Chapter 16 A Blank Canvas
A BLANK CANVAS
ELIJAH
Ididn't always hate my birthday.
Mom and Dad always made it special. Dad would make his famous buttermilk pancakes for breakfast. They'd do the whole thing with the balloons and the streamers. One year, Mom hand-painted a card for me that Dad later framed. It's also part of the family collection that we no longer possess.
No, I didn't really start wanting to ignore my birthday until after Mom passed.
Then, indifference grew into hate after what I did in that room as Ambrose's hostage.
I'm not sure if I had the dates right. I didn't start keeping track of them until a couple of weeks in, but I think it was right around my birthday when I shattered my hand.
Maybe it was part of the reason why I did it. As if the date of my birth should also be the day that I severed this visceral part of my soul from my body. The day that part of me should die.
In truth, I thought it was the day I would die.
Once I couldn't paint for him any longer, Ambrose would have no use for me.
I expected a bullet between the eyes. A quick, clean, quiet death to put me out of my misery.
My only request would be that he send my body home to my brothers.
So they wouldn't spend their lives looking. Hoping.
But he sent me home.
For a long time, I thought that was worse.
I don't anymore.
Because of her.
It was my angel who haunted my nightmare last night. The same dream, but with a different protagonist. An alternate view.
It wasn't me trapped in the room. It was her. It was Aurora pounding her fists on the door, crying to be set free. It was her marking the days on the bed frame, breaking her fingernails scratching them into the wood. It was her being whipped and beaten when she didn't obey.
And then it was her who pried the loose bit of stone from the wall and lifted it high overhead while I screamed and screamed for her to stop, even though she couldn't hear me.
In last night's dream, I really was the ghost I've felt like for the last couple years. Unable to do a thing to help her.
"Haaaappy birthday," Sev calls, and I turn from the front window to see him holding a ridiculously massive cake with Aurora and Atticus on either side of him.
It's hard to put on a smile until I see her, and the way she beams at me when she starts to sing with Sev.
Even Atticus joins the song, which he never does, and Ellie rushes in at all the noise to add her little barks to the melody.
And I'm not sure when it happened, but when Aurora comes to hook her arm through mine as Sev brings the cake with all its lit candles for me to blow out, the smile isn't so fake anymore.
"Happy birthday to youuu," they all finish, and Aurora squeezes my arm.
"Make a wish!"
I gulp past the lump in my throat, and the first and only thing that comes to mind to wish for is her.
That she'll stay. That she'll be safe. That I can keep her.
I blow out the candles, and she claps.
"Okay, presents!"
Atty frowns. "Don't you want cake?"
If I know him, he's spent every spare second the last couple of days making it from scratch, and that's saying something since time has been extra tight.
"After presents?" she presses, and I share a look with Atticus.
"Yeah, we don't really do presents, Angel."
Her mouth drops. "What do you mean you don't do presents?"
Seven shrugs sheepishly, and Atticus stares at her deadpan.
"We did when we were kids," I offer.
A knot forms between her brows. "I didn't know there was an age-appropriate expiry date on gift giving."
The sarcasm in her tone is loud, and I laugh, but then I realize…
"Wait, so you got me something?"
She crosses her arms. "I might've. Well, actually, I ordered it before I knew it was your birthday today, but since it is your birthday…" She trails off, shrugging when she sees my smirk.
"You bought me a present before you even knew it was my birthday?" I want to double-check that.
She nods.
"Why?"
Now it's her turn to look confused. "Why not?"
"Come on," Sev says. "Let's see it, then."
Meanwhile, Atticus grumbles something about the cake before he goes to put it back in the kitchen.
"Right now?" Aurora asks, and I don't get why she suddenly seems nervous.
Sev cocks his head at her. "Didn't you want to do presents?"
"Well, yeah, but I thought everyone would have something for him."
Now I'm really curious what she got me. I was not looking forward to today at all.
Not after last night. I was so angry at the guys for letting her see me like that, but somehow she made it okay.
The way she clung to me, even all sweaty, still shaking, and the most embarrassed I've been in a long time… it cemented something for me.
She's one of us.
Ours.
Atticus returns with a sigh. "We doing presents or what?"
Aurora's throat bobs as she turns to face me. "Okay, so, before I show you, I want to say something."
There's worry in the lines around her eyes when they meet mine.
"Say what?"
"There's a chance you might totally hate it."
Her face pinches, and I cup her cheek as I shake my head. "If it's from you, I'm going to love it."
She flinches, and her uncertainty is contagious.
"You really might not."
"What is it?" Sev asks.
Atticus narrows his gaze at her. "Is that why you were in his studio last night?"
My studio?
I search her eyes, and find her shrinking into herself there.
"What were you doing in my studio, Angel?"
She gives Atticus a pointed look at ruining an aspect of her gift and he has the sense to look at least a little apologetic, but now I can't stop wondering what she's done.
There's a thickness in my throat, and I can't seem to swallow past it. I want to reassure her that whatever she did in there will be okay, but I'm not sure if that's true.
I cleaned it, yes. And I've been spending some time in there, but I'm not sure I'm ready for anything else.
If she got me something to paint, I…
I finally manage to swallow.
Aurora takes my hand. "Like I said, if you don't like it and you want to get rid of it, then I won't be offended at all. I promise."
It's all I have in me to nod as she starts to lead me from the living room and down the hall.
It shouldn't feel like a death march, but it sort of does.
Please don't be art supplies.
Please don't be a new easel, a canvas, or brushes.
I try to ready myself in case it is those things. I imagine myself seeing them and smiling, saying 'thank you'. Rehearsing it in my head.
Atticus and Seven follow behind us, whispering something to each other that I don't catch, and I know they're as curious and concerned about this gift as I am.
But I do know one thing for sure. I will never lose my shit on her like I did that first time I found her in my studio. No matter what is behind that door. She'll never have to see that darker side of me again. Not if I can help it.
When Aurora curls her fingers around the handle, she pauses for a moment, as though steeling herself, before she pushes it open.
In the room is a small foldable table from the garage set up against the wall. On it are several bottles of paint.
My throat goes dry as I take in what she's put in the middle of the floor. There's a massive drop sheet, and atop it is a canvas that's been removed from its wooden frame and laid flat. It's big. At least seven by seven.
"You hate it," she says, and her smile is pained.
I…
"Angel, what exactly am I looking at?"
"Oh, dude," Seven says, brushing past me to go to the table and check out the paint bottles and handful of other supplies there. "It's one of those, um." He snaps his fingers, trying to recall the name.
"It's a kinky art kit," Aurora supplies for him.
"That's it!" Sev says. "Yeah, like sex art."
I turn to face Aurora fully, trying to make sense of what I'm feeling.
"I know it's sort of a low art form compared to what you used to work with." She laughs awkwardly. "But the paint is totally skin-safe and I thought—I don't know—um…"
I go to her as she continues to stumble over her words, pulling her hands into mine.
"I guess I thought it might be sort of fun and, you know, hopefully it'd have, like, a lot less pressure than any sort of professional type of paint and—"
I kiss her.
She gasps against my lips, surprised by the contact as I take her face between my hands, and she tentatively grips my waist, the tension fading from her body.
Distantly, I hear Sev walk past us to where Atticus is still by the door. "I think that's our cue, bro."
Atticus grunts, and the door sweeps closed behind them as they exit.
"Thank you," I murmur against her lips when I break the kiss.
She smiles up at me. "You don't hate it?"
I shake my forehead against hers. "I don't hate it."
"Thank god," she replies with a breathy laugh.
I take her hand and we go to the table so I can get a better look at what's there.
"We don't have to do this now," she reassures me, maybe noticing the way I stiffened when I went to reach for the paint.
I'd be lying if I said it doesn't intimidate me. I haven't touched paint in years, not unless cleaning dried swaths of it off the floor counts.
I mean, does this even really count?
It does, that poisonous voice in my mind whispers.
But if it does, then this would be making art.
I can make art again, with Aurora. With nothing but our bodies, some paint, and a canvas. I won't need to hold a brush. I won't need to get the strokes just right. It's art without the pressure, like she said.
"I think…" I lick my lips. "I think I want to."
Her wide eyes glimmer in the early afternoon light from the front window. "Yeah?"
"Yeah, Angel. I do."
I clear my throat, finally lifting the paint bottle from the table, looking for some kind of instructions.
"So, how do we do this?"
She pushes some hair behind her ear.
"I don't really know," she admits. "It only came with black paint and I thought maybe that was sort of boring, so I bought these other colors."
She indicates the rainbow of body paints. All set up in neat little lines on the table.
"It's probably because if you mix all those, it'll turn into mud brown real quick."
Her face pinches. "Oh yeah. Why didn't I think of that?"
I chuckle, but looking at the colors, I get an idea.
"If we mix a couple, it'll turn out nice. I'm thinking maybe…black and gold." I inspect the bottles to double-check they won't cause any reaction to her skin. She's right, though, they're all water-based and labeled as 'intimacy safe', so we should be good.
I already know exactly where this is going when it's finished. I want it on my bedroom wall, right across from the bed. I want to look at it every night.
Fuck, I haven't been this excited about creating in a long time.
I consider adding some jade green to the palette for us, but I'd never manage to get the shade even remotely close to matching the incredible color of Aurora's eyes with these paints. And if I can't, then it's not worth it. But fuck if I don't still dream of painting those eyes. That face.
It'd have to be done with oil paint or egg tempera. It'd take days, if not weeks, especially if I were to do them in hyperrealism, but I'd want to capture them in the Renaissance style, like a modern rendering of the Mona Lisa. It's how my mother would've painted her.
My throat bobs and I cast out the thoughts, shaking the bottles as vigorously as I can, making sure the settled bits at the bottom get properly mixed in.
"That should do it," I announce, and set them down.
Now for the best part. I rake my eyes over her, and my cock is already growing thick in my boxers before I've even touched her. It's been barely over a week since I had her in my bed, but even that is too long.
I reach over to the wall and tap the screen for the heating system that's specific to my studio, cranking it a few degrees higher. I want her to be comfortable for this, because I intend for it to last.
My fingers find the hem of her shirt, and I pause, tracing the soft skin just above her waistband.
She shivers.
“I’ve imagined this a thousand times,” I admit, voice rougher than I mean it to be. “Painting you. Or having you be my canvas.”
“Eli…” she whispers, reaching up to capture my cheek in her palm and brush a thumb over the corner of my mouth.
I kiss it and sigh. “Every color I’ve come to appreciate is somewhere on your body, Angel. The flush in your cheeks. The multifaceted jade green of your eyes. The pink of your lips.” I lean down, pressing my forehead to hers. “I want to memorize all of them. I wish I could…”
I can’t finish the thought. Can’t admit how badly I ache to capture her with paint on canvas.
“Hey,” she says softly. “You’ll always be an artist to me.”
I lean into her touch. “Sometimes I think you aren’t even real.”
“What did you say?”
I didn’t mean to say it out loud at all, but I’m glad it was quiet enough she didn’t catch it.
She doesn’t need to know that there’s some small part of me that thinks one of these days I’m going to wake up and realize she never existed.
That I made her up in my mind. Like my dad still having hours-long conversations with my mother years after she’s passed away.
“Never mind.” I laugh, shaking my head. “Let's get you out of these clothes, Angel."
…so I can feel how real you are.