The Girl in the Painting

“It’s fine.”

“It’s fine?” Her eyes go wide, and she pointedly looks around my apartment and holds up an old pizza box in her hands. “You sure about that?”

I sigh and avert my gaze back to the television, and Lily continues to clean up my apartment until she appears happy enough to sit down beside me on the couch.

“Have you gone to work this week?”

“No. I haven’t been feeling well. I think I have the flu.”

She snorts. “This isn’t the flu, honey.”

I glare. “It’s the flu.”

“Pretty sure when you say the flu, you really mean heartbreak.”

I roll my eyes. “Why are you here?”

“Because I haven’t heard from you all week, and I was worried.”

“Well, as you can see, I’m fine.”

Lies, it’s all lies coming out of my mouth, but my lies and pretending I’m fine are all I have right now.

“Indy,” she says quietly and wraps her arm around my shoulders until I have no choice but to go into the hug she’s started. I rest my head on her shoulder, and she brushes her fingers gently through my hair. “You’re not fine.”

She’s right. But I don’t have the words to explain just how much I’m not. Wordlessly, I hand her the letter.

Her brow furrows as I hand it to her, and tears are already pricking my eyes thinking about the words, the signature, inside that letter.

“Just read it,” I whisper, and she does.

I’m left to watch her eyes consume the words, moving down, down, down the page, until she reaches the end.

“Oh my god,” she gasps. “That’s…” She pauses and meets my gaze.

“Ansel Bray.”

“Oh my god, Indy.” Tears fill her eyes, and she glances between the letter and me. “I don’t even know what to say. I mean, I thought the first part of this story was a lot to take in. I was even starting to feel like your life was a bit of a fucking mess, but this—” she holds up the letter “—this is nearly unbelievable.”

“Four years ago, Adam dies. And four years ago, Ansel regained his sight,” I whisper for the sole purpose of trying to make myself come to terms with it. “Ansel’s eyes are Adam’s eyes.”

“Ansel’s eyes are Adam’s eyes,” Lily repeats my words. And like a bullet to my gut, it spurs another wave of nausea to hit, and I have to lie back on the couch just to gain my bearings.

Tears fill my eyes, but I blink them away. I’m so fucking tired of crying.

“Have you talked to him?” she asks, and I shake my head.

“He doesn’t want anything to do with me now.”

I silently pray she won’t say his name out loud again. I don’t think I could take it.

“I don’t think that’s true, sweetie.”

“It is,” I retort. “It’s too much for him. And honestly, I can’t even be mad at him. I understand why. But it still doesn’t stop the pain, Lil. And fuck, it hurts so much.”

“I know it does.” She rubs her hand gently on my back. “You know what I think?”

“What?”

“I think you need to get out of this apartment.”

“I’m not going anywhere tonight, Lil.”

“Not tonight,” she says. “Tomorrow night.”

“What’s tomorrow night?”

“Shawn Messi is having a party at Ultra for his fortieth birthday.”

Shawn is a popular nightclub owner in NYC and someone my sister has grown to be friends with over the years. Their friendship is merely based off personal gain, though. Where Shawn loves the publicity Lil’s column gives his clubs, my sister loves the VIP access to some of the city’s most popular hot spots.

“That sounds like the exact opposite of what I want to do tomorrow night.”

“Indy,” she whines. “Come on. It’ll be good for you to get out of this apartment for a few hours.”

“Not interested.”

“There will be dancing.”

“No thanks.”

“There will be free alcohol.”

“I’ll think about it.”

Ansel

The music is so loud it makes my skin tingle and my lungs feel like mush. The bass forces my heart to thump in time with its rhythm, and I tip my fourth—or is it fifth?—glass of whiskey back and let the amber liquid flow down my throat.

Over the roar of music, a distant, hazy chatter can be heard, but I can’t make out what’s being said. I look over to see Bram and two of his bandmates—Nix and Lee—standing in the corner of our VIP booth, schmoozing it up with three women. Bram grins, says something, and the women laugh, acting like he’s the most entertaining bastard they’ve ever met.

Fucking groupies.

Fucking Bram.

The bastard barreled into my house this evening on a goddamn mission, asking a hundred questions about why I haven’t been answering my phone for over a week.

Because I don’t fucking want to.

Because I can’t stand to be around anyone or anything.

Because I can’t stop thinking about Indy, and just the thought of her damn near chokes me.