Some nights, I’d sit back with a glass of wine and laugh, eyes wandering the canvas and marveling at the impeccable edges and creative blends, the brilliant colors and the mesmerizing texture. I was a genius, a prodigy, a legend in the making.
The next day, I’d be so close to slashing the canvas with the dull knives in our kitchen that I’d have to leave the apartment just to keep myself from doing so. I was a failure, a fraud, a pathetic excuse for an artist.
Most times, I painted with a distant suspicion that it wasn’t actually me doing the painting at all. I was ethereal, detached, moved to tears and yet not moved at all.
When Liam was in my life, time was precious. It stretched long and slow when we were apart, and whizzed by at lightning speed when we were together. Perhaps that was why my time with him felt like a dream, because it all happened so fast, so suddenly, so purely that I hadn’t thought to remind myself it would be gone one day. I could only think of the here and now, the present, the moment in the making — not the future me who would long to rewind.
Now that he was gone, time had changed into an unfamiliar concept, as foreign and complicated to me as the laws of physics. Hours meant nothing. Sunrises and sunsets no longer marked the beginning or end of anything. I didn’t eat certain foods at a particular time of day, or chastise myself for having wine before the bells chimed dinnertime. I slept when I felt like it, and painted every moment I was awake.
I found comfort in the numbness, in the lonely, in the disturbing peace I’d created.
When it came time to turn in our work, I dropped my canvas off and left promptly.
I didn’t stay behind to watch Professor Beneventi as he observed it for the first time, or to hear his critique, or to see what the other students had created. When I signed my name on the bottom right-hand corner, it symbolized the end of my dream, or nightmare, or sleepwalk, or whatever the last few months could be considered.
I left who I was before the summer of 1996 behind me, standing there with that canvas, her eyes on my back as I walked away.
I didn’t know who I was now.
But I knew there was no going back to the girl I used to be.
It was nearly midnight on the day of turning in my project when two firm knocks sounded on my front door. I should have been surprised to see Professor Beneventi standing there when I opened it, but surprise wasn’t an emotion in my wheelhouse at the moment.
“Sorry to disturb you so late,” he said, eyeing the half-empty wine glass in my hand with an amused smile. “May I come in?”
I nodded, opening the door farther so he could step inside before I closed it behind him.
“Forgive me for coming to your dorm,” he said quickly. “I realize it’s inappropriate for a professor to do such a thing, but since you neglected to stay for the grading of your final project and since classes are now complete, I had no choice.”
I nodded, and again, his eyes fell to the wine in my hand. I cleared my throat, gesturing to the bottle on the kitchen counter. “Would you like some?”
“I believe that would be even more inappropriate.”
I shrugged.
Something of a laugh came from the professor before he clasped his hands behind his back, watching me curiously. “You are a very different young woman from the one who flew to Italy three months ago,” he assessed. “And you are a very different artist. It’s rare to see such a transformation in such a short amount of time.”
I didn’t know what to say, so I just took a sip of my wine and waited for him to get to his point.
“When I told you to let go of your need to be perfect, I didn’t expect you to take the assignment seriously. I will be honest, I saw potential in you, but I didn’t imagine I would be able to ever see it before you left. I thought, if it ever did come to fruition, it would be long after you left here.”
“Thank you?”
He chuckled. “I don’t mean to offend you, Miss Chambers. What I mean to say is that whatever it was that woke you up and lit this fire in you, I’m thankful to have been around to bear witness to it.”
My sandpaper tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth, and no sip of wine could release it. A flash of Liam’s smile sparked in my mind, and I winced, the memory as painful as if he were really here.
“Your final project was phenomenal, Harley,” he said, his voice softer, earnest.