Page 88 of Shattered

“Just paint something,” he said. “Anything. Stop waiting for it to be perfect.”

“What if it’s terrible?”

“Then it’s terrible. Paint something else after.”

“That’s not helpful advice.”

“It’s extremely helpful advice. You’re just being stubborn.”

I was being stubborn. I knew I was being stubborn.

But picking up the brush felt like admitting I was moving forward—like I was leaving my mother behind. Like creating something meant I was okay and I wasn’t sure I wanted to be okay yet.

“Your mom would want you to paint,” Axel said quietly. Like he could read my mind. “She’d want you to create. To make something beautiful out of all this ugly.”

He was right. That sounded exactly like my mom.

I picked up the brush.

What came out wasn’t beautiful. It was raw. Bare. Colors representing grief that kept slipping out of me. Reds and blacks and grays that looked like they were fighting each other on the canvas.

I painted my mother’s garden. The journal. I painted invisibility becoming visible. Patience becoming presence.

Axel watched me work from his spot at the table. Didn’t offer advice or try to interpret what I was creating. He just existed nearby while I bled onto canvas.

When I finally stepped back hours later, my hands were covered in paint and my face was wet with tears I didn’t remember crying.

“It’s good,” Axel said.

“You’re biased.”

“I’m honest. It’s so beautiful.”

“It’s angry.”

“You’re angry. Makes sense your art would be too.”

I looked at the canvas. At the chaos I’d created. “It’s not what people would want to see.”

“Who cares what people want to see? Paint what you need to paint.”

“That’s not how making a living as an artist works.”

“Then don’t make a living. Paint for yourself.”

“Easy for the billionaire to say.”

“Easy for the person who loves you to say.” He closed his laptop. He walked to stand beside me. “Your art doesn’t exist to make people comfortable. It exists because you need to create. Everything else is just noise.”

I leaned against him. He wrapped his arm around my waist and we stared at the canvas together.

“My mother loved my art,” I said quietly.

“I know.”

“She was the first person who told me I was good at something. That I could make beauty.”

“You still can.”