Chapter 5

GETTY

Thunder rattles the windows in the early morning. The clouds swirling and tumbling across the horizon block any sunlight.

The weather fits my mood and the mood is reflected on the canvas in front of me. Dark splashes of color rich in hue marble together to reflect a violent sky ready to erupt.

Music plays in my earbuds—a hard beat, a deep bass—and yet I couldn’t tell you the lyrics if I tried, because I’m so focused on what’s in front of me. I’m so engrossed because with each stroke of my brush, a part of my past leaves me with the movement.

Criticism. Control. Punishments. Expectations. Requirements. And the list goes on from my old life. My monochromatic one.

I dip my brush in a deep blue and slide it across the canvas.

Your art isn’t allowed in this house. It will amount to nothing. Good wives host parties. They have tea and join the Women’s League and their job is to make their husbands look better. Not this ridiculous bullshit.

My thumb smears the blue with the gray. A wash of two colors together. Blending into the background.

Ethan doesn’t mean it, Gertrude. He’s a man focused on business and making it a success. He doesn’t have time for your female idiosyncrasies. You can’t blame him that you didn’t do your job properly. God, how I wish your mother was still around so she could show you how to be a proper lady, because regardless of how much schooling I’ve paid for, for you, you seem always to fail at it.

Dark gray right on the center. Harsh strokes. Pressing the paint into the canvas until it bleeds into its fibers.

What do you think you were trying to pull tonight, Gertrude? Do you think I don’t know you wanted Fred? I saw you talking to him. I saw you laugh differently. I saw you flirt. Do you really think any man would find you attractive? For Christ’s sake, look at you. You’re ten pounds overweight. Your makeup is smeared like a damn teenager. Do you think anyone else would ever want to fuck you? It’s a chore to make myself hard enough to do it. You should thank your lucky stars you have me, because no one else would take you. Now get on your knees and give me a proper apology.

Tears on my cheeks. Salt on my lips. The storm on the canvas and on the other side of the window feels nothing like the one I rage against daily inside me. Dabs of white. The froth of an angry ocean. The sign of churning turmoil. Of the ocean fighting against the shore.

Don’t walk out that door, Gertrude. That is an order. I will cut off your trust. Your credit cards. Everything. This is just a phase. You don’t really want to divorce Ethan. No Caster has EVER been divorced. You just need to be more compliant and do what he says. If he’s happy, then the company will remain in good standing and everything will be better. Gertrude. Get back here. Gertrude!

I fan black around the edges. Darkness. Sadness. Loss. All mixed together in an endless cycle.

The dark of night: my car packed with clothes and mementos of the woman I don’t really remember but have the invisible scars to prove I used to be.

The bank manager: I’m sorry but all withdrawals need to be signed for by both parties on the account. And it seems to me that your debit card has been canceled as well. Hmm. How very odd.

The pawnshop. My jewelry lining the countertop. Diamonds and emeralds and platinum and rubies. Trinkets of a life I was a part of but really didn’t participate in now turned into a means to help me get something of my own.

The phone call to Darcy out of the blue. Biting back my pride. Asking for help from my mother’s oldest friend, to whom I hadn’t spoken in forever. Her offer to stay in a house they had just bought to fix up and resell. On an island off Washington. Was that far enough? The bickering over her refusing to take rent. Her promise of secrecy to keep my whereabouts from everyone. Her admission she’d always hated my father.

Driving off the ferry. Stepping foot onto the island. A breath of fresh air. Feeling hope for the first time in as long as I could remember.

A deep breath. Yellow on the brush. A splash of color. A ray of light in this bleak storm. The sun trying to break through the darkness.

I set the brush down, unsure if the picture is done but knowing I am for now, worn out from the gamut of emotions that sitting with Zander on the bench last night unexpectedly stirred up. I’ve been here for months. Yes, I’ve had a few moments of sadness and some nights where the tears didn’t stop, but at the same time I know I’m in a better place now. I can acknowledge that I’m slowly crawling out from under that veil of criticism that weighed so heavily I actually believed it.

How weak of a person could I have been to put up with it? Year after year. Criticism after criticism. Apology after apology. To not have walked away? To still believe his words hold some merit?

The tears slide silently down my cheeks. Fat odes to a past I’ll never go back to. To a place I’ll never allow my self-esteem to accept again. To a life of pretenses where people judge a book by its cover and believe a wife’s continued apologies and excuses for things that were never her fault to begin with.

The music continues in my earbuds, a melancholy song about lost love, and a part of me wishes I could experience that grief. A deep sadness over leaving the person you know is your soul mate, the other half to make you whole. Because I had none of that, felt none of that. I was nothing to Ethan but a voodoo doll to manipulate as he saw fit. I was nothing to my father but a pawn in his business maneuvers—a means to keep his acquisitions in good standing.

Time has given me that clarity. Distance has allowed me to realize that the only love I lost was for myself.

And yet it’s still a battle to move forward, to forget, and to find worth in myself.

A movement out of the corner of my eye scares the shit out of me. When I startle, my knee hits the tray in front of me and causes supplies to fall to the ground with a clatter.

“Jesus!” I bark out as I rip the earbuds from my ears. My pulse spikes erratically and my heart pounds as if it’s been jump-started in my chest.

Zander holds his hands up in an I’m sorry motion as he moves into the room. “I knocked,” he says, motioning to my earbuds and then back to the door, “but you didn’t answer.”

“And you invited yourself in?” I move out of the alcove and into the bedroom. My voice comes out less than friendly, which I won’t apologize for, since he’s the one invading my personal space. My gaze instantly flickers to the myriad of things around the room that are mine and private: the prescription for sleeping pills on the nightstand, my bra hanging haphazardly over the back of the chair, a mess of clothes still inside out near the vicinity of the hamper, the stack of designer clothes the local consignment shop has listed on eBay to sell for me to help make ends meet, the canvases stacked one upon another leaning against the wall.

Oh God. My paintings.

Before the thought even really computes, Zander is moving toward them with the strangest look on his face.

“No,” I gasp. The thought of him seeing my work has paralyzed me. Caused panic to tickle the back of my neck and bring a tsunami of insecurities and fears of criticism.

Silence settles as he moves from painting to painting. Then the rumble of thunder from outside. My mind wills my feet to move, to protect my most intimate feelings that are splashed across a canvas, but I’m frozen. Ethan and my father may have criticized my scribbles in charcoal, chastised me for an occasional mention of how I’d like to paint too, but no one has ever seen what I’ve started in this new medium.

“Getty.” His voice is soft, full of something I can’t quite place, and all I know is the lump in my throat feels like it’s the size of a baseball, because I’m having trouble swallowing over it. “These are . . .”

“No. Please . . . just . . . Zander . . .”

“Incredible.”

It’s awe. The sound in his voice is awe.

I watch him in my disbelief. The chance to sit back and let someone finally see my art proves stronger than my innate need for privacy.

He rifles through the paintings stacked five and six deep against the walls. His fingers skim over my feelings. Streaks of blue and gray and black and blends of shading and different textures. Anger. Insecurity. Sadness. Loneliness. Longing. It’s as if his fingertips touching each one are acknowledging the validity of the emotions I’ve expressed on canvas. Telling me they are okay to feel when for so long I’ve been told I was being dramatic, that I needed to bite my tongue and do what a good little wife does.

He goes one by one through the artwork. Head down, concentration etched in the lines of his face, eyes focused. And then he moves to today’s painting still on the easel; the one I’m still not sure is completed.

The emotions are still fresh in my mind, still tacky to the touch on the canvas. I feel exposed although I’m the only one who knows what has gone into the picture, the meaning behind it, the years of distress leading up to it. The hope created when I escaped from it. Zander stares at it for a moment, the pelt of rain on the window the only backdrop noise.

When he lifts his head and meets my eyes, the breath I didn’t realize I was holding burns in my lungs. “I don’t know shit about art, Getty, but these paintings, those sketches . . .” He shakes his head as if he’s seeing me in a whole new light and for a split second I worry he sees my weakness. My inadequacies. Everything I hide and everything I wish I was. “They’re unbelievable. It sounds lame, but it’s almost like you can feel them.”

I don’t know what I expected to hear, but his description pulls at every part of me that still needed an ounce of validity. “Thank you.” My voice is soft, uneven, and now that he’s seen them, I don’t know what to do. I feel ten times more naked than I did the other night. Vulnerable. Like I want to kick him out of my inner sanctum and keep him here to hear him tell me more at the same time.

“Where’s your next showing at?”

My brow furrows and eyes narrow as I try to compute what he’s asking me. “What do you mean?”

“Like I said, I don’t know much about this kind of thing, but it looks like you’re gearing up for an art show.” He motions to the canvases lining the walls of the alcove. “So I was asking when it is. I mean, it all makes sense now.”

“You lost me.” I’m still recovering from someone seeing my paintings and the unexpected praise, let alone trying to follow him. “What makes sense?”

“You renting the house. Getting ready for the show here and then moving to the next place, for the next one.”

My laugh is long and rich with a tinge of nerves lacing its edges. “There is no show. I’m not moving on.” He angles his head and stares at me. “They’re not for sale, Zander.”

It’s his turn to look at me funny, like he doesn’t understand. “Why not?”

I’m not going to lie and say the confusion in his voice over my answer—like I’m crazy—doesn’t give a boost to my ego.

“Because I paint for me.” Silence fills the room as my words settle on him. The storm outside even seems like it stops to emphasize my statement.

“And your point is?”

The intensity in his eyes—dark blue sparks of color searching out mine across the room—and the demand in his tone knock me off-kilter. Transport me back to that person I left behind and never want to be again. On the spot. Body flushed with heat. An apology quick on my tongue even though I have nothing to apologize for. Goddamn triggers.

Old habits die hard.

C’mon, Getty. Get your shit together. He’s not Ethan. He’s just asking a valid question.

Working a swallow down my throat, I shift my feet and look out to the stormy sea—my happy place—to calm my nerves jittering out of control. I try to explain. “Is there anything you have in your life that you’re passionate about? A thing you do or place you go where you can get lost in yourself or . . . never mind.” I shake my head. Suddenly embarrassed that I sound as stupid as I feel.

“No, I want to hear what you have to say,” he says, which causes me to turn and look back to him. He takes a few steps toward me, genuine interest on his face, not the smarmy smirk I’m used to so that I can be mocked when I finish explaining.

“It’s stupid really. Probably makes sense only to me.”

“No.” He takes another step closer.

I can smell his cologne, or maybe it’s the scent of soap—it’s clean—and I open my mouth to argue, but nothing comes out more than a meek, “No?”

Another slow, intentional step. If I put my arm out, my hand would be in the middle of his chest. Close. Too close—in so many ways.

“No,” he answers resolutely. “I get it. More than you know. It’s your escape. Your way to deal with shit.”

Nothing like a guy to put it in plain speak and have it make perfect sense. “Yeah. Something like that.”

“If you sell them, it doesn’t make them any less yours . . . doesn’t stop the feeling you get when you paint. It just means you get to do something you love and make money from it.”

His points are valid and yet I still see my heart and soul cut open and on display for anyone to scrutinize, so while the thought is a good one, it’s not going to happen. “Hmm.” That and a shrug are all I give him in response, because it’s food for thought but probably not something I’m ever going to take a bite out of.

“You just need to—”

“Boundaries,” I warn, needing him to know he’s treading on shaky ground that I don’t want to be treading on. The emotions of the morning have abraded my psyche and I don’t want to be pushed any further. I’ve already shown him too much of myself as it is.

He nods his head, a silent acknowledgment that he’s heard me. All I can do is hope he’s going to keep on his side of the line.

“You’re talented, Getty. There’s no doubt about that.”

I look away from him, the room suddenly in shadow as the clouds shift outside, and his next step toward me blocks the glow of light from the lamp. The room feels way too small, way too intimate without the harshness of the desk light.

“It’s too personal,” I whisper, giving him the only explanation I will give. Not expecting him to understand . . . but almost needing him to.

“That’s obvious,” he says, eyebrows drawing together, head angling to the side to study me. “But no one is going to see the same thing you see. Everyone’s churning ocean is fueled by a different type of storm.”

He shifts his feet, his body now closer; our eyes don’t waver from each other’s. “What’s your storm?” The question is out before I can stop it, my own curiosity piqued.

Our proximity allows me to see the pang of hurt flash through his eyes, the sudden halt in his movements. The recovery comes quickly but not fast enough to hide that whatever he’s running from affects him deeply.

“My storm?” he chuckles, self-deprecation in his tone and a look in his eyes he doesn’t give me a chance to read. “I don’t think it’s ever really stopped churning, but there’s definitely been a few surprise white squalls thrown in.”

“Is that why you’ve come here? To escape it?” I push for answers, no longer wanting to feel like I’m the only one exposed, and curious to know more about this man before me.

“A white squall,” he murmurs. And it’s all there sitting in the depth of his eyes—the hurt, the indecision, the regret over whatever has happened to cause him to be here right now—and yet it’s also so very well protected that I’m not sure what else to say. “You’ve been crying.”

I blanch, hating that he has noticed, and at the same time, I pick up on the sudden change of topic. I’m immediately wiping my fingers under my eyes and trying to hide the evidence, although I’m not sure how much good it will do.

“I’m fine,” I say, my voice infused with much more certainty than I feel. “It was just the song I was listening to. It was sad.”

Jesus, Getty, couldn’t you think of a better lie?

“Uh-huh.” He takes another step forward. The simple sound almost an unspoken warning not to lie to him again. “Just the song,” he murmurs with a nod as he reaches out, hand to the side of my jaw, thumb brushing over the line of my cheek.

That jolt I felt last night? That was nothing compared with the start and stop of my heart at the feel of his hand on my face. Skin to skin.

My lips fall lax. The sharp intake of my breath is audible in the silence. And I hate that I suddenly feel like I don’t have a single clear thought in my mind, let alone an intelligent one.

“You’ve got paint,” he says, mint on his breath, as he leans in to get a better view through the dimly lit room, “right here.” And yet after his thumb rubs at the smudge, he doesn’t remove his hand. He just keeps it there, our faces close, our eyes questioning so many things. Time slows.

“Thanks,” I finally whisper, tongue darting out to wet my lips as I try to draw in a steady breath.

“And I’m smart enough to know it was more than just the song.” His words hit my ears, the deep timbre of his tone a soothing rebuke in a sense, because he is actually listening to me, really hearing me when I’m so unaccustomed to any man in my life caring above and beyond the surface.

Words. Thoughts. Confessions. The look in his eyes and the comfort of his touch cause my head to whirl, make me want to let him in, and use his shoulder for comfort when this isn’t even really an option I’ll afford myself. Compassion from a man isn’t something I’m used to, especially when it’s directed at me.

Thunder rumbles. We both jump at the sound, the moment instantly broken. The gasp from my lips gets drowned out. Zander steps back with a startled shake of his head before turning his back to me as he walks toward the window, shoving his hand through his hair, a sigh filling the space.

“Fucking squalls,” he murmurs as he hangs his head for a moment, the words weighing heavy in the room as I stand there trying to figure out what just happened. He turns and looks at me for a moment, eyes sincere, but the words don’t make any sense. “I’m sorry . . . I just can’t.” And with that, he strides from the room, leaving me with nothing more to look at than an empty doorway.

What the hell just happened?

I move to the edge of my bed, sit down, and try to sift through the myriad of emotions I didn’t expect to feel around him: hurt, rejection, confusion, dejection. And I hate that I feel any of these from a moment that never should have happened with a man that shouldn’t even be here in the first place.

He just can’t what? Talk to me? Be in the same room as me? Be in the same house?

Kiss me?

Oh my God, Getty, can you be any more ridiculous? The thought flickers and fades away instantly, my stupidity at an all-time high. I really have lost my mind, the emotions of the morning running rampant and killing my brain cells. Whom am I kidding thinking stuff like this? A guy who looks like he does would most definitely not be into a woman who looks like me. Never.

Ethan’s words come back to me now. Disgusting. Overweight. Pathetic. Useless. Ugly. They flicker through my mind and poke holes in the confidence I’ve slowly built from nothing.

And to think I had a moment when I wanted to let Zander in. A break in my resolve when I thought perhaps it might be a little easier to share a part of me with someone, because if we’re both running from something, then that means maybe he just might be a little more understanding.

Jesus. Did I really think that was going to happen? Making myself vulnerable to someone else before I’ve even figured myself out was a stupid move. Shows I haven’t come very far yet in this mile I’m traveling one inch at a time.

Don’t trust anyone. Trust is a false pretense. Something that’s never really real.

Well, luckily he came to his senses before I made that colossal mistake. Bolted before I unfolded my complex past like an origami bird and asked him to help me try to fold the same piece of paper back into a different shape.

I cover my face with my forearm and just listen to the storm rage on outside and take stock, try to disregard the hurt over the fact that obviously I did something wrong, that he saw my most intimate of emotions splashed over the canvas, and even though he praised me, he still rejected me.

Stop it, Getty. Stop blaming yourself. Maybe it was him. You did nothing wrong but be you—well, the new you—so maybe it was his own issues that caused him to abruptly leave.

I suck in a deep breath and fight through my doubt. Shed the pathetic part of me that wants to blame myself for whatever reason is behind why he walked out. Acknowledge that this is why I need to steer clear of anything and anyone until I’ve had enough time to deal with my past, forget the old me, heal from her scars, and fully embrace the now.

Realize that I need no one and nobody. That I can exist, live, thrive, all on my own.

They say loneliness adds beauty to life.

I guess I’m getting a whole new makeover.