Chapter 22
Miriam
Unwrapping her paintings restored a missing piece of herself, and it felt strangely like having her heart broken and handed back to her all at once. The paintings were from a time before she’d cut herself off. They had been made by a Miriam who still felt deeply, hoped for things, took risks.
She laid the five canvases out on the floor of the carriage house. Seeing them now crystallized her resolve. She’d given up painting because of her father, given up Carrigan’s and Cass, Hannah, Levi, the Matthewses. Given up nearly every component of who she was, and now she was losing Noelle, too, because ofhim.
Miriam felt the urge to destroy him—and knew with absolute clarity that she would never again make her own life small for Richard Blum.
Winter light fell on the paintings from the floor-to-ceiling windows. This space would be the perfect workshop, as soon as she could move everything from Charleston. Every other space she’d tried had been a not-quite fit, like Goldilocks. Maybe because she’d been thinking of herself as an intruder, only finding places to work where she wouldn’t be taking up anyone’s territory. But the carriage house was hers entirely to claim, and inside it she could expand to be as big, as visible, as messy and destructive and glittery as she needed to be.
She’d lost the store she’d dreamed of, but maybe this space could be more. More personal, more vulnerable, more truly hers rather than a storefront on which she’d projected a polished version of herself for public consumption.
It could be, if she let it.
Miriam was deep in thought, staring at the paintings, when she heard Cole come up behind her. She knew his tread without having to turn around. When she finally looked up, she found him watching her, his head tilted in concern.
“We haven’t seen you in hours, even to steal into the kitchen for food and steal out again without speaking,” he said, walking around the paintings. “Do you know which one you’re going to auction off?”
“I think this one,” Miriam said, gesturing to a bright, more pop-inspired piece. “The others are more personal.”
The rest were dark, whimsical portraits.
“I sort of love this one,” Cole said, pointing to one of Baba Yaga, posed like an old king, her shoulders back and her hand on her chicken leg house like a globe. “Although I’m not sure I really get it. Noelle says your pieces have a wry political commentary underneath them, like they’re winking at the viewer, hoping they get it.”
Miriam almost broke again. Noelle understood and respected her work, and she’d destroyed that precious, once-in-a-lifetime connection. She kept quiet at first, not wanting to drag Cole into her emotional mess. But if she was going to learn how to be present and vulnerable, who better to start with than Cole? She knew he would love her through anything, if only out of sheer stubbornness.
“I don’t know if she’s going to forgive me,” she said, quietly.
“Baba Yaga?” he joked.
She rolled her eyes, and his face got serious.
“I don’t know either, pumpkin. Do you want her to? You spent an awful lot of time and effort making yourself that cocoon. Are you really ready to burst out of it?” He threw an arm over her shoulder.
“Isn’t that what cocoons are for? So we can become butterflies?” she asked. “All that time I was gone, I told myself I was healing. If that’s not true, if I’m not different, then I was always just running and hiding.”
“You asked her for a lot of trust, and she gave it to you. She took all her walls down, went way outside her comfort zone,” Cole said. “And then it looked like you weren’t doing the same for her. That’s what her parents did: they cared less about her than she did about them. They didn’t fight for her or choose her.”
Cole put his hands on her arms, gently, when she began to protest. “I know why your instinct was to run, and why you stayed. I see the huge changes you’ve pushed yourself to make since you got here. But she hasn’t known you as long, and her fear is really big. She might need something more than words to see that you’re fighting for her.”
Miriam threw her hands up in the air, knocking away Cole’s hands. “What would that even look like? How do I fight for someone who’s told me she doesn’t love me and doesn’t want to be with me? Who accused me of knowingly bringing this down on our heads?!”
“Okay, that was shitty, and she was wrong, and you have every right to still be angry about that. If you want to fight for her anyway…” Cole sat on the ground with his elbows propped up on his long knees. “I don’t know for sure, because I’ve never met anyone I’d consider taking all my walls down for, but I think if Ihadtaken my walls down, I would need a pretty big sign from them that they were ready to do the same for me.”
“How can I prove to her that I’m not going anywhere again?”
Cole brought his hands up in a shrug. “What if it’s not about where you’re going? What if it’s about what you’re willing to face right here? She faced her worst fear, being left, for you. Maybe she needs to see that you’ll face your worst fear for her.
“Again, I know nothing about love. And this is only if you actually want to fight for her. Which you need to be sure of. Don’t make some grand gesture if what you want, in your heart of hearts, is a safe, quiet love like what you had with Tara. Don’t try to get Noelle back if you’re not absolutely, one hundred percent all in. That would be the worst thing you could do.”
Miriam didn’t even have to think, she didn’t hesitate. “I do. I want that wild, terrifying, unexpected, untamed love. I want what Cass wanted for me all along—to live a big messy risky life. I’m so tired of keeping myself small so I can’t get hurt, when all it does is hurt all the time anyway. I want her, forever. She’s it for me.”
Miriam looked at the painting of Baba Yaga and had an idea that her brain immediately told her to run away from, so she knew it must be the right thing to do.
“I’m going to need you to get me some supplies,” she said. “And keep everyone out of here for the next twenty-four hours.”
Cole watched her for a long time, then nodded. Unfolding from the floor, he took her face in his hands and locked eyes with her.