Take Your Time (Fate and Circumstance #2) (17 page)

“I know she did. You told me that already. That’s why I thought you might like this.”

“I thought you said you wouldn’t
force
me to deal with things.”

His grip on my shoulders loosened as his hands slipped down to mine. “I’m not forcing anything, Sarah. I don’t understand why you’re freaking out about this. Please tell me so I can help.”

I shook my head and looked heavenward, needing to get my thoughts in order before I spoke. “My mom used to paint us pictures on canvases every year for Christmas. I’ll never get another one. Seeing this—canvases and paints—it reminds me of the things I’ll never have again.” I glanced around the room, looking at all the supplies that were so common to see around the house growing up. The thought that I’d never see my mom covered in paint, wearing a look of pride as we admired her latest masterpiece, destroyed me.

“You don’t think it’ll be fun to experience something she loved? Maybe you’ll feel more connected to her somehow. Maybe even make some new memories to draw back upon.” He touched my face, drawing my attention back to him. “You can’t turn away from everything that reminds you of her. If you shove down the good times, ignoring the things that made her happy, all you’re left with are the sad moments, those debilitating memories that haunt you in your sleep. Can you do me a favor? Can you just try this with me? It could be fun.”

I nodded, trusting him blindly, thoughtlessly.

The first glass of wine didn’t last very long, but it did serve its purpose in loosening me up. Bentley gave me his glass, which I decided to sip since we were only allotted one glass each. Although, the longer we were there, and the more wine I had, I realized it wasn’t as bad as I feared it would be.

We were all given the same picture to paint. The instructor chose a manatee, and stood at the front of the room with her own canvas, demonstrating how to do it step by step as we all followed along. Eventually, I stopped thinking, and allowed myself to get lost in the strokes, the colors, and the fond memories I had with my mom as she’d try to teach me how to paint.

Once our time was up, I finally pulled my gaze from my painting, tilting my head both ways as I studied it. I felt proud of myself…until I turned to look at Bentley’s. His manatee was almost better than the instructor’s, and he had to go all fancy and add grass in its mouth.

“Seriously? You brought me here to feel better, to feel closer to my mom, and all you achieved was making me feel like my painting is complete and utter shit.” I couldn’t take my eyes off his canvas, off the detail he’d put into it.

“Why do you feel that way?” Concern echoed in his tone.

My gaze snapped to his and I threw my arm out to the side, dramatically pointing to his art. “I was damn proud of my manatee, feeling really good about myself. Then I see yours and it makes mine look like a freaking grey blob floating around a bunch of blue shit that doesn’t even depict water. You didn’t tell me you were this good. Had I known that, I wouldn’t have even tried.”

His lips finally gave way to a smile once he knew I’d meant it as a joke—well, kind of. I hadn’t been joking about his manatee making mine look like a deformed whale that’d been mutated into its own form of ugly. But I wasn’t mad or upset. I actually found it rather comical, and couldn’t stop the giggles once they started.

“This is the first time I’ve ever painted anything,” he admitted, and my laughter immediately died on my lips.

“Are you kidding me right now? Is there anything you aren’t good at? I practically grew up sitting next to my mom’s easel. She’d let me help her paint, teaching me how to do it. She’d even taken me to summer art classes when I was younger, for Christ’s sake! And you waltz in here, pick up a brush, and paint a fucking manatee like you’ve been doing it since you could walk.”

He bit his lip, holding back the grin that tugged at the corners of his mouth. “I take it you’re feeling better, having fun?”

“Nah, not really. It’s the wine talking,” I said, ending it with a subdued sigh.

“Well, how do you feel? You were panicked when we walked in here, and now you seem loosened up. You seem better, not as freaked out. A little bitter, but other than that, you seem okay. Is it really just the wine?”

“I don’t know anymore, Bentley. I don’t know how I’m supposed to feel.” My arms fell to my sides and my shoulders dropped as he once again made me face my reality. I’d been good in my bubble of wine and laughter, until he had to start questioning me and my feelings, analyzing everything like he seemed to always do. “What do you want me to say? That painting a stupid manatee makes everything all better? That now I feel like mom is with me and not six feet under like I did before I pushed around some grey paint with a brush?”

He glanced at our canvases, his lips tight and brow furrowed as if in deep concentration. Guilt—or some other heavy emotion—covered his face before he turned to meet my eyes once more. “I have an idea. Do you trust me?” His gaze pleaded with me. His confidence was still there, although it appeared to be softened by desperation.

“What else do I have to lose?” Defeat consumed me, completely killing the buzz I’d gotten from the wine and the laughter we’d shared. But at least the alcohol kept me from completely losing it. Instead of grief, I felt anesthetized, as if I no longer cared about anything. Tears were nowhere to be found, nor did I have any desire to hide away inside my house and be alone. Instead of those emotions, the ones I’d become so used to, only emptiness registered inside me.

I’d officially given up.

Bentley sent me out to his truck, telling me to take our canvases and wait for him there, which I did. Yet it only served to eat at me more. I hated the moods that snuck up and hit me like a tornado, sweeping me up, spinning me around, and then spitting me out more damaged than before. I wanted them to stop. I needed them to go away, desiring nothing more than to have one whole day where I didn’t have to fight against the demons of my pain. I’d been having a good time with Bentley, laughing and letting go, feeling semi normal again. And then, out of nowhere, the current of grief would pull me under, leaving me drowning and unable to surface.

Then Bentley climbed into the truck, giving me a tiny hiccup of oxygen. Over the course of a week, he’d somehow become my breath of fresh air, my oxygen mask, resuscitating me with his presence. The weight of sorrow hadn’t vanished, but it’d let up slightly, offering me a chance to survive.

“What are we doing?” I asked skeptically.

“You’ll see. We’re going back to my cousin’s place. You don’t have to stay the night again if you don’t want to. However, I want you to try something first.”

I couldn’t argue, because I didn’t have the strength. I only wanted this suffocating cloud to go away. And if he had an idea to make that happen, then I’d give it a shot. I was willing to do anything if it meant I’d have a chance at a normal life again—a life I’d convinced myself I didn’t deserve until Bentley.

Step two—fall.

I didn’t have anything to lose.

Bentley was quiet, focused, and it surprised me. After making it back to his cousin’s house, he took me straight to the floating dock in the back yard. It was dark other than the soft light from the lamppost next to us, and the moon above. I stared off into the lake, mesmerized by the glass-like surface that reflected lights from other docks along the water’s edge and the stars overhead. It was beautiful, serene. Calming. It reminded me that one tiny stone, one movement beneath the surface, could create a ripple and ruin the perfect image in front of me. That was how my life felt. Standing still, not moving, waiting for something to come in and disrupt everything.

Bentley was my disruption. Quietly creeping up on me, causing a ripple that I could feel deep inside. He came out of nowhere, like a breeze on a warm summer’s day. Catching me off guard, making me stop and feel it, filling me with the peace I desperately sought. That was Bentley. My ripple.

“You ready?” I heard from behind me, reminding me of his presence.

I turned around, finding a large piece of white paper, like the kind ripped off a roll. He had it laid out on top of the dock, held in place by his boots on two corners, and rocks on the others. I glanced at him, questioning with my eyes what he wanted me to do.

“No limits, no directions, no outside influence…I want you to show me how you feel.”

I didn’t understand what he’d meant until I found tubes of paint next to the paper. “What am I supposed to do with that? Do you have brushes? A palette? Anything to paint on or with?”

“You paint on the paper, and you paint with your hands.”

“And what do you suggest I finger paint for you, Bentley?”

He walked closer to me and then held my arms between us. “That’s just it, I don’t
want
you to paint anything in particular. I don’t care if it’s the Mona Lisa or a giant blob. As long as you feel what it is you’re doing. Show me here, with this, what you feel inside. If it’s pain, show me. If it’s anger, get it out. If it’s nothing, and the paper is just as white as it is now when you’re done…I don’t care.”

I nodded and moved away, finding the tubes of primary colors. I started with blue, squirting a small amount onto my finger. I stared at the paper, unsure of what to do. Nothing came to mind. I didn’t want to paint anything.

“Tell me a happy story about your mom,” he said from behind me.

I closed my eyes and let the images of her come to me. I hadn’t done that in so long. Since she passed away, all I could think about was the way I’d found her on Christmas day. My pain hadn’t allowed me to think of anything else.

A small smile rose on my face as I thought about one day in particular. “We didn’t have much money when I was younger, just enough to cover what we needed. A week before my eighth birthday, my mom’s car broke down, and it was expensive to fix, so she couldn’t get me anything that year. Instead, she used the last of her paint supply and painted me a mural on my wall. I wanted the Little Mermaid, but she didn’t have enough paint for it.” I pressed my fingers to the paper, smearing around the small amount of blue. When I ran out, I took the tube and squeezed more directly onto the paper, pressing my hand into it until it became covered.

“Keep going,” he encouraged me with a soft voice, sounding closer than before.

“She painted the rock with water splashing around it, and promised when she had more money, she’d add Ariel to it. A few months later, for my sister’s birthday, she’d received a bonus from her boss. She was torn between getting Clari something she’d been asking for, or getting paints to finish my mural. I told her to use the money for Clari’s gift. My rock would always be there.”

I added red to the paper, swirling it around the blue.

“The day after my sister’s birthday, Mom came and picked me up from school early. She didn’t get Clari, only taking me out. I thought maybe I had a doctor’s appointment or something, but she ended up taking me to the mall. We walked around for hours, trying on fancy clothes and shoes we couldn’t afford. But she said it was fun pretending. Before we left, I wanted to go to the toy store. She let me look around and I’d found this water toy. I didn’t even know what it was since we didn’t have a pool to even use it in, but it had the head of an alligator on a stick, and at the end, there was a handle that when squeezed, it moved the mouth on top. I guess it was supposed to spray water, but I didn’t know. I just thought it was cool. We were about to walk out when she stopped and went back in, spending five dollars she probably shouldn’t have on that stupid plastic toy. But she did it for me.”

I sat back, admiring the strokes of blue and red that ran next to each other but never overlapped.

“She sounds like a good mom,” he said from just over my shoulder. I didn’t have to turn around to know he’d knelt down behind me, because I could feel his presence at my back.

“She was the best mom.”

“What’s your worst memory of her?”

I turned my head to the side, catching his shadow in my peripheral vision. “Why would you ask me that? You know what the worst memory is.”

“No. Not that day. Before. Something she did to maybe make you mad. Make you upset or sad.”

“What’s the point in that, Bentley?” I asked, anger and resentment toward him building up inside until my flesh became heated.

“I want you to express your feelings. All of them.”

I glanced back at the paper, at my soft swirls, my happy colors. Then I added yellow, not in a blob like the others, but in frantic circles of wet paint, mixing all three together as a memory hit me.

“In high school, I really liked this guy from one of my classes. His name was Manny. He played football and baseball…everyone liked him. He wasn’t a jock or an asshole. He was really nice, and talked to me like a person. I had grown breasts and curves earlier than a lot of the girls my age, so most of the guys in school saw that and thought of one thing. But not Manny. I really liked him.”

More paint had been added to the paper, but I had no idea where it’d come from. And instead of one hand shifting the colors around, I now had both flat on the paper, frantically pushing them through wet paint, pressing so hard I felt the rough wood beneath.

“He finally asked me out. And not just on any date, but to his prom. I was only a freshman, and he was a junior. I ran off the bus and immediately called my best friend, eager to tell her all about it. When my mom got home from work, she had to have me repeat myself because I was so excited she couldn’t understand me. I remember her face, her crazy-big smile at my enthusiasm. But once I got it all out, her smile faded. She told me I couldn’t go because he was older than me. She said boys that age are only after one thing, and there was only one reason why he’d asked me to prom instead of a normal date. We fought about it. She didn’t know Manny like I did. And if I really wanted to have sex, I could’ve done it after school before she came home from work. I didn’t need to wait until a dance.

“That pissed her off, and she started accusing me of having people over while she was gone. She asked Clari if she’d seen anyone here. And then she proceeded to ask the neighbors if they’d seen any cars here while she was gone. She didn’t trust me. I was a virgin, I’d never been on a real date before, and just because an older guy had asked me to a freaking dance, she thought I was a slut.”

“She said that?” His question made me stop what I was doing, freeze in place, and take notice of the abstract smears in front of me.

“No,” I answered, sitting back on my heels, closer to him. “She said she trusted me, but didn’t trust teenage boys. She said they’d tell a girl anything to get what they wanted. But it didn’t make me feel any better. She didn’t trust
my
judgment, believing I would let a guy smooth-talk me into bed. And to make matters worse, Manny ended up taking some other girl from class. They went on to date for three years.”

“Did he have sex with her?”

I shrugged, feeling completely defeated. “I have no idea. If he did, at least he didn’t toss her to the side like my mom claimed he would do to me. It was my first real crush, and I’d lost him because of her.”

Bentley moved to my side, sitting on the paper next to me, not caring about the paint he sat in. “Looking back on that now, do you still feel that way? After everything that’s happened, after all the other good times you’ve shared with her, how does that memory make you feel now?”

The first tear broke through, slipping down my face. “I don’t know. I hadn’t thought about that in a long time.”

“Then think about it.”

I did. I stared at the mess in front of me, the colors mixing and blending into a mucky brown color, feeling like it was a replica of how I looked on the inside. Muddled, messy, dark. I blinked away another tear and then pulled my gaze up to his, finding him staring intently at me.

“I realize now that she was only trying to protect me. She didn’t want me to grow up too fast. I see now that she did trust me, but I was only fifteen, and most fifteen-year-olds don’t make the best decisions. She didn’t know Manny, only knew how guys were at his age. And she was right about that—the other boys in school only cared about one thing.” I used the back of my hand to wipe away a falling tear from my chin. “I wish I hadn’t spent so much time mad at her over that. I wasted weeks not talking to her. She tried to make things better, tried to talk to me, but I only ignored her. There were nights I heard her cry to my stepdad, yet I still held onto my anger.”

“So now, look at your painting, and tell me what you see. You painted with happy thoughts, and then with a bad one…tell me what you see.”

I realized it then what he’d wanted me to do. He’d asked me to paint while telling him about a good memory, a bright moment in my life with my mom, and that picture was easy. I’d done that with soft, smooth, careful strokes. I’d taken my time to line the colors up without mixing them, keeping them vivid on the paper. And then he had me relive a moment in time when I’d been so angered and hurt by my mom, I’d punished her with my silence. And because of that, my bright, happy picture became ruined, tarnished by careless strokes, furious and hasty swishes. The bright colors became dulled, dark, and nasty.

“A mess,” I whispered.

He didn’t need to say anything, I already knew. The paper in front of me had become a physical depiction of my life. I’d taken a bad moment, a hard memory, the worst experience possible, and allowed it to taint my existence. To dull me, to cover all the good I’d ever had before that.

“Want to know what I think of you? What I see when I look at you?”

I barely nodded, having no strength left in me to do much else.

He leaned forward, taking the tube of yellow paint and adding some to his finger. He swiped my cheek, leaving behind a cold trail on my skin. “I see a girl that wants to live.” He swiped my other cheek. “A girl who wants to be happy.” He added more to his finger, brushing it down the bridge of my nose. “A girl so jaded she refuses to see the good in life.”

I started to shake my head, ready to argue with him, but he stopped me, pressing his painted finger to my lips. He added more paint, starting a new trail from my chin down to the base of my throat.

“I see someone who wants to love, but is too scared to let anyone in.” His finger continued until he reached the top of my shirt, right above my cleavage. “Someone too scared to lose someone else.” With more paint, he drew a line down my thigh, starting at the hem of my jean skirt and ending at my knee. Then he moved to my other leg. “I see a happy person, concealed in tragedy. Hidden by fear and sadness.”

“Bentley,” I whispered, my voice thick with emotion.

But he shushed me, bringing his face closer to mine. “I’m not done, Sarah.”

The light barely lit his features as his face hid in the shadow of my head, but I didn’t need to see his expression to know how he felt. His voice said it all. As intense as this moment was for me, he was right there with me, feeling everything I did.

The next time he touched me, it wasn’t with just one finger, it was with his entire hand as he rubbed in the streaks he’d painted on my body. “I see beauty. I see courage. I see a woman.”

He grabbed the blue paint next, squirting some onto his finger before making new trails, this time on my arms, my forehead, and the sides of my neck. “I see deep pain, fresh scars, and loneliness.” He used his palm once more to smear the blue into my skin. “I see an incredibly sad girl.”