Page 14 of I Dreamt That You Loved Me

I nodded. “There was so much police brutality. I wanted to capture that moment in history, the unrest and the violence, but also the way it brought people together.”

“What about the collage in the hallway?” he asked.

“You tell me,” I challenged.

He thought about it for a minute. “I think it’s fucking incredible. The way you wove the lacy textiles and your paintings into it. The eyes, hands, lips, the pomegranate split down the middle with the jewel-toned ruby fruit…the poetry… It’s provocative. It tells a story. The violent beauty of nature and sex and love and death. You captured the entire human experience.”

Wow. He’d really studied my collage and took from it what I’d hoped to convey. “I can’t take credit for the poetry though. I didn’t write it.”

“I know.Song of Songs, right?”

“I can’t believe you knew that!”

“Who knew the Bible could be so sensual? I used it for inspiration for some music I wrote—” He cut himself off andran his hand through his hair then looked away and cleared his throat.

I was hoping he’d say more about the music, but he didn’t.

“Anyway, your collages are cool.” He raised his arms in the air. “Big fan.”

I laughed. “Thanks. I dated a guy who called my collages a ‘nice little hobby.’ He said they’re social commentary, not art and that I’m not creating anything original if I use found objects.”

“Bullshit,” Gabriel said. “He sounds like an asshole who doesn’t know the first thing about art.”

“He worked for an ad agency.”

“You dated a guy who works inadvertising?” Gabriel made it sound like a dirty word. He looked so scandalized that I was laughing again.

“When we met, he told me he was a writer,” I said. “He was one of those guys who pretends to believe in the same things you do but it turns out to be a big fat lie. He was a pretty slick salesman though. I’ll give him that.”

“No wonder he didn’t appreciate your art. He was a phony who probably never had an original thought in his head,” Gabriel scoffed. “Newsflash, Slick, artissocial commentary. Art by its very nature is political.” He swept his arm across the collage. “This is fucking art. Everything you create is art. You’re wearing art right now.”

I wasn’t so sure that my baggy Girbaud jeans and crocheted black top could be called art. I pointed to my feet. “I bought these jelly sandals on Canal Street for five bucks.”

“Doesn’t matter. You always look like art,” he said incisively. “Sometimes it’s graffiti like that tank top you wore the first time we met. Or a Jackson Pollock painting like the short skirt you wore to Yaffa. Or your Frida Kahlo-esque Doc Martens…”

He stopped and bit the corner of his mouth like he’d said too much, had noticed too much, had revealed too many secrets.

“Wow. I didn’t realize you were such a fashionista,” I joked, trying to lighten the mood.

He laughed under his breath. “My jeans and T-shirts didn’t give me away?’

“Don’t worry. Your secret’s safe with me.” I smiled. “And what am I tonight?”

He thought about it, eyes narrowed as if this was a test and he wanted to get it right. The longer the silence stretched out, the more I started to squirm.

I wanted to punch myself in the face. I shouldn’t have asked him that. “Just forget?—"

“A ballad in E minor.”

A ballad in E minor?

“Oh.” I nodded like I understood but I had no idea what he meant by that.

Wasn’t E minor a mournful note? Was I giving off pathetic, sad girl vibes?

I didn’t ask though. I couldn’t.

Annika stirred, and his gaze lowered. With a soft smile, he brushed the hair off her cheek, his touch so tender, so gentle that it felt like a punch in the gut.