It’s been a week and there isn’t much that can be said about my state of being at the moment. Depressed. Abandoned. Fucking bummed.

 

I’ve muddied up many relationships in my day, but I can normally detect when and how I’ve done it. With Hazel though, I can’t make heads or tails of why she’s been so upset with me. We’ve had nothing but great times since we met, even through the turbulence that Scott and Brittany threw our way ever since the first time we met.

 

Maybe it was just that, I think. Maybe I’m too connected to that time in her life that she’s trying to move on from. After all, she and I never would have spoken had it not been for Brittany and Scott, and Hazel’s frantic attempts to distance herself from her past.

 

But, no. Things were going fine with us even though that’s how we had met. In fact, it had seemed like we both liked the story of how our relationship started out. So, something must have happened.

 

Something with Scott, maybe. He scampered away like the spineless weasel that he is, but I saw him the other day at Hazel’s job. Maybe they’re trying to get back together but are having trouble with my being in her life now.

 

But that can’t possibly be the case. I asked her that the day all of that happened. Hazel may be troubled in her own way, but the last thing I’d peg her for is a dishonest person. Especially when she’s been screwed by dishonest people repeatedly.

 

A week is, by far, the longest we’ve gone without talking to each other, but there’s nothing I can do about it. The last thing I want to do is disrespect the boundaries Hazel clearly set up when she insisted that she didn’t want to talk, albeit in fewer words than that. It was more of the vibe she gave off.

 

She was clearly upset with me and did actually say that she’s unsure of being in a relationship. Which I can understand. We rushed into things, no doubt, but it was to my understanding that things were going incredibly fucking well. Even if our relationship started out as a sham, that’s not how it remained. It evolved into something more.

 

Goofy as I may be, I’m not brainless. I understand that Hazel only came up to me as a means to make herself look like she’s doing well when she was confronted by the two biggest aggressors in her life, but if that’s all she wanted me for, she’d have been done with me immediately after Scott and Brittany’s housewarming party.

 

I don’t want to think of our relationship as over, but if more days pass without any word from her, I will be left with no other choice than to move on. Although I could try to win her back with a surprise of some sort.

 

I run over to my bedside table and pull out a notebook of addresses of family friends. My family is known for running with the cream of the crop, some real elites in New York, Los Angeles, China, and of course Ireland, so I have to know someone who can help me pull off a large romantic gesture for Hazel.

 

Page by page, I search for museum curators, painters, and artists of high caliber to call up and ask for help until I see someone that is not only well renowned in New York, but someone I’ve met whose company I rather enjoy: Phineas Mustafa.

 

He’s the owner of an art gallery here in New York, and is known by his closest friends to be a — for lack of a better word — weirdo. He carries himself as a man of twenty despite his old age, and has what I could only refer to as a Salvador Dali parody mustache.

 

My parents are big fans of Phineas and always had him over whenever we came to the States for a visit. I figure now that I have an art piece of my own, maybe I can see this old family friend for a reunion.

 

When I call him, he’s overjoyed to hear from a McSteele. Apparently, my parents have not kept in touch in a long while, surely because they’ve been too busy to travel as of late.

 

“You!? Liam my boy, you have a painting!” he yells from the other line. He also likes to make it sound like everyone he talks to is much younger than they are. I can’t say it doesn’t flatter me to be spoken to as a young man, since I’m at my lowest right now. “Well, come on down and let me see it with my own eyes, boy! And don’t you think for one second I won’t destroy it if I don’t like it.”

 

It’s hard to tell if he’s joking but I know for a fact that he means well and is mostly excited to be seeing me after such a long time. I think he’ll like Hazel’s painting, but if for some strange reason he doesn’t, I really hope he doesn’t destroy it.

 

I make my way to his gallery near Times Square and am greeted with the strongest bear hug I’ve ever received from someone over seventy years old. Phineas isn’t one for small chat, so after letting me down, he asks to see the painting. I explain as I unveil the artwork that I’m not the artist.

 

“No, no, no, of course you’re not, my boy. Look at this. There’s no way you could have painted this,” he says me, keeping his eyes on the painting.

 

I scoff, “How do you figure that?”

 

“Ha ha! Look at you, boy. You come here with a naked smile on your face. You wear your emotions on your sleeve and that’s why I don’t need you to tell me that you are not the person responsible for this painting.” He pauses. “No. Whoever painted this is angry. Betrayed. In love, maybe. Feeling a lot of intense emotions, hence all the red. It’s a very powerful painting you’ve brought me. How much are you looking at for it?”

 

I’m blindsided by his question. I wasn’t expecting to sell it. My whole reason for coming down here was to have Hazel’s painting put up on display for the world to see.

 

“I need this painting. It’s very raw,” Phineas explains. He leans forward and whispers something in my ear like an uncle would to a toddler. “Contemporary art is all shit, Liam. Not that abstract art doesn’t have its place in the art community, but contemporary art takes no effort. It’s all about how exclusive it is, or how expensive it is. It’s idiotic. I make tons of money off idiots who pay for that kind of stuff, mind you, but it is in reality, all shit. This painting,” he says grabbing it with both hands, “is a breath of fresh air for my old, dying lungs.”

 

I have the hardest time concealing the joy Phineas has just thrust upon me. He laughs at my boyish smile and takes out a check.

 

“You give this to your artist friend. I don’t think they’ll have a single problem if I take this painting off their hands for this much,” he states slyly as he hands me the check. A check for fifty-five grand. Impressive.

 

Phineas tries to leave the room, now that he thinks business is over, but I grab him by the cuff of his extravagantly expensive white blazer.

 

“I think it’d be a bit better to have you give this to my artist friend,” I tell him.

 

I’d rented another car for the occasion, since I had made grand plans in my head to impress Hazel. This time it’s a Maserati so beautiful that even old Phineas is impressed— “Wow, my boy, this artist friend of yours must be someone really special if you’re pulling out all these stunts,” he’d said, to which I’d had no choice but to agree— and I speed through traffic, something that’s not particularly easy to do in New York, but before long, I’m at the parking lot of Hazel’s office.

 

I ask “Uncle” Phineas to wait in the car so I can surprise Hazel with the news that her artwork will be shown off at a swanky art gallery and that it has already been bought for more money than I’m sure she was looking to get for artwork she hate-painted of me.

 

When I run inside I run into a friend of Hazel’s I’ve seen tagged on a few of her Facebook posts and Instagram pictures. Lyssa, if I’m not mistaken. I stop her and ask her where I could find the soon to be well-paid artiste.

 

Lyssa, unfortunately, is burdened with having to bring me some unfortunate news.

 

“She hasn’t shown up for work these past few days. She’s using up all of her sick leave and vacation time. She won’t pick up her phone, and people are starting to wonder if she’s doing okay,” she tells me.

 

When I ask Lyssa if she knows what happened, she tells me that she’s clueless but that it might have something to do with Scott’s appearance the other day. “Scott has been drinking again and whenever he gets drunk he gets mean. He showed up last week and spoke to Hazel privately, and I’m sure he had nothing but awful things to say to her.”

 

That son of a bitch.

 

I race to Hazel’s place and run up the stairs to her apartment, this time with Phineas following closely behind, since I didn’t say a thing throughout the whole ride over. He had been throwing nothing but questions my way about who the artist was, why I was speeding, and whether or not I was trying to kill him in a car accident. Now, he’s still not done talking as he runs up the steps behind me with surprising speed for an elderly man.

 

“I do hope you’re able to work out whatever’s going on, my boy,” he says, barely out of breath, “so that all this running around will be worth it. And so I get the rights to that picture I need hanging on my wall.”

 

When the two of us get up to Hazel’s floor, I see Scott walking out of her apartment. He quickly walks by me and Phineas, obviously trying to make as little eye contact as possible. Scott leaves the door wide open, making Hazel reach for the knob, and then she sees me out in the hallway.

 

“Liam,” she says in a gasp. “What are you doing here? And who are you?”

 

“I’m Phineas Mustafa,” he answers. “You’ve probably heard of me. And I hear you’re the amazing artist who is going to sell me your angry red painting of my boy Liam.”

 

I’m still stuck on the question Hazel had asked me.

 

What am I doing here?

 

Wasting time, I suppose. I’m jumping through all of these hoops to impress her with a big romantic gesture, only to find that she’s, what, back with Scott? A yellow-bellied bastard who only cares about how comfortable his dick is. I should have seen this coming.

 

But I have no time to think about the days I wasted with Hazel. Like it or not, I dragged Phineas out here for a reason and as angry as I am, I’m going to deprive Hazel of an amazing opportunity, nor am I going to deprive Phineas of the painting he so wants.

 

I lifelessly introduce Hazel to my family friend and give her the rundown on what I had managed to do for her. She seems incredibly thankful and grabs Phineas’ check without hesitation. There is nothing but joy on her face, but I can’t, for the life of me, reciprocate it.

 

“Thank you so much,” she says.

 

“Do you have other portraits you’ve painted in anger?” Phineas asks eagerly. “I’d like to buy them all.”

 

“Ummm, no, not really,” Hazel says, and I can tell she’s struggling with whether or not to reveal her stash of paintings of Brittany and Scott. I guess I’ve become one more thing for her to hate-paint, and there aren’t even nearly as many paintings of me as there are of them.

 

“I mean, I’ve been painting for a long time, but I’m so honored to finally meet someone who likes my work,” she says. “I mean, of course Liam likes it too, and that’s why he found you, but…”

 

“Correct, dear,” Phineas says. “Liam is an attractive guy but he’s no artist or gallery owner like I am. So, I understand what you mean. Liam here won’t be insulted if you just come out and say I’m the first person with wisdom about art that has liked your art, and we both have Liam here to thank for bringing the two of us together, and making it so that your angry painting of him ended up in my hands, and now on the walls of my gallery.”

 

That’s true. I put Phineas and Hazel together, just like I stood in as Hazel’s fake fiancé when she needed to separate herself from Brittany and Scott. It seems I’m always rushing in to save the day for Hazel, doing whatever she needs, only to be rejected by her.

 

Could it be possible that Hazel has been using me all this time? No. She didn’t know about Phineas’ art gallery. She couldn’t have. Although she has spent a few nights at my place. Maybe while I was in the restroom, or not paying attention, she looked through my little book of family contacts and spotted Phineas’ name.

 

She’s knowledgeable about the art community. Even Phineas admitted she’d probably heard of him before. It’s more than possible that she knew about this prestigious art gallery. I start to think the worst. I suppose that Hazel is no different than the girls back in Ireland who have used me to further themselves.

 

That may be all I’m good for.