, but her words were falling on deaf ears. I turned around the picture of the ebony woman, taking in my brother’s signature on the back of the canvas as my mind ran back to the conversation we had over that beer.

That fucking Guinness beer that—

All at once, it hit me like a ton of bricks. The reason Hailey locked up the first time I mentioned John’s name. The reason why all these paintings resonated with a part of me I didn’t understand.

The reason she was hiding that fucking painting of me in her art studio.

“Where did you get these?” I asked.

“They were done by one of my therapy students,” she said.

“Where were these done?” I asked.

I slowly turned toward her as tears poured down her face. She was looking down at the cabin painting, brushing the dirt off it while tears dripped down her nose. She was shaking in her spot, fearful of the tone of voice coming from my lips. But I didn’t care. I didn’t give a damn how my voice affected her.

I wanted to know how my brother’s paintings were in her possession.

I wanted to know the truth.

“That portrait you were painting of me,” I said. “That was me at my brother’s memorial ceremony a few months ago.”

I watched her nod as my anger bubbled up through my throat.

“You told me you weren’t there,” I said breathlessly.

“I’m so sorry, Bryan. You just showed up on my doorstep that day, and I was so shocked, and I didn’t know what to do. I panicked, thinking if I told you I knew your brother, it would open this whole can of worms I wasn’t ready to talk about.”

“You knew him,” I said.

“Yes,” she said, whispering.

“He took your art therapy classes.”

“Yes,” she said.

“You knew who my brother was!” I roared.

She stumbled out of the storage unit as I lunged at her. I yanked the painting from her and clutched it in my hands, threatening to pierce right through the canvas as her wild, tearful shot directly up into mine. She’d lied to me. This woman I poured my soul into. This woman I lost my body into. This woman who I’d ripped my chest open for lied to me.

Deceived me.

Tricked me from the very beginning.

“What? Did you think I wouldn’t help you with your project?” I asked.

“No, that’s not it,” she said.

“Did you think that you could somehow heal me?” I asked.

“I didn’t know you needed to be healed. I think you’re perfect, Bryan.”

“Did you think that by sleeping with your dead art student’s brother that you could somehow make it right? That you could somehow appease your own pathetic piece of guilt over some dead student?”

“No,” she said, sobbing.

“What do you know about my brother?” I asked. “What do you know?”

“I was there when your brother died,” she said.

“What?” I asked.

“I-I was there. When he died,” she said, sniffling. “He-he was so cold and alone. In so much pain, a-a-and I heard his cries. From the alleyway. I called an ambulance, and I held him. Trying ... trying so hard to just keep him talk-talking.”

She heaved, trying to choke back the vomit rising in her throat as I tried to process everything she had said. She was there when he died. She was the one who called the ambulance. She was the woman the doctor told my parents had ridden in with him.

Hailey Ryan.

The woman I’d come to love.

The woman who had lied to me from the very start.

“You were there,” I said breathlessly.

“I wanted to tell you for so long, Bryan. Please.”

“You were there, and you didn’t tell me,” I said.

“There were so many times. So many openings and I have nothing to blame but my cowardice. All it started out as was a little white lie, and it just grew. I avoided the truth, and I shouldn’t have. Please. Please let me make it up to you. I’ll do anything.”

“You knew... my brother...”

I clutched the paintings as tears spilled over onto my cheeks. Hailey was on her knees clutching her stomach, trying to settle her body that was in an uproar. That was the emotion I kept seeing in her eyes. The guilt that was eating her up because of her deceit. I felt sick to my stomach as memories of us writhing together rose to the forefront of my memory.

“I gave you all of me,” I said. “And you threw it in my face.”

“No, Bryan. I swear to you—”

“Did you think fucking me would ease your guilt? That making John’s brother happy would somehow erase what more you could’ve done to save his life?”

“No. Please,” she said, sobbing.

“Did you know how he died?” I said, roaring.

“The lie just built and built, and I didn’t know how to tell you. I never planned on falling in love with you, Bryan. I never planned on any of this.”

“Did you know how he died?” I asked between my teeth.

“Yes, but it wasn’t of an overdose,” she said.

“What?” I asked.

“I knew how he died, but it wasn’t of an overdose. Your brother, he’d been clean for months.”

I watched her slowly rise to her feet, unsteady as she stumbled around for a little bit. I felt my heart stop beating at that very moment as I hung onto the words that were pouring from her lips.

I knew my brother had been clean. I just knew it.

“How did he die?” I asked.

“I’m so sorry, Bryan.”

“How did he die, Hailey?”

I yelled so hard my vision tunneled. She stepped back from me as the construction crew came out back. Everyone was piled at the door, trying to figure out what all the yelling and commotion was about. But I didn’t care. I didn’t care what they heard or found out.

Hailey knew a truth about my brother that not even I knew, and she’d kept it from me for months.

Ever since she walked into that fucking bar and showed her fucking face.

“John was helping me,” she said. “One of my art therapy students was dealing drugs during my classes, smuggling it in and handing it out like fucking candy. There were guys... huge guys... who came in and trashed the place. John was there painting when they came in and just started knocking everything over, trying to find the drugs one of my students was handing out. They told me that I’d be liable for the money they were losing if I didn’t hand over the student, but I refused to. John, he said he would help me, but they... he pissed them off so much.”

“What did he do?” I asked hotly.

“I don’t know. He said the less I knew, the better. All I knew was that he was making frequent trips to San Diego. I-he-they caught up with him and, well, I followed him one night. I didn’t know if he was safe.”

“You just followed him,” I said.

“I didn’t know if he was safe,” she repeated. “And I heard them talking, threatening him, and they pulled out a gun.”

I felt my entire body lock up at that moment. There was no mention of a gunshot wound anywhere on his body. Was she lying to me again?

“Hailey, I swear to fuck if you’re lying to me—”

“I swear I’m telling you the truth,” she said breathlessly. “I called the police once I heard the gun cock, but they started talking about how he was just a junkie. How they could shoot him up and leave him there, and no one would investigate.”

“They shot up my brother,” I hissed.

“Bryan. I’m so sorry. Please, I’m so, so sorry.”

“My brother was murdered.” I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Couldn’t feel my body, only sense the blood rushing past my ears. This couldn’t be happening. Hailey was wrong. She was lying.

“That’s why I came to San Diego to open this gallery.” Tears streamed down her cheeks as she tried to explain. “Showing your brother’s paintings was my way of coping with what happened. My way of coping with the fact that my anonymous tip did nothing to spur the police to look into things. I tried. Bryan, I tried everything I could without getting myself back into trouble. I swear to you, I didn’t mean to keep this from you. It just spiraled so far out of control and—”

“Shut up,” I snapped.

“What?”

“Shut up, Hailey.”

“Your brother saved me,” she whispered desperately.

“Too bad you didn’t have the guts to return the favor.” It was cruel. Hurtful. But at this moment, I didn’t care.

“What?” she asked.

“Get out of here.” I glared at her. “I never want to see you again.”

“Bryan, you don’t mean that.”

“After this project, I don’t want you to call me. I don’t want you to text me. I don’t want you to come near me.”

“Bryan, please,” she said, sobbing.

She reached for my hand, but I wrenched it back. She fell to her knees, her face in her hands as she began to sob again. I spun around and headed into the gallery, pushing through the crowd of construction crew members who had gathered to witness what was going on. I could feel their wide eyes on me as I made my way to my truck, throwing open my door and getting in.

I left Hailey and the gallery in my rearview mirror as tears trickled down my cheeks. I didn’t think the pain in my chest was every going to stop. Nothing had hurt this bad. Ever.

THE END

... but to be continued