Say Yes (Nostalgic Summer Romance)

“When I was eleven, she put us in this week-long painting program at the community center,” he said. “It was juvenile, of course, but… I remember the teacher, Mrs. Gardenbaum, looking at my painting and letting out a loud gasp and telling me how talented I was. She told my grandma, too, and grandma had the painting framed and hung it in her living room. Not her bedroom, not a guest bathroom — the living room.” He shrugged. “And I loved that feeling. I loved that something I created made two very important people in my life feel good.”

I ran my fingertips over his shoulders and down his arm. “That’s beautiful.”

“I kept up with it for a while, painting in my room after dinner, and taking what classes I could in high school. But then basketball became more important, and then eventually, girls,” he said with a chuckle. “And when college came, all I could think about was filling my schedule with the classes I needed to graduate and get to law school. Plus, I was in a fraternity — every minute of my spare time was taken up.”

He paused, inhaling a deep breath as he wound a piece of my wet hair around his pointer finger. He kept his eyes there when he spoke again.

“When everything happened…” He rolled his lips together. “I didn’t know how to process. Everyone said I should go to therapy, but I had nothing to say. Sometimes there just aren’t words, you know?”

I sighed in understanding. “I do,” I whispered.

“I don’t really remember what triggered it, but one night I was driving home, and I stopped to get a bite to eat at this little deli I loved.” He made a face. “Well, as much as I could love anything at that point in my life, anyway. And next door, there was this paint shop. They were about to close, and I didn’t even really make a conscious decision. I just walked in, like I was on autopilot. I bought a couple canvases, and some cheap brushes and paints, and I went home, and for the first time since I was maybe sixteen or so… I painted.”

“How did it feel?”

“Fucking terrible,” he said on a breath. “I cried. Like, the kind of ugly sobbing where you can’t breathe, and snot is coming out of your nose.”

I offered him a sympathetic smile, squeezing his forearm. “It was like coming home, wasn’t it?”

“Yes,” he agreed. “But it was also like being ripped open and having the most painful parts of myself poked and prodded until any wound that had healed had no choice but to bleed again.”

I nodded, tracing my fingertips up his arm again until I was framing his jaw in my hand. There was nothing more to say, so I pressed up onto my toes and pulled him down into me, and I kissed him.

That was the first time we painted together. Since then, we’d painted at least a half-dozen times, and every time, I felt this awful, tight fist around my heart when he slipped out in the middle of the night. It was only on those nights that I had to truly fight the urge to reach for him, to ask him to stay, to ask him for more.

It was on those nights that I wondered if I could really keep my promise — to him and to Angela and to myself.

But as if he could sense it, Liam would pull back after nights like that, barely talking to me for days. And when we did meet up again, it would be something casual — a walk in the park, or along the river, or a couple drinks at a bar before we had a quick romp and said goodnight.

When June turned to July, the summer heat was unbearable, and I truly felt everything between us bubbling up inside me.

But I knew it was only a matter of time before the whistle would blow and the pot would boil over.

The Art of Jealousy

“This came for you,” Angela said one afternoon, handing me a medium-sized, slightly beat-up box. One look at the pastel pink paper it was wrapped in, and the way it was taped up like it contained the national treasure inside it, and I knew it was from my mother.

“Thanks,” I said, barely glancing at it before I set it aside. Then I went back to what I was doing before Angela came home, which was staring blankly across the living room in complete silence, absentmindedly eating sticks of celery.

I was in the middle of a very important pity party for one.

It had been a full week since Liam had so much as looked at me, let alone talked to me or had me in his bed.

It’s not a big deal, I’d tried to convince myself. This is part of the deal. He doesn’t owe me anything.