She backed away, but I caught her wrist, pulling her to me until our chests brushed. “This isn’t a game.”
“Then why does it feel like one?”
“Nothing with you has ever been a game.” I enunciated the last four words, my eyes holding hers as something intense burned inside my chest. “That’s the part that fucks with my head the most—that you’re so in my head. All. The. Time.”
“That’s not my problem, Elis.”
“Right now, it is. Come with me.”
“My parents always told me to avoid the park after dark, no matter what.” She broke the silence. “It’s funny being here with you, of all people.”
I shrugged, thinking how funny it was after everything.
“Is it crazy that I’ve been at that apartment for almost two years and…?” Her voice trailed off, loneliness radiating through her words.
“It’s a big park. Don’t worry, Princess. I know the place like the back of my hand.”
She was silent for a long time, her fingertips grazing my forearm, every tremor like a lead weight connected directly to me. It had torn me up when she’d stomped out of the coffee shop a few days ago. Maybe that’s why I was here, to make amends and absolve myself of the guilt of hurting her.
I shoved my hand through my hair, annoyed that I’d let her get to me this much. I wasn’t one to overthink my every word, but with her, I couldn’t stop.
“I tagged my first wall over there.” I nodded around the corner to a low brick wall painted dark gray. “The streetlamp over there is just out of view. It’s always shadowy—a pretty safe tag for a first-timer.”
Her grin deepened as we took a few steps down the path so she could get a close-up of the wall. “What was it?”
I tensed, remembering my first piece like a brand behind my eyelids. “For my dad, the night after I found out he’d killed himself. I walked around the park for hours, lost in the only place I knew as home. I had to…mark it somehow, leave an imprint of my pain.”
I swallowed, the bright blue and purple slashes of color emblazoned like a tattoo. “There was this game he took me to when I was a kid, one of the first summers we spent in the city. Mets and Yankees. I sketched the mascots, adding the final stats of the game in roman numerals. It took me four hours to do it, trying to dodge stray park people walking by. I hid in the bushes so many times that night.” I laughed, remembering my amateur move to tag a high-traffic area. “I’ve memorized every single detail of that game. The park service had it painted over by the next night.”
“Is it hard? Seeing it painted over so soon? Why not put your stuff in a gallery and sell it? Allow the highest number of people to see it?”
“It’s not about that. It’s about therightpeople seeing it.”
I shoved a hand into my pocket, fishing out one of the slim cans of black spray paint I always kept on me. “Try it.”
She shook her head, soft waves flying around her face. “What would I do?”
“What do you have to say?”
She frowned, taking the can from my hand and slowly approaching the wall.
“I’ll keep an eye on your backside.” I grinned.
“Clever,” she threw over her shoulder.
She bent to the wall, giving me a real view of her round ass. My fingers twitched at my sides in the same way they did before I started a new piece. I was dying to put my hands on her warm skin.
I heard the soft whoosh of spraying paint in the air, and the smell hit my nostrils a moment later as she laid her first swipes of black on the gray brick. I waited patiently, watching the sidewalk both ways as she quickly moved the paint around the wall in elegant swipes, pausing to take in her finished work less than five minutes after she’d started.
“What is it?” I tipped my head to the side, squinting in the dim light to make out whatever the fuck it was I was seeing.
“You can’t tell?” she purred, one black-tipped pointer finger stroking a line that curved to the right. “It’s a nutcracker mouse in a tutu. I know it’s silly, but your memory was so sweet. My best memory of my dad is when I was eight and performed inThe Nutcracker. I had a solo I worked on for weeks in his office every night after dinner. My dad was beaming after the first performance. He brought me three dozen roses. The bouquet was so big that it covered my head in the picture.” She gnashed on her bottom lip. “That’s one of my favorite nights.”
Silence settled around us. Her eyes were on the abstract mouse with tutu, but mine were on her. Emotion sucked the air from my lungs as much as the humid summer night.
My heart hammered as I watched her wiping at tears. I was so caught up in my bullshit that I had no idea what to say to ease hers.
So I reacted.