The Girl in the Painting

I don’t remember how I got there or how long it took me.

But I do remember standing in front of my door, key in my hand and heart racing inside my chest. I remember lifting the key to the knob but being unable to insert it.

And I remember walking back outside and heading toward the subway station.

I got on. Stood in the center of the car with my hands gripping the silver pole and my mind a million miles away, yet steady and focused at the same time.

One transfer, several stops, and even more rain-soaked blocks later and I stand in front of Ansel’s brownstone. The lights are on. And the moisture falling from the sky pelts against the glass of the windows.

The temperature is ice-cold, and the drops freeze against my exposed skin on contact. To feel it is the opposite of enjoyable. Not like a warm summer rain that cools everything down and urges steam to billow from the pavement.

But oddly enough, I want to feel it all the same.

I want to experience each drop, together and apart, same and different. I want to see the droplets soaking my eyelashes before they hit the ground like saltless tears. I need to be in this, chaotic and wild. It’s as if nature looked inside my soul and pulled this weather from it.

My pea coat grows heavy, and the rain falls, crazy and hectic, while gusts of wind swirl in all different directions.

And yet, I’m just standing here, taking this beating from Mother Nature.

Standing here and trying to find the courage to knock on his door. Trying to find the strength to face him again.

I force my feet to move until I reach his door. My hands shake. Rain and tears mingle on my face, the salty, emotion-filled tracks blending with the fresh sky-fallen trickles.

Somehow, I find the strength to lift my hand and knock.

Ansel opens the door, and my breath is stolen from my lungs.

He’s beautiful, so fucking beautiful, and his eyes are wild as they take in my wet and downtrodden appearance.

“Shit, Indy,” he mutters and opens the door wide, trying to coax me inside. “You’re soaked.”

I shake my head and take two steps back.

He furrows his brow, and more tears start to flow down my face.

“Indy?” he asks, and the way my name falls tenderly from his lips makes my chest ache.

“Why?” I ask, and my voice comes out louder, harsher than I planned.

“I swear to you, Indy, I didn’t kiss that woman. I didn’t want to—”

“No,” I interrupt him. “I don’t care about that stupid kiss.”

Because I don’t. That kiss is inconsequential to me. It’s barely a blip on my radar, and it wasn’t what made me run out of the club. His mere presence made me run. Being that close to someone you love so much but can’t be with is soul-crushing.

His brow furrows deeper in confusion, and I oblige with another response.

“Why did you paint that, Ansel?”

He looks at me, but he doesn’t say anything. His full lips pinch into a thin line as his eyes search mine.

“Why?” I scream at the top of my lungs and step toward him. My emotions are too potent, too strong to control myself. With two hands, I shove right into his chest. My fingers scrape against the zipper of his sweater hard enough to break the skin, but it doesn’t matter. Superficial pain is nothing compared to the agony that trembles beneath my skin.

“Why, Ansel?” My voice drops and quivers, and a painful shriek escapes my throat as I shove my hands into his chest again, but this time, I don’t let go. I grip his sweater so tightly, I can feel the material wrinkling beneath my fingertips.

I sob. Big, fat tears tripping from my lids like a waterfall and I bury my face into his chest.

His strong arms wrap around me like a vise, and I can’t do anything but cry into the solace of his embrace. And the rain doesn’t quit. It pelts down on us, soaking our hair, our clothes and dripping between our bodies.

I’m wrecked.

Shattered.

But I’m also comforted. So fucking relieved.

It’s all so confusing.

“I don’t know, Indy,” Ansel whispers into my hair. “I just saw it. I still see it,” he says, and then his voice shakes as he adds, “And for some reason, I just know. I just know you. My soul knows your soul. It’s crazy and insane, but it’s the only way I can explain it.”

His words unleash something inside of me.

Something I’ve been keeping locked tight inside my heart.

Something I need to say out loud, if only for the sake of letting myself hear it.

“Over four years ago, I played the biggest concert of my life,” I whisper through my tears, but my face, it stays buried against his chest. “My music always seemed to be the one sore spot in my relationship with Adam. He was always too busy with photo shoots to see me play. Not once did he see me play at Julliard. And when I gained a spot with the New York Orchestra, he didn’t make it to a single concert. And it hurt, you know. It hurt that he was never there. I wanted him there. I needed him there.”