Chapter 16
Hailey
I got up that morning and felt my body weighing down heavier than ever. It’d been about a week since the dinner with my parents, and every single night since, they’d called me. They wanted to know how I was doing and how I was feeling, but really it was becoming a nuisance. My evenings were the moments I had to settle down and rest my body or soak in a hot shower. My evenings were when my nausea got the best of me, and I was tired of listening to my cell phone constantly ringing off the hook. I finally had to tell them that they didn’t have to call every evening, and I was hoping it would stick. I rolled out of bed and got a shower, not bothering to wash my hair before I stepped out. I needed it to be a little dirty since I was going to dye it a different color. The cyan didn’t seem to suit me anymore. I wanted something a bit darker. Maybe a crimson or a mauve sort of flair, but the cyan was getting on my nerves. I took out all the things I had to dye my hair with, the hair dye brush, the towel I wrapped around my neck, the gloves I used over and over again to massage the dye to my scalp, and the hair cap I stuck it all in so it could sit and develop. I turned on the fan and opened up the small bathroom window, trying to get as much ventilation in my bathroom as possible. Then, I pulled out my brush and began brushing my hair. I slowly worked out the knots of my hair that was not shoulder length. I debated on whether to cut it. I sort of missed my short hair. It had suited my long neck better. But as it grew out and started framing my face, I couldn’t help noticing that it brought a bit of life back into my eyes. And that’s what I needed now. More life. I brushed and brushed while the wind blew through my window. The cool air felt good on my heated skin, still red from the hot shower I’d taken earlier. I smiled for the first time in days as I set my brush down, but the moment I looked down at the bristles, shock coursed through my veins. There were chunks of hair sitting in my brush, and I could feel my exposed scalp shivering in the wind. I felt my jaw quivering as the light faded from my eyes. Now, I no longer cared about what color my hair was. Now, I no longer cared about how long my hair was. I looked up at myself and saw this massive bald spot on the side of my head, screaming at me as it taunted my reflection and reminding me of the disgusting things growing in my body, reminding me of the withered skeleton I’d be when they finally laid me into the ground. I dropped to my knees and sobbed into my hands. How the hell was I going to keep hiding this from Bryan? How in the world was I going to explain bald spots to him? My shoulders were getting thinner, and my ribcage was beginning to show. My appetite was getting worse, and my energy levels were becoming depleted. My joints ached, and I slept longer hours and even our lovemaking had become lazy. And now I was losing my hair, and I didn’t know how to hide this from him. I didn’t know how to explain it away. I needed to push him away, to break up and run in the opposite direction. I’d had so many chances to end it and so many chances to tell him I didn’t love him anymore, but I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t look him in the face and tell him that big of a lie. I could tell him I was okay. I could tell him I was just tired. I could tell him the gallery was getting to me, but I couldn’t tell him I didn’t love him. I’d never be able to tell him that. I lay down on the floor of my pathetic little bathroom and drenched the floor with my tears. I wrapped my arms around my body and cried, shivering. I was suddenly painfully aware of how much hair I’d probably already lost, feeling the wind wrap around me and flutter over the bare spots of my scalp. I would have to come up with a way to get around it, but right now I couldn’t. I pulled myself up off the floor and shook my head when a clump of hair was sitting where my head had been. I picked it up in my hands as I looked at my reflection in the mirror again. I had to open the gallery in thirty minutes, which wasn’t enough time to try and figure out what the hell I was going to do with my hair. So, I gathered up the hair I’d lost with my shaking hands, flushed it down the toilet, and started rummaging around in my closet. I had a few scarfs I’d purchased for a project I tried many years back. I’d bought them in all different sizes and patterns and different colors and motifs. I’d cut them all up and glued them onto a canvas before I left it out in the sun. The colors bled onto the canvas when it rained while the scarves themselves faded and dried with the sun, and to the day it was my most popular project. I’d sold it almost immediately for three hundred dollars, and at the time, I’d thought I was simply rich. I smiled at the memory before I pulled out the box from the corner of my closet. I dug through and found a scarf I hadn’t used for the project. It was black and silver, with little dots of green and turquoise. I remembered purchasing it but never using it because the colors were too dark, too bleak, and too opaque for what I was trying to do. But now, the scarf seemed appropriate, even welcomed, in fact.
I gathered the rest of my hair into the scarf before tying it around my head. I tucked everything in and slipped a couple of bobby pins against it, making sure it wouldn’t pop off my head in the middle of the day. I threw on some jeans and a shirt before grabbing my light denim painting button-up, then I grabbed my purse and headed for the door. Now I had the entire day to think on how the hell I was going to cover up my hair from Bryan. I got to the gallery and opened right before the floodgates released. Regulars who had been coming in every day were there to take a look at my latest paintings while new people who were beginning to filter in slowly took in all the artwork on the walls. Being in my gallery helped me forget about everything. Every time a piece of artwork was purchased, I felt a breath of life caress my bones. This was everything I’d ever worked for, the culmination of my life’s breath as I knew it. If this was the only legacy I left behind, then I could die with a smile on my face. And even the mention of death in a place like this didn’t seem to hit as hard as it did when I was alone in my apartment. I got beckoned over by a couple I recognized. I smiled at them and waved, enjoying their familiar faces while they pointed at my newest painting on the wall. It was an outline of myself I’d done, filled in with swirls of gray and black. The canvas behind the silhouette was swirled with a few pastel colors, but the overall tone of the painting was much bleaker than what I’d been doing as of late. And it honestly made me smile when the couple noticed. “Why is it so gloomy?” the woman asked. “I think the better question is why the fact that gloomy bothers you,” I said. “Well, your paintings are just so upbeat, in a way,” the man said. “The idea of beauty is that it can be found anywhere, even in its counterpart. Having something contrasting the idea of upbeat makes
you treasure it all the more, does it not?”
“What do you mean?” the woman asked. “Well, you said this painting was gloomy. Does that mean it bothers you or that you miss the upbeat paintings I used to do?” I asked. “I miss them,” the man said. “Would you have missed them had I not painted this painting?” I asked. “Well, no, I guess,” the woman said. “And isn’t that a beautiful feeling? To know that there’s something else you appreciate in this world?” I asked. The recognition slowly started to ease over their faces, and it made me smile a genuine smile. “The idea of beauty in darkness isn’t simply placing beauty in the darkness. It’s also about showcasing only darkness, or gloomy in this aspect, and making you appreciate what is sometimes only beauty or only upbeat. The occasional contrast between light and dark prompts people to appreciate the lightness all that much more.” “Or the darkness, depending on which they favor,” someone said. I turned around and saw that everyone in the gallery was gathered around me listening, and my eyes threatened to fill with tears. Holy hell, I was going to miss this. “Exactly,” I said breathlessly. “But what if no one buys it because it’s too gloomy?” someone asked. “Sometimes art isn’t made to be purchased. Sometimes it’s made to release an emotional state from the body, so the mind has a better chance of recuperating and coping,” I said. “So, you don’t ever expect your art to sell?” someone else asked. “Nope. I’ve just been lucky enough to have people who enjoy it,” I said. “Is it true that Van Gogh didn’t sell any of his paintings while he
was still alive?” the woman asked.
“Well, he did sell a few, contrary to the popular legends. But, they weren’t for much. In this day and age, he maybe sold them for five dollars.” “Five dollars?” the man exclaimed. “Yes,” I said, giggling. “Van Gogh was not revered in his time. Not like Michelangelo was.” “So, the guy dying made his stuff more valuable?” someone asked. “How did that work?” “It’s strange, thinking about how an artist dying could do that to their work. How come they can’t get that recognition while they’re alive?” another person asked. “It’s got to do with the simple act of business,” someone else said. “If an artist floods the market with their work, then it drives the prices of their own work down. The rarer something is, the more valuable it becomes.” “Yes, but who’s to say one artist’s work is worth millions while another artist’s work isn’t worth a penny after they’re dead?” another person asked. “The idea of supply and demand does play a role,” I said, “but I think it’s also the artist’s story. Everyone loves a good sob story. They enjoy the life of the suffering artist as much as they do the art itself. Some people purchase art because of how it looks, but some people purchase art because of the story behind it. In terms of the suffering artists, Van Gogh is one of the ones who take the cake.” “Well, I’m not sure my parents are going to enjoy this type of painting hanging on the wall in their room,” the woman said. “And that is perfectly fine,” I said, smiling. “There are plenty of paintings with much lighter themes to them if you’d prefer those.” The couple ended up purchasing one of my more conventionally beautiful paintings. It was a basic scenery painting with the sun barreling down into the top of a forest of trees. They paid for it and thanked me for their help while the rest of the people simply meandered about the room. The conversation we’d just had got me thinking about the European tour and how all that money, especially after I was gone, could go to helping not only Bryan but my sister as well. She could use it to help fund her low-cost legal aid. It could help her reach more people like I knew Bryan wanted to do. I hadn’t been selling paintings long enough to flood the market or anything like that, but my story would resonate with a lot of people. Especially if I painted those paintings in lonely hotel rooms while I dwelled on my state of life. I could turn myself into the struggling artist who rendered so many people posthumously famous. Fame wasn’t what I was after, but the riches that came with it could really help the people I’d surrounded myself with. Anna and her outreach. Bryan and his passion for the homeless community. Drew and his tattoo shop. They could all benefit from what was currently an agonizing experience. I still had a chance to pull some beauty out of this pathetic scenario I’d found myself in. But as the people trickled out after lunchtime, I felt my head beginning to throb. It throbbed so deeply, in fact, that it moved me to tears. I went over and locked the gallery door for lunch before I shut off all the lights. Then, I went back into my little shop and lay down on the floor. The cold floor was soothing to my head, but my vision was beginning to blur. Tears were pooling underneath my cheek as I curled into myself, and I had to close my eyes to keep myself from becoming nauseous. This was the worst my headache had ever been, and a frightening thought crossed my mind. What happened when I could no longer remember this place?