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I didn’t tell him that we’d been homeless more often than not. That I’d gone hungry too many times to count. That she’d been a mean, and miserable, and hateful person. That she’d never really been a mom to me at all.

I didn’t tell him that in many ways her death had felt like a relief.

He winced. “I’m sorry; that’s shitty.”

I shrugged. It was shitty, just not for the reasons he was thinking of. “What about you?” I deflected. That was enough about me. “You just moved here too, right?”

He shifted in his seat. “I was raised here, actually. My family and I just uh,” he paused, almost too quick to notice, and cleared his throat, “we moved away for a little while, for some family stuff.”

If I hadn’t been so familiar with that kind of pain, I wouldn’t have recognized it in him, but I did. His eyes had clouded over, infinitesimally, a little distant, some hidden pain showing itself momentarily before it was gone.

It knocked the breath straight from my lungs.No way.

“You ready to go?” he quickly said, smiling as he slid his backpack over his shoulder.

I wanted to reach out and touch him, tell him I recognized his pain because I held it inside of myself, too. But I couldn’t do it; I didn’t do it, but I’d never wanted to tell somebody my truths more than I wanted Greyson to know them.

“Yeah, I’m ready,” I replied.

That crooked smile of his grew brighter—light, happy.How did he do that?And then he grabbed my hand, and all of it, all of the heaviness, fell away.

And by the end of that day, I had learned three things about the boy I was going to marry someday:

One, he was smart as hell.

Two, he was charming as hell, too.

And three, he was hiding something dark inside of himself; he was just a lot better at hiding it than I was.

Seven After

A NAKED MANwith a bleeding heart in the palm of his hands stares back at me from the canvas. He grips it as if it’s his life force. He’s on his knees, blurred faces surrounding him in a chaos of colors and streaks of paint marring their features. They lean towards the heart—possibly curious, possibly hungry for the chance to snatch it away from the man and rip it to shreds.

That’s up to the observer to decide, but I’d like to think that if any of those faces dared to try, he would rip themto shreds instead, fiercely protecting the heart with his life.

I blow my hair away from my face, wiping my paint-streaked fingers across my apron, and take a step away from the painting. Something’s missing, but I’m not sure what.

Caffeine.

I need more caffeine.

And supplies.

I quickly down the rest of my green juice and slip my apron off, draping it over the empty easel beside me. I don’t bother changing out of my paint-stained clothes. I’ll be gone and back too quick for it to matter.

Shutting the double doors of my studio behind me, I step off the wooded patio and into the overgrown grass of my backyard. I like it this way. It makes me feel like I’m in a mystical faery meadow, or the never-ending rolling hills of wildland somewhere far away and foreign. At least that’s what I tell myself, since I don’t have the care enough to cut it as often as I should. But it’s mine—all mine—and it makes for perfect grounding energy. Again, this is what I tell myself.

I sink my toes into the moist soil beneath the grass, close my eyes, and tilt my face towards the sun; pull in a deep, determined breath; fill my lungs with air and inspiration; and will the answers I need to magically come to me through divine intervention.

Color? Maybe the painting needs more color. Or less color. More vibrancy? Muted tones?

Less contrast? More contrast? Hell, I don’t know.

I mentally shrug, and then physically shrug.

Thanks anyway, Universe.

Ten minutes later, I’m browsing the aisle of acrylic paints at a local hole-in-the-wall art supply, still unsure of which direction to take in finishing this one. The one I’ve secretly named“Mine.”Because no one will ever know for certain that the heart on that canvas is mine, and that the man protecting it has been holding onto it, in reality, for the past eight years.He was supposed to be mine, too.