Page 18

EIGHTEEN

The sense of satisfaction that Rhys felt as Early fell asleep in his arms went beyond anything he’d ever experienced before. Finally, he felt as though he’d done something right. He’d given Early as good an experience in bed as he could manage for their first time, even though it wasn’t actually their first time. It was the first time he wanted Early to remember when they looked back on their life and relationships.

Rhys flinched at the thought of Early having relationships, plural. It felt a little overly possessive of him to not want them to have any other romantic or sexual relationships except what the two of them shared. Early was young and deserved to sow their wild oats, if they wanted to.

He snuggled closer to them, planting a possessive kiss on Early’s exposed shoulder. Maybe it was wrong of him to want Early all to himself when there was so much of the world that they could still experience, but he’d never felt like this for anyone else before. It was almost like Early had been custom-made for him. And even though thinking that was hugely problematic and self-centered, the thought was there.

Early had fallen into a deep sleep almost at once and snored softly as Rhys caressed them. It was adorable. They were adorable. They kept saying they were confused and lost and didn’t have any idea who they were, but Rhys disagreed with that. Early knew who they were, they just hadn’t come to the realization of what that meant yet.

Raina had said something similar to him on several occasions in his twenties. He’d been confused about being bi and struggled with the idea that he should just pick a side and stick to it. Raina had laughed at him for that. She was the one who had insisted that there was no such thing as picking a side and sticking to it because there were no sides to begin with.

Rhys still heard her voice in his head when he talked to other young queer people about finding comfort in their identity just as they were. If not for Raina, he would probably still be serially dating men and women, constantly switching back and forth as his thoughts about what he should want snuffed out his knowledge of who he was.

Thinking of Raina wasn’t so painful when he had Early in his arms for some reason. He could smile at his memories and feel the love that hadn’t left him, even though his sister had.

Of course, it also made him incredibly restless. Sleep seemed farther and farther away from him instead of closer as the memories washed over him, making him smile and sigh in turn.

Finally, after more than an hour, when he was convinced that if he didn’t get up and expend some of his energy he’d wake Early from a sleep they definitely deserved, Rhys got up, dressed in sweatpants and a t-shirt, and headed out of the bedroom and out of his flat entirely. Raina was bright and alive within him, which compelled him to fix what was wrong with her painting while he was thrumming with inspiration.

He had a smile on his face and a spring in his step as he headed downstairs and into the classroom part of the house. It was past midnight, so everything was quiet and dark and borderline creepy. He could have sworn that he heard the ghosts not only of the aristocrats of the past walking the halls and sneaking around, having their assignations, he could hear the laughter of the schoolboys who had once called Hawthorne House their home, and the moans of the officers convalescing there with life-changing injuries after The Great War.

It was a relief to reach his classroom, to flick on the lights, and to walk over to his nook, where Raina’s landscape stood. He continued to smile as he mixed bright colors, drawing on all his happy memories of Raina to find the truth that Nancy so rightly said he needed in the painting.

He had the highest of hopes as he dabbed on a few more highlights, making the trees pop and the clouds in the distance look as though they were rolling by. They reminded him of the days he and Raina and the rest of the family had gone up to Box Hill for a picnic and looked out over Surrey in all its summertime beauty.

Those were good memories, but as the minutes ticked by and all the carefully placed highlights in the world did nothing to make the painting feel more alive, his smile faltered. He remembered the glow that always shone from Raina during those family outings, but nothing he could do could ever transfer that glow to the painting in front of him.

Paint was a dull, dead thing. It only imitated life. It didn’t have any life of its own. No matter what he did to the canvas in front of him, it would never bring Raina back to life.

He took a step back and stared at the painting, his breaths heaving before he was aware of his distress. The highlights weren’t changing a thing, so in a fit of desperation, he reached for some of his darker colors, squeezing too-large dollops onto his palette.

He mixed them carefully, dabbing small bits under the trees and along the lines of the hills. If highlights didn’t work, maybe lowlights would.

His mind was instantly thrown back to that horrible night, to the screech and crunch of metal against metal. Screams echoed in his ears, his own, Nick’s, and especially Raina’s. He remembered the eerie silence in the immediate aftermath of the crash, the moments before he and Nick started to move to get out of the car. He couldn’t remember if there were other people on the scene at first, all he remembered was the blackness of the night as he struggled to free himself from the twisted remains of the car and Nick’s shouts as he tried to get Raina to respond.

Maybe it was because he’d still been a little tipsy, but his next memories were vague. As he dotted larger and larger spots of dark green, deep blue, and black across the canvas, he remembered stumbling, then someone holding him back as Raina’s lifeless body was lifted into the ambulance. He remembered sirens in the distance and people, strangers, calling out orders and instructions.

“No,” he gasped, forgetting for a moment that he wasn’t at the scene of the crash anymore, that it had been over a year ago, and that the world had moved on. Even Nick had moved on, resigning himself to a life as a single father of two young children instead of beating himself up because Raina wasn’t there anymore.

Grief and heartbreak caused Rhys to take a huge step back from the canvas. His eyes scanned the work, desperately trying to latch onto something that he could fix. There had to be a way to make it right again, to bring life back to something he and Raina had enjoyed so much.

But there wasn’t. There was no possible way he could make the painting in front of him perfect. There was no way it could be right again. Raina was gone, she was never coming back, and the life he knew he needed to make the painting right would never be seen again.

Sudden fury rose up in him. Instead of weeping out the pain that consumed him, he growled, then shouted, flinging his brush at the canvas as hard as he could. It bounced off the taut canvas and clattered to the floor, leaving a glaring streak of black right in the center of the otherwise sunny scene.

Chest heaving, emotions swinging wildly within him, Rhys blinked at the painting, then grabbed his palette with both hands. With another roar, he hurled the palette at the painting with all the strength he had left in him.

It landed flat against the canvas, paint to paint, sticking where it was for a moment. With yet another cry, Rhys snatched at it, pulling it down and away from a year’s worth of his hard work. A large, black splotch now marred the center of the work as heavy blobs of oil paint clung to the sunny scene. Everything he did made it worse, every move destroyed the scene as he remembered it a little more.

“No, no!” he cried out, loud enough to hurt his lungs. “Raina!”

He hurled himself forward, slamming his hands against the dark mess of paint, sending it smearing in an even wider arc across the canvas. It was like the darkness was growing in front of his eyes, destroying every bright good thing it touched as it did.

He pulled back, sucking in a breath, his eyes going wide. Something about the sight of the ruined painting, all that work and all that effort, felt caught in a knot in his gut. His heart raced and his lungs burned, but he also felt something vital and prickling inside him, like a creature breaking out of a hard eggshell, or at least trying to.

Not letting himself question what he was doing, he spun back to the table where his palette usually sat and grabbed the tube of black paint waiting there. It was a relatively new tube, and when he opened it with trembling hands, he was able to squirt large amounts of inky darkness directly onto his hands.

It was mad what he was doing, but he chucked the tube aside then turned back to the canvas. With a roar of anger and grief, he slammed his hands against the ruined landscape, not once, but over and over. The black marks left by his hands, by his rage and grief, spread at an alarming rate, but he couldn’t stop. He hit out at the scene, something that had once been such a comfort, forcing it to reflect the gaping hole that Raina’s death had left him with.

“Raina!” he called out at last, as grief overtook anger and left him weak and shaky.

He slammed his hands against the canvas one last time, then left them there as he sank to his knees, dragging black streaks down across the sky and the grass with him. He left his hands there, dropping his head forward, and wept as grief spilled out of him.

In all that time, through all his therapy, it was the first time he’d let himself cry because Raina was gone.

He wasn’t sure how long he stayed there, letting everything seep out as the scent of oil paint and linseed oil surrounded him before Early’s calm, quiet, anxious voice spoke, “Rhys?” into the cold, quiet night.

Rhys sucked in a breath, still shaking a little, and turned to see Early standing in the doorway of his classroom wrapped in a dove grey robe. Their hair was loose around their shoulders, and their face was a reflection of his grief as they stood there watching.

He didn’t know how long Early had been watching him, but it didn’t matter. He hoped they’d seen the whole thing, the entire journey from grief to…to whatever it was he was feeling now.

He dropped his hands away from the painting with a sob and half turned toward them.

Early swayed into action, rushing across the room and dropping to their knees along with him.

“It’s okay,” they said in a breathless whisper, throwing their arms around Rhys and pulling him close. “It’s okay. I’m here. It’s going to be okay.”

“She’s gone,” Rhys sobbed, burying his head against Early’s shoulder.

Early held him tighter, rocking a little and stroking his head. “I know,” they said, so softly and tenderly that it made Rhys weep harder. “I’m so sorry. I know.”

It took every ounce of strength he had to fight against the voices that told him he was supposed to be strong and tough, that he should be the brave one comforting Early and not the other way around. Men didn’t show emotion. They didn’t experience grief, regardless of who they were or who they’d lost.

A bigger part of him knew that was complete bullshit. He clung to that part as he gathered Early into his arms, leaving black handprints on their robe, and held them like he needed to breathe the air they were breathing to be whole again. Maybe he did.

“Let it out,” Early continued to soothe him, though he imagined the explosion of his emotions must have been terrifying to them. “Cry as much as you need to.”

Paradoxically, being told it was okay to cry and he could take whatever time and emotion he needed went a long way to calm him. His tears and sobbing stopped, but he continued to clasp Early to him as he took long, deep breaths.

“It’s okay,” Early said, still stroking him and making him feel infinitely better. “I’m here.”

Rhys tightened his hold, lowering his head to Early’s shoulder and just breathing. From deep within him, possibly from inside of whatever it was that had cracked in his soul, something sweet and warm was beginning to fill him. It almost felt too trite to say it was love, but that was definitely what it felt like. The feelings were entirely for Early, but they had a connection to Raina and the love he’d felt for his sister. It was like she’d taught him what he needed to know to really fall in love with someone.

“I—” The confession of love caught in his throat. It was too early to declare anything like that to Early. They were at the very beginning of whatever journey they were on. They needed to be with each other a lot longer, learn each other inside and out before they could commit to things like love.

But it burned so hot and so vibrantly inside Rhys that he couldn’t not say it.

“I love you, Early,” he said, wrenching himself back enough to look Early in the eyes. He started to move a hand to brush back their hair, but caught the black paint covering it and pulled his hand away. “I’m sorry if that’s too soon or if it’s awkward or?—”

“I love you, too, Rhys,” Early said with a glowing smile, then laughed. “And yes, it’s too soon for either of us to say anything like that. Maybe we can just tuck that away for a while and come back to it when we’re both feeling normal.”

Rhys laughed. That was the best way to put it. Neither of them were normal at the moment. They were both broken and struggling with life. They were both just trying to figure out who they were now and where they fit in the world.

“I don’t want to get paint on you,” Rhys started to say.

Early stopped him from going on by clasping the sides of his face the way he’d done to them a few times and slanting their mouth over his.

Never had a kiss felt so good or so healing. It was a small thing that joined the two of them together, that was all, but it meant the world to Rhys. He kissed Early back, and when they had to stop for air, he rested his forehead against Early’s.

“I’m sorry I left while you were asleep,” he said, closing his eyes and reveling in the feeling of Early’s body wrapped around his. Now that he was a bit more aware of himself and his surroundings, he realized that Early hadn’t just knelt beside him, they’d straddled his legs and thrown their whole body around his like a protective blanket. “I was inspired,” he went on. “I thought I had what I needed to make Raina’s painting perfect.” He lowered his head and blew out a breath. “Now I’ve just ruined it.”

“No,” Early said, pulling back and staring at him in surprise. “You didn’t ruin it.”

Rhys sent them a wry look. “I pretty much just threw black paint all over a year of my work,” he said.

Early shook their head and scooted away from him, standing and reaching down to get Rhys to stand, too. “You didn’t ruin it. Look.”

Suddenly terrified of what he would see, Rhys took Early’s hand, smearing it with black paint, and turned gingerly to look at the ruined painting.

And it was ruined. What was supposed to be a cheerful, summer landscape was now marred with thick, black paint. The greens and blues and whites that hadn’t had time to dry or cure yet were smudged and smeared, making the whole thing look like it had melted. The blackness in the center of the painting and the frantic, streaked handprints interrupted the entire scene, throwing it into messy chaos. The long streaks from when he’d sunk to his knees?—

He stopped his negative assessment and stared at what he’d done. His entire body went rigid and he couldn’t move. He vaguely felt Early wrap their arms around his arm and lean into him, resting their head on his shoulder, but the physical sensation was distant.

His grief was splashed all over the canvas. His pain was in the dynamic way everything had been muddled and streaked together. His handprints still carried the desperate sadness of the way he’d slammed himself against the landscape that would never be right again, and his movement as he’d sunk to his knees, giving up to grief, stood out loudly in the center of the work.

“I don’t do abstract art,” he said, emotion welling in him all over again, forcing him to blink away tears. “This isn’t what I do.”

“Looks like it’s what you do now,” Early told him softly.

Rhys shook his head, wanting to deny it. He was a landscape painter, a realist. He produced work that was true to nature, that reflected the world everyone could see.

But what stood in front of him was a world that no one could see when they looked at him. No one but Early.

“Shit,” he said, raising a hand to rub over his face, but stopping again when he saw the paint there. “This changes everything. This fucks with my entire career.”

He sounded angry about it, but the new, pulsing force within him was ecstatic. Inspiration practically oozed out of him. He liked what he saw, and he wanted to do more. He wanted to experiment with styles that he’d only dabbled with in art school classes because he’d needed a grade. He wanted to challenge himself to get as much emotion as he could on a canvas in whatever way possible.

“Dammit, Mum was right,” he said at last, breathless with joy.

“Your mum?” Early asked, straightening, but not letting go of his arm.

Rhys laughed and shoved a hand through his hair, forgetting about the paint this time and leaving his hair a mess. “She told me to try something different.” He glanced from the painting to Early. “I hate it when my parents are right.”

Early smiled, then laughed as they looked at his hair. “Come on,” they said, taking his hand in their own, equally messy hands. “Let’s go upstairs and take a shower to get all this paint off.”

“Let me just grab a bottle of turpentine, because we’ll need that, too,” Rhys said, breaking away and heading to the counter.

“Great. A turpentine shower,” Early said. “That’s exactly what everyone needs after a night of mind-blowing sex and cathartic painting.”

Rhys laughed as he took a mostly full bottle from the counter, then reached for Early again as they headed for the door. “Life with me will never be boring,” he said.

“God, I hope not,” Early said, beaming back at him.

For the first time in more than a year, Rhys felt like things might actually turn out okay after all.