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So much had changed. She wasn’t even the same person. She’s not weighed down by all the regrets of the last twenty years anymore, not clinging to a past that can no longer shine light into the present.
Time ticked on, but sleep didn’t come. She rolled over to the side of the bed, staring at the outside light peeking through the curtains. The canvas in the corner, still unfinished, caught her eye. With the combination of her angled body, her weary eyes, and the thin sliver of light spraying over the canvas, she could almost see something in it.
Crawling from beneath the sheets, she approached the portrait in front of her. Tracing the olive brushstrokes with her finger the shape, the tone, the brightness felt through each blended line, radiated from the canvas. She knew exactly what it was–what it was meant to be from the very start.
Sitting on that cold stool again, she dotted her pallet with the same colors, tinting them before gliding the brush in broad strokes across the landscape. She softened her angles, dragging golden brown twirls down the canvas. She created two sparkling pools of emerald jewels, small white specks glinting off an invisible light.
She didn’t stop moving–didn’t allow the strained muscles in her hand to slow her down. Her mind spilled out onto the canvas, her chest heaving with tired breaths. And when she placed the paintbrush and pallet to her side, she allowed her hands to collapse into her lap.
She was spent, every ligament exhausted with years of burdens holding them down. But now? Now that she looked at the creation before her? She was weightless–a single feather floating in the summer breeze.
The painting before her wasn’t a crisp landscape. It wasn’t an abstract full of devoid lines. It was what it has always been meant to be: Erin. It was from the very start. From the moment she met her–that spark in her chest–it would always be Erin.
Knowing that–knowing that her heart finally found the right pathway to her brain–she fell back into the fluff of her comforter, and once again fixated on the spinning fan above her.
***
“Hey!” a voice shouted at her from the parking lot the next afternoon. “Are you getting out of here early?”
“Keegan,” Julia gasped in surprise. “Yeah,” she lied. “I could use some rest.”
“I like this new Julia,” she said with a smile, meeting her from across the parking lot.
“Do you know where Erin is?” she asked reluctantly.
Keegan’s shoulders slumped just slightly, completely unnoticeable to anyone else.
“Oh, honey. She left before the bell,” she sighed. “I thought she would’ve checked in with you first.”
“No,” Julia exhaled. “I haven’t seen her in days.”
“Did you try calling her?”
“She didn’t answer my text.”
“Maybe she’s busy?”
“She’s completed her reports,” she dropped her eyes to the ground, “she’s done here.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I screwed things up,” Julia admitted. “Like, royally.” Keegan just shrugged her shoulders dramatically, like she was used to Julia being a screwup. Julia reached out and shoved one side. “Hey!”
“I’m joking.” She held her hands up, ready for another jostle.
She could’ve had a chance with Erin. Lord knows she gave Julia enough opportunities to make a move. She wasn’t sure if Erin wanted that anymore, if she ever wanted anything more than a temporary because she constantly was too hardheaded to have that conversation.
That was when it hit her like a bullet in the night. There were no more maybes. She didn’t want temporary. She couldn’t. The last few months were a game of tug and war; Julia retreating to safety behind her white line while the rope pulled them closer and closer together.
“I think,” Julia gulped, “I’m falling in love with Erin.”
Her chest rose and fell higher than it ever had before, which is saying a lot based on the last few months she experienced. Saying it aloud was bittersweet, the aftertaste of a tart cherry. It made her feel so light, so much of the pressure she put on herself lifted away, but it also twisted her intestines into an unimaginable pretzel.
“Not just falling for her? Falling in love with her?” Keegan clarified, her mouth agape. Julia just nodded slowly, her throat tightening with every labored breath. “Have you been holding that in this entire time? Or is this a panic induced reaction to that night?”
“Both,” Julia blurted. “This all has reminded me that there is no such thing as all the time in the world, and I don’t want to keep watching it pass me by.”
Julia’s eyes stung, and she blinked out little tears. Keegan swatted her arm.
