Page 99 of Losers, Part II
“They make me feel like I’m stepping back in time,” I said. But that wasn’t quite right, so I explained, “Or like I’m slipping outside of reality. It always makes me wonder what a place was like before it was abandoned. Like this house, for example...I have no idea who lived here. Were they happy? Did it break their hearts to leave? It’s like touching someone else’s memories.”
“I like that,” she said, nodding as she listened to me. “I used to think abandoned buildings were just eyesores.” She brushed her fingers over the staircase’s wooden railing, leaving trails in the thick dust. “But you’re right. They have their own stories to tell.”
We finished our beers, and I grabbed her hand to help her to her feet. I led her down the hallway, into the first bedroom. As we stepped inside, I motioned toward the wall around the door and the painting I’d started there last week. The walls of the room were blue, so I’d chosen an oceanic scene. Swirls of green, blue, and gray paint melded together around a plethora of sea creatures. Seals were hidden within tall strands of kelp, while a school of rainbow-colored fish swam above.
It wasn’t a particularly realistic scene, but I hadn’t intended it to be. I didn’t paint with the intention of being true to life.
“It was hard to find a space that was completely my own when I was growing up,” I said. “With little siblings running around, and no lock on my door, someone was always popping in. And I didn’t mind. I loved having my family around me. That house was loud, it was always full of love. But sometimes...sometimes I wanted something that was just mine. Something no one else would see or touch. That’s why I like to paint in places like this.”
She smiled as she noticed the little wings I’d painted on the narwhal in the corner. “But no one will ever see it here. Don’t you want people to see the art you make?”
I shook my head vehemently. “No. Most people, I don’t. Art is personal. Sharing it is an act of intimacy; it’s letting someone inside your head. Would you trust most people you meet to come inside your head?”
“Hell no,” she said. “People barely know how to be polite in day-to-day interactions, let alone when you get personal with them.” She stepped closer to me and wrapped her arms around my chest. “I should thank you for letting me inside your head, then. I like it here.”
My heart sped up, and I kissed the top of her head. “I have more to show you. Come on.”
Leading her further down the hallway, I pointed to the paintings I’d covered the walls with, explaining their stories as we went. I’d been coming to this house for years now, painting whatever the hell came into my head. Some of my older pieces had been covered by graffiti, but I wasn’t too concerned about that.
The paintings I wanted to show her had never been shared with a single other soul.
The door creaked as we stepped into the primary bedroom. It was a massive room, and it was the only one I’d bothered to clean up since I spent so much time in here. The glass had been swept off the floor, and I’d thrown away the trash but left all the old knickknacks and furniture alone.
The walls were almost entirely covered with my art, from floor to ceiling. Spray paint canisters, brushes, and pallets littered the corners, and my ladder was still set up from the last time I was here.
Jess didn’t realize what she was looking at, at first. I directed her attention to the wall beside the door, where I’d done the first painting of this massive mural.
It was a painting of a child’s hand, holding a flower with its root and a clump of dirt still attached.
“Do you remember when we met?” I said.
“First grade.” She giggled. “You were so loud! I remember you running all over the place and the teacher kept telling you to sit down. You threw dirt at me.”
“And you cried because it got in your hair,” I said, scratching my head sheepishly. “I felt so bad, I hadn’t meant to make you cry.”
It hadn’t been dirt either. It had been a yellow flower I found on the playground and roughly tore out of the earth, determined to bestow it to the prettiest girl I knew of. But childish immaturity took over, and in a panic, I’d thrown the thing at her instead.
Her expression changed as she looked at the next part of the mural. Perhaps, she was beginning to understand ...
“You were the princess in the school play in second grade,” I said, and she nodded as she brushed her fingers over my depiction of a little blonde princess holding up an apple for her horse. “I’d only been the back end of the horse in that play, but I was still pretty damn excited that one of your lines was about me.”
She looked back at me, her forehead creased in confusion. “Vincent...what is this?”
Fuck, I felt like I was breathing too hard and talking too fast. But I couldn’t stop now, I couldn’t. I had to get it all out there even though my voice cracked and my hands shook.
“Fourth grade was the last time I saw you until high school,” I said. “You cut your hair to your shoulders that year. I heard your mom tell you —”
“That it made my face look too round,” she said softly, shaking her head. “How could you have heard that...how could you remember...”
“Because I paid attention. It was impossible not to stare at you, not to listen to everything you said. I loved how your hair looked, and I wanted to tell you so bad, but I was so shy. And fucking awkward.” I was the tallest kid in my class, gangly and skinny, full of anxiety. I was big enough to wear my dad’s old clothes, which meant everyone made fun of me for dressing like a grandpa. So I learned to laugh at myself too. As long as I could laugh with the people laughing at me, then eventually, they’d like me.
No matter how much it hurt when they laughed, I’d force myself to laugh too.
“And the sunflowers, see?” I drew her further into the room, where massive yellow sunflowers and leaves of swirling green colors covered the wall. “The first day of freshman year, you wore a dress covered in yellow sunflowers, and I’ve never fucking forgotten. Because I can’t. I can’t forget you, Jess. Not a moment — the good or the bad. See?”
I motioned to the last part of the mural, the part I was still working on. Two figures stood in the rain under one umbrella: one in black, the other in a gown of pink satin. I was still working on shading in the elaborate skirt of her dress. She’d looked like a true queen that night; she hadn’t needed the cheap plastic crown on her head.
Jess didn’t say a word, and it felt like my lungs were slowly being crushed in a vice. Maybe it was too much. Too soon. I did tend to get intense. Once I’d made up my mind, I struggled to keep it to myself. I turned, readying an apology...