Page 109 of I Dreamt That You Loved Me

Greer gave me a sidelong glance. “I won’t say anything. But if you want to know more, come with me.” She ushered me to a large piece spanning the back wall:I dreamt that you loved me.

Shades of indigo and lilac, like the button-down shirt I was wearing.

Cleo was at the center of a group, answering questions so I ducked behind a pillar and listened intently, unobserved.

“I wanted to explore my raw emotions before the fickleness of memory warps and changes them into something different…more idyllic,” she said. “Right before I started this piece, I went away for the weekend. When I returned, my bedroom had been flooded. We were having a lot of heavy rain and a pipe on the roof burst. My boxes filled with love letters, photos, and journals were destroyed. I tried to salvage them but couldn’t, so I layered all the notes and photos onto the canvas.”

The sadness in her voice told me that she was still mourning the loss. But I couldn’t help but wonder if all her memories of me were so tainted now that she would prefer not having them at all.

“The water motif can be taken both literally and figuratively,” she continued, pointing to the left side of the canvas where a wave curled and reached, building force, and cutting a swathe through the piece.

“It represents a tsunami of grief but as the water flows across the canvas it begins to lose its power. In the aftermath of destruction, it’s time to pick up the pieces and rebuild something stronger and more resilient. The water becomes a symbol of healing. A life force. A reminder that you can’t go back. You just have to keep moving forward with the current.”

“It’s a beautiful piece,” a woman said. “I can feel the pain and the turmoil but there’s so much hope and so much light in it, too.”

“Thank you. It was so cathartic,” Cleo said. “Art is the only way I know to process my emotions and try to make sense of the world around me.”

Cleo’s words were inked on the canvas, undulating like a wave.Tears flow like holy wine, flood the bathtub. The wild river carries you home. Cleansed. Baptized. Absolved. Cry no more. The sun rises…and we begin anew.

“What technique do you use?” a guy with shaggy, blond hair in tortoiseshell glasses asked. Next to him, a petite girl with pink hair was taking notes.

“It looks like a palimpsest,” the girl said.

Cleo nodded. “I work on a stretched canvas and build up the layers. Paint, paper, photographs, sketches, self-portraits, raw materials like glass and sand and string and caulk. After I coat it in clear shellac, I use a power sander to get down to the essence of the piece. So my process is to first layer and build up, and then to rip and tear and efface.”

It sounded like a metaphor for life. Or, more accurately, our relationship.

The words I had no memory of writing were layered into the canvas. The photos I’d felt no attachment to were buried under the water. Preserved in an incredible piece of art that didn’t belong on anyone’s wall but mine.

I pulled Greer aside. “I want to buy that piece.”

She gestured to the red sticker. “I’m afraid it’s already been sold.”

“I’ll pay double. Triple. Whatever it takes. I don’t want anyone else to have it.”

She studied my face for a moment then nodded. “I’ll see what I can do.”

“Just don’t tell her it was me.”

I felt Cleo before I saw her.

A Mazzy Star song was playing and I was standing in front of a piece entitled:I said goodbye to your ghost today. It was violent. Beautiful. Haunting and dreamlike, much like the music.

When I turned to face her, we stared at each other without speaking, drinking each other in. She was just as beautiful as I remembered, maybe even more so.

Lush pink lips and golden-brown hair spilling around her shoulders. Long bangs brushing her dark brows.

In a silky blue slip dress trimmed in black lace with hand-painted black roses tumbling from the bodice to the hem. One of her own designs, maybe.

My gaze returned to her face. Apricot skin and kohl-rimmed eyes. A constellation of freckles dusting her cheekbone.

She swallowed, licked her lips, and glanced over her shoulder at the piece I’d been studying.

“Stunning,” I said finally.

“The art?”

“Yes.” My eyes locked onto those green, green eyes that haunted my vivid dreams. “The art.”