Beneath The Skin(85)

“No, you misunderstand.” She lifts her face to mine. “I think I need you to hurt me. I need you to leave me.”

That answer doesn’t quite add up for me. I wrinkle my face, baffled. “What do you mean you need me to leave you?”

She leans into my face suddenly, her lips locking onto mine and her tongue teasing into my mouth. All my dumb, brainless blood rushes downwards, stiffening my cock and turning my stomach over like a hot, confused little pancake.

When the kiss ends, she says, “I’m a better artist without you.”

I frown. “The fuck?”

She rubs my thigh, which I suddenly resent. What the fuck did she mean by that? Is that some kind of joke?

“We make each other better,” I argue back. “You inspire me and you show me how to … how to really see the world. You’ve done nothing but make me a better artist. Are you saying that I make you a worse one?”

“My work comes from pain,” she tells me softly. “I’ve been so dry, Brant. I can’t even feel the charcoal anymore. I’ve stared at more blank canvases over the past two months than I have all year, not knowing what to do with them. By the time I get an idea, my eyelids are so heavy that I—”

“It’s a dry spell or something,” I interrupt. “Dmitri has them all the time with his writing. It’s an artist’s block. Like writer’s block.”

“I have no concentration. I have no fire.”

“I’m your fucking fire.” Yeah, I’m starting to get mad. The way she’s talking, it makes me feel like the big dumb Brant with a shallow brain and even shallower heart. Every word she utters converts my camera—an artist’s device—into just some toy camera I play with. “None of your canvases are gonna be blank, not with me here. You’re gonna fill those up with all your fuckin’ … all your fuckin’ passion and shit. I don’t care how dark it is. I don’t care the monsters in your past. You make art out of that, alright? You always …”

Suddenly, I cut off my own words, thinking on all the headless dogs she’d drawn. The ones I saw in her loft. The structures. The sculptures. The canvases. They weren’t unfinished, I realize just now. My blood runs cold, tremors chasing their way down my arms as I picture them.

“I think I need some time,” Nell murmurs. “I don’t even really know if I want to break up with you. Maybe I just want to string you along for a bit while I figure myself out. Maybe I just need some time away from you so I can … I don’t know … make some really fucked-up thing.”

“I make you too happy?” I throw back, grasping at straws. “Is that it? Is that an accurate assessment of what you’re saying? You realize how ridiculous that sounds, Nell?”

“It’s not exactly that. I just need to make art, Brant, and I don’t know how to do it when I’m … feeling like I’m feeling.” She holds her stomach suddenly, like she’s sick. “I’ve been so alone for so long. And my art … my art has been everything to me. Don’t you understand I can’t just give it up? It’s my fucking blood, Brant. Maybe it’s not the same for a guy like you, who’s been so comfortable picking up and tossing aside careers and majors and girls for years … but for me, it’s—”

“I resent that.”

“For me, it’s very different,” she finishes. “Art’s been there since the beginning. I need it. Can you say the same about that camera of yours? Can you say that, if you don’t take pictures, you feel like you’re going to die? Do you fall into a miserable, self-questioning, hateful, hellish depression when you don’t snap a gorgeous photograph? Where’s the spark in your eye, Brant? I don’t see it.”

“Yes you do,” I argue. “You’re the one who’s been encouraging me. Of course you see it. What the fuck are you talking about, Nell?”

She rolls her eyes and pulls away from me, hugging her knees to her chest. “Mistake. All of this. Such a mistake.”

“Nell.” I sigh, pissed at myself suddenly. “Forgive my language. I don’t mean to be acting like an asshole. Just … I really hate that you’re suddenly pretending like you don’t know me. Or like you weren’t the one who was just … telling me to take pictures until I’m sick of it. You told me that I see the world. You pushed me to be a better artist. Don’t shut me out. Please, Nell. Don’t underestimate how badly I need you.”

“We’re not breaking up, Brant,” she says suddenly, then rises from the curb.