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I deserved it. After all, everything he accused me of, I’d done and been. Still, I wasn’t here to hash shit out with him. “Are you going to tell me or am I going to have to find her myself?” I stood and faced him.
“You’re going to get the hell out before I call the cops. I hope you never find her. If you do, you’ll just get her killed,” he shouted, his words echoing through my mind.
I pushed past him again, clipping his shoulder, and walked out, praying Tim’s words never came true.
When I got in my car, I hit my steering wheel, not bothering to wipe the angry tears that slid down my cheeks.
Noa could run. She could hide.
But if she never came back, I would be lost forever.
We have played alongside millions of lovers, shared in the same
shy sweetness of meeting, the same distressful tears of farewell—
old love but in shapes that renew and renew forever.
— Rabindranath Tagore, “Unending Love”
Noa
Many people thoughtred was the color of anger. Just as they thought blue was the color of sadness. They envisioned red signifying heat and blue signifying cold.
These people didn’t realize that fire, at its hottest, was blue.
I brought my brush to the white canvas, spreading a shade of the color in question. Catalina blue. It wasn’t always that I let this color take over so much of my canvas. I would fight the urge to give in to the variations—periwinkle blue, independence blue, midnight blue, navy blue. Substitute it for greens, purples, or, God forbid, a gaudy pink.
But red…red would never take the place of blue.
The music playing in the background was especially melancholy as I brought more color onto the canvas until the original white was a distant memory.
I painted by heart, my own guiding my brush strokes, both short and quick or long and deliberate.
This particular piece was a release.
Maybe I’d sell it. Maybe I’d lean it against the wall of my studio, keeping it for myself until I couldn’t bear to look at it anymore.
It was tough being locked away with my sins.
And I tended to leave them all on my canvases.
I swirled the stained brushes around in the cup of warm water I was sure had cooled by now. The tall windows gave the moon access to watch me walk over to the sink, where I dumped the brushes inside before leaving a note for the cleaning lady to make sure they were cleaned before next week.
I didn’t feel an itch to create in that temperament again. But I knew by next week, the itch would become an obsession and I’d be dragging my pitiful ass back in here for another session with my sins.
I’d come back to the clay before I went back to the paint. It wasn’t as personal. My heart didn’t guide my fingers when throwing a pot. My artistic passion did. I knew the difference, even if the world didn’t.
I gathered the sweaty mess of clothes I’d worn on the run over from my apartment and shoved them into the washer. Although I was done painting for the night, I wasn’t quite ready to go. I dumped the liquid detergent into the machine and grabbed a cold can of ginger ale from the mini fridge.
Taking a sip, I looked around the largely empty studio, one that I kept as another apartment because when I worked, there was no telling time. There was a shower and a bed for those late nights I couldn’t make it home, but there was no comfort here. It was supposed to make mewantto go home.
I wouldn’t be going tonight.
I set the can down on the counter and turned the lights off. My eyes went to the digital clock near the door. Three in the morning. Later than I thought.
I trudged over to the full-size mattress. Paint covered a lot of my arms, and I was sure I’d find more in my hair and on my face in the morning.
This messy heart that I had.
