Page 36 of Portrait of A Lost Artist

NATHAN

“Now she has me crazy, a lover boy’s head. She has me thinking that she can heal pasts, that she can erase all that I’ve left behind. It won’t come back.” - Bien Hecho by Humbe.

T HE CONCEPT OF NEW EXPERIENCES VARIES GREATLY; FOR SOME, IT MIGHT INVOLVE SAVORING FINE LIQUOR, WHILE FOR OTHERS, IT MEANS TRAVELING TO A PLACE WITH SUCH A DRAMATICALLY DIFFERENT CLIMATE THAT THEIR WARDROBE OFFERS NO RESPITE FROM THE COLD.

I would have never thought that the most tranquil experience I would go through could include bringing a house up from its ashes.

To move to rural California, trees shadowing the thoughts that could have brought me to hell and back if I didn’t have something else to care about.

Opal sits on the edge of the staircase of my small home.

Hearing myself saying it brings warmth up my empty stomach.

Home . While not a precise echo of my time with Benicio long ago, his insights allowed me to find value within these four walls.

Mornings here are a ritual of brewing coffee, its fragrance dancing with the music in the air as I engage in gardening or reading, my Spanish lessons progressing online in the background.

All an effort not to think about her, but a sigh traps in my lips from time to time, as Opal studies me with eyes that know nothing about the suffering that sometimes overtakes my heart.

A pinch so strong that it goes down my chest, like an ice cube that slowly traces my sternum until it hits me straight in the gut.

“Jun should get here anytime.”

The anticipation of my former employees, now cherished friends, visiting is something that can genuinely put me on the edge of my seat.

Jun, now with his job as a security guard for other celebrities, rarely has time to come around, but Chaeyoung, his daughter, had fallen sick with the flu and he had crashed into my guest room with his little one in his arms. He had said that he didn’t trust the pollen around his home and that her asthma scared him as it was, so he needed someone other than his wife—who was also panicking—to keep him sane.

Chaeyoung is sound asleep on the couch, one leg propped on a cushion, her arm falling off the edge, while I am ironing one of my shirts for the umpteenth time.

Obviously, Opal doesn’t answer. Neither does the little girl whom I could consider my niece at this point.

Mina, Jun’s wife, passes a hand over my shoulder.

I had totally forgotten that she had been watering the plants outside.Having been the one to cultivate those trees to maturity; watching their leaves pattern the ground with shadows and their flowers emerge from the soil months ago, I insisted on taking care of them.

Surprisingly, Mina turned the tables and offered her help to me as a form of gratitude for my supposed hard work. ’

“Didn’t know you talked to yourself.” She says, the corners of her eyes squinting softly.

Mina, when I met her plenty of years ago, had long, luscious black hair that fell down her back romantically.

After motherhood, she had cut her hair until it reached her ears, quite like the length I have it right now, and dyed it a brownish gold.

“I do it sometimes, too. You know, when me and Jun are arguing and all he does is look at my tits.”

That brings a smile up my lips, turning off the iron and sighing softly.

“You haven’t seen me when I am on my own.

” Opal’s eyes drift shut with a gentle delicacy, and she lowers herself onto her paws, finding a steady pose on the unexpectedly high and risky edge of the staircase railing; a sight that brings a small, knowing smile to my face.

“No one knows they have never been alone until they live on their own and notice that even their cat wants nothing to do with them.”

Mina chuckles, shaking her head. She whispers: “Jun always worries about you. I’ve woken up to him gasping because he forgot to send you a text before he went to sleep.”

“There’s nothing to worry about.” After all, I am better.

I don’t feel the ache that settled in my chest when the heartbreak made a home out of me, but the lingering voice in my head wishes for things to be different.

For me to be alone but with a woman wrapping her arms around my waist, speaking in a perfect Cuban accent straight into my ear. “I’ve never been better.”

It’s not entirely inaccurate. After arriving in California, I asked Benicio to ship all the artwork I had created in Cuba—paintings uniquely inspired by Veronica.

Renna felt it was important to conclude my artistic chapter with a significant last piece, and I could only envision achieving that by having Veronica as my muse.

With the collaboration of other artists, I expanded on an idea that originated twenty-one months prior, incorporating sculptures, notes, and graphics, finally bringing it to completion last February.

The press raved about the exhibition, praising its quality and the intriguing mystery woven into the artwork.

Some even romanticized my connection with Veronica as my ultimate love.

I believe Jane Rae capitalized on this narrative, likely earning money by discussing it on a show, though none of that income reached me after Renna, the other collaborators and I divided the initial earnings.

Now, I find myself exploring the Californian countryside without truly relocating from the state.

Renna’s been managing actors and singers, and truthfully, I am happy that she has an actual job now.

But I’ve been waiting for all of this to be a dream I am gladly woken up from, yet, that never happens.

As much as I love the silence in my cream-colored home, with nature and beauty growing around it, reminding me that the world is more than the love humans can give to other people, the ghost of what could have been still haunts me, and each pinch I give to my skin only reminds me more of the fact that she’ll never come back.

“It’s okay not to be okay, Mom used to say.” Mina explains, quirking an eyebrow. “But I’ll choose to believe you. We are all proud of you, Nathan.”

I swallow the lump in my throat, giving her a curt nod that is thankfully interrupted by Chaeyoung waking up and saying: “Mom? I’m thirsty.”

“Coming, sweetheart.”

Stepping away from Mina’s ongoing conversation, and double-checking the unheated iron, I move towards the front yard.

The intensity of the Californian sun greets my face and arms with a welcome warmth.

The wind whispers through my hair, harmonizing with the swaying daisies that define the walkway to my home’s entrance.

As I reach down to smell a flower, anticipating the calming scent of petrichor, my gaze suddenly fixes on something unexpected.

Someone.

It could be an illusion.

One of those ghosts that follows every tear that I have dropped in my solitude, aiming to help me heal.

She’s not looking back at me. A curtain of wavy hair falls from her shoulders as she stares at the sky, a silent yearning in her gaze.

The sun paints a soft glow on her down-turned, full lips.

Her sorrowful eyes shimmer like distant stars in dark water as she blinks upwards, hands pressed against the cold metal of the small gate.

It’s a familiar image, reminiscent of our first kiss—the way the strap of her white tank top always seemed to slip, her flowery skirt caught by the wind.

If this is the ghost of Veronica, it’s realer than ever. I must be going insane, but her eyes meeting mine erase all thoughts of asylums and returning to therapy. Initially, shock registers in her widened gaze, her eyebrows arching sharply in surprise, but then a smile gently presses onto her lips.

I want to ask her if she’s real, but I’m scared that I’ll wake up if that’s not the case.

“You’re different, Nathan.”

Upon hearing her words, I know she’s truly there. I feel a pull, a near collapse from the sheer force of her beauty. She’s bridged some of the distance by opening the gate. My mind races, wondering what she sees in my face, knowing how much I’ve changed.

It’s been a challenge to maintain the physique I once worked for in the gym; I’m slightly less lean now, and my hair has grown longer, reaching my earlobes.

Usually, I just sweep it away from my face, without any styling.

I’ve also chosen to be clean-shaven, wanting to look in the mirror and feel unburdened, with nothing to hide.

My wardrobe has shifted to simpler clothes—today, a red t-shirt and jeans.

I’ve noticed the hollows of my cheeks are more defined, and I catch her gaze lingering there.

“I—I’m sorry for coming here.” She tells me and I do everything not to jump at her arms and hug her. Instead, I wait for her to explain how this is not a hallucination. “I...It’s quite a fun story, actually. I came here to visit Zeke and...I saw your exhibition.”

“How did you find me?” My voice is hoarse after humming at her words. Perhaps I sound broken, pained by the time that we have spent apart, but I don’t sugarcoat it.

“Zeke has enough connections in the music world now to get in contact with your past manager. I talked to a woman called Renna, and that’s how...how I found you.” She says it with care, not wanting to get anyone in trouble. Typical of her. “Are you mad at me for coming here?”

God, I want her to know that I have been waiting for her silently, in secret, for years to no end.

If she had arrived just a day after our last meeting, I would have held her close and never released her.

Instead, I remained here, cultivating flowers as long as her hair, clinging to the hope of one last conversation, even while a deep part of me believed that day would never dawn.

I can only bring myself to shake my head, squinting at the harshness of the sun.

“No.” Shit, I can’t say much more and I can tell that she’s growing uncomfortable.

How can I spit out everything I have wanted to say in just a mere minute?

What if she simply leaves? “...What did you think of the exhibition?”

“I wondered when you had the time, honestly.” A half-laugh leaves her lips, her shoulders going up the slightest before she pushes the emotion down. Instead, she looks me straight in the eye.

“I started painting them while I was in Cuba.”

“Oh,” Veronica mumbles, nodding after. “Was it a thought-out thing?”

“It was a personal ode I hoped to give to you once, but the time never came around.” I confessed, silence still blossoming between us.

But a realization washes over me. This is Veronica Del Real, my Havana , the woman whose impact was so profound that amidst the turmoil, I rediscovered a sense of inner peace I hadn’t known before.

Before I can fully process it, my arms have instinctively wrapped around her.

Her face finds refuge against my chest, while mine rests on the crown of her head, and tears immediately flood my eyes.

She folds into the embrace, her own hands shaking slightly, pressing to my stomach and then moving to clutch my back.

I feel the strain in her knuckles as she grips my shirt, a tangible sign of her own emotion against my hold.

The fabric of my shirt becomes wet by her tears; the ones that had once haunted me because I caused them. I whisper, then, from a portion of my heart that I had tried to destroy along with the memory of her: “I missed you. God , I thought I would never see you again.”

I still do, even when I have her in my arms. The story that could never unfold.

The time that I had missed. Everything passes by my eyes when I pull away and capture her face in between my hands.

That’s when I see how different she is. Cheeks rounder.

Eyes brighter. She has grown, as well. Older.

Wiser. More beautiful, as if that was even possible.

“I’m sorry for all the pain I caused you.” I don’t know if this is the last moment that I will ever have with her, so I let everything out. “You don’t know the hours I’ve spent every single day regretting all I did to you. The hiding. The pictures. The articles. You had it so difficult...”

“Nathan.” She cuts me off, eyes droopy by the tears that continue to leak.

“I can’t stand here and say it didn’t hurt me, or that we both aced our first attempt at loving each other.

But what we had was real, even when we had our ghosts, our secrets, our.

..demons coming after our intentions. I can’t promise what is to come, but I can promise I came here because.

..because...” Her voice thins, closing her eyelids tightly.

“Because I love you , and it pains me to confess it as much as it killed me not to say it before.”

I love you.

Three words, echoed by online strangers commenting on my work or addressing me directly.

Three words my mother spoke to me before fame consumed my youth.

Three words I’ve uttered to other women without sincerity, to friends in moments of intoxication, to Renna, to Jun.

And finally, three words I direct to the world itself, a thank you for a second chance at life when I stood on the edge of oblivion.

But it means even more when she says it. So with all doubts thrown at the back of my head, I give one step forward, pressing my hand to her nape and replying: “You don’t know how much I love you, too, sunshine.”

I pause.

“ I’ve always been yours, sunshine .“

In that moment, my mouth meets hers, an instinctive joining I’ll forever remember—the way our lips move together with an effortless knowing, as if they were destined to meet from birth.

Her hands grip my waist, a hum against my mouth as I outline her lower lip, taste it gently, and then deepen the kiss with my tongue.

She softens completely against me, and a burning longing takes hold, a desire for our bodies to merge beyond the barrier of our clothing.

She runs her fingers through my hair, pulling away for a fraction of a second to catch her breath, mouth swollen by my kisses, painted in a perfect and natural red, before she says: “I like this length.”

“Thank you. I call this my homeless look.” I retort, rubbing at the sides of her body to earn a ticklish giggle from her. “Have you eaten? We can go grab something inside.”

“I haven’t had a bite. I’ve been pondering over everything out that gate for far too long.”

I wrap one arm around her shoulder, dragging her alongside me towards my home.

“Alright, so we’re eating together, sunshine.” I say. “We have plenty of things to catch up on.“

Even such a small plan sounds amazing.