Every Night (Brush of Love 1)

It would have to be for now, however, because I wasn’t close enough to see the pattern on the petals of the tattooed beauty.

The one that entranced me, however, was the geometric patterns on his left arm. It started in the middle of his forearm and cascaded all the way up past his t-shirt. I closed my eyes, trying desperately to conjure the memory before my pencil started fluttering over the page. Diamonds and cubes and triangles emerged, all melding together in one fluid piece of artwork that draped over his skin.

The sketch I was doing didn’t hold a candle to the intricacies and the beauty of that particular tattoo.

I wanted to study it up close, to memorize it and pick apart its shapes. I wanted to ask him questions and figure out how he came up with the pattern. Ask him if he drew it. If he designed it himself. It was unlike anything I’d ever seen, full of colors that faded into one another. The tattoo had almost glistened underneath the spotlight, like his eyes when he was telling that story of his brother.

I felt a sense of dread waft up my spine, and I put my pencil down before I messed it all up.

Had I made a mistake in moving to San Diego? I had to get out of Los Angeles. After everything that had happened. My instincts had always been spot on, and in some respects, I believe I moved here because of how John always talked about it. He talked about his brother. About how he was successful and wanted to model his life after him. He told me that the San Diego sun felt different on his face than the Los Angeles sun had, and had it not been for his parents living there, he would’ve moved back a long time ago.

I thought it was a brilliant way to memorialize the one rehabilitation patient I’d had who’d affected me the most.

I’d always trusted my instincts because they’d never gotten me into trouble. The only time I ever found myself in trouble was when I strictly went against them. It’s how I ended up in a pre-med program I almost flunked out of. The moment I dropped out and focused on my art, my career took off. People saw the passion in my work and were more than willing to pay for it. I found my passion for art therapy and using it to rehabilitate people in the areas I was settling in, but I never did stick around for too long.

Until I moved to Los Angeles and met John.

Until I made the biggest mistake of my entire life.

A car horn ripped me from my thoughts as I looked down onto the picture of John’s brother. Bryan, I think he said his name was. My tears clouded the pencil marks, bleeding one into another until the entity of his torso had been ruined. I sobbed, my elbows planting into the table as I put my wet face in my hands.

“I promise I’ll pay you back,” I said as I sobbed. “I promise I’ll make it up to you somehow.”

I couldn’t save John. No matter how hard I’d tried, I simply couldn’t do it. He had been reaching for me, screaming out to me and begging me with his eyes. I’d put him in front of every single canvas and used my own personal money to purchase every single color of the spectrum I could come across. The pictures he painted over the last few months of his life had made it into my moving van, and all of a sudden, a thought crossed my mind.

That could be my first gallery.

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The first profitable movement of the business.

I could showcase and display the beauty John brought to the world. The beauty he wanted so desperately to give back, even though the darkness of this earth consumed him whole.

I wanted John to know his beauty was still going to be witnessed, and in some respects, I wanted Bryan to know that someone else bore witness to John’s beauty.

Someone else saw the good in him, even though the darkness hung heavily in his eyes.

“I’m so sorry, John,” I said breathlessly. “I’m so, so sorry.”

Chapter 5

Bryan

I drove into the small beachside town, inching closer to the diner I was meeting Drew at. It really wasn’t a town. It was all swept up until the city of San Diego. But this little stretch of land seemed to depart from the usual hustle and bustle of San Diego itself, so people usually referred to it as a town of its own. It was quiet and the beach the diner sat on was rarely occupied. The sand here wasn’t as soft, which repelled most of the tourists.

Which was perfect for the locals who kept this small slice of paradise alive.

I saw the neon sign for Drew’s Diner up ahead. I figured Drew probably loved this place because he got a kick out of the name. He had this running joke that he would eventually buy the place out and never have to change the name of it. He’d laugh and laugh, wiping the tears from his eyes while reliving a joke that had long since been played out.

I came because they had incredible homemade milkshakes and freshly cut fries I could dip into the house-made whipped cream.

I pulled into the parking lot and looked over at the abandoned building across the street. Drew and I had bets on what that place used to be. I thought it was an old, run-down gas station, but Drew thought it used to be an old bank. I had no idea where the fuck he’d get the impression it was a bank, but I left him to his own ideas.

But as I got out of my car and took a good look at it, I noticed something different.

A sold sign was sitting in the window.

Holy hell, someone actually bought the place. Every business that had tried to set up there in the last decade had gone belly up. I felt for the poor sucker who was duped into buying that place, but I’m sure the owner was finally glad to get it off his hands. I can’t imagine a dust house like that going for more than twenty thousand dollars, but the property taxes alone with being so close to the ocean would be a fun surprise come next year.