20. Ivy #2
It didn’t come up that he’s one of the most famous artists in the world and that his art goes for literally millions of dollars.
The paintings in this studio alone are worth a fortune.
And they deserve to be.
My gaze sweeps over the stacks lining every wall, each canvas filled with something hauntingly beautiful in black, white, and grays. Every piece monochromatic. “Why don’t you ever paint in color?”
We have far more important things to talk about, like the reason I followed him here in the first place, but now that I know who he is, what he’s been hiding from me, I can’t stop the questions from rolling out.
Cam hedges slightly, averting his eyes back to the canvas on the floor before they cut up to meet mine again. “Because I can’t see it.”
“Can’t see what?”
He shrugs. “Color.”
My mind races, trying to follow what he’s telling me. “But Drew wasn’t color blind…”
“No.” Cam shakes his head. “He wasn’t. And I wasn’t born this way, either. When we were four, we were playing in the yard, and I fell. My head hit a large decorative rock in the garden. It caused cerebral achromatopsia, which basically means my brain can’t process color signals anymore.”
Every moment I’ve spent with Cam, every conversation I ever had about him with Drew and their mother, all of it flickers through my head. Not once did either of them mention Cam suffering a brain injury that affected his life so deeply. “How did I not know about this?”
He lifts a shoulder and lets it fall, offering me a sad smile. “Because I’m not Drew. It’s not something you should have known.”
His answer makes me stagger back a step, pressing my hands over my chest at the sudden flash of pain there.
Cam never wanted me to know him.
It wasn’t just that Drew didn’t want to talk about him. He couldn’t . Because if he did, he might have let something slip that could have led to me discovering who he was—and hiding his identity, keeping that anonymity was the most important thing to him.
My head spins as I continue to scan all the various pieces he’s painted that now stand almost haphazardly in this studio.
So many of them.
Many that I recognize.
A few that are so stunning, so poignant that I have to pause and swipe a tear from my eye.
I move toward the small kitchen in the corner of the space where a large number of paintings are clustered against the wall, and Cam sucks in a sharp breath, barely audible over the music playing.
And my footsteps falter again.
What the…
At first, it’s just the flash of color that draws me toward one particular stack of canvases.
Bright red in a sea of monochromaticity.
But as I draw closer, my confusion only grows along with the tightness in my chest.
What?
This isn’t just another portrait.
It’s me .
My face turned up slightly, lips parted in invitation.
Bright red lips against the black and white paint.
But my gaze zeroes in on the earring I’m wearing in it—the peony.
A gift from Drew that I got to wear once before I lost one of the pair.
How could Cam have painted this?
I stare at it for a minute.
Two.
Long enough that another song starts, this one instrumental but with the same low, throbbing bass that Cam seems to like.
There’s no way Cam could have ever seen me wear those earrings or even have any idea I owned them. And I wasn’t wearing bright-red lipstick when we kissed the other night. I wasn’t wearing anything but tear stains down my cheeks.
This isn’t me from a few days ago.
This is me from a very specific night…four years ago.
I slowly turn back to him, my body trembling, mind still racing to make sense of it all. His jaw tightens as do his knuckles around the paintbrush he still holds.
“How did you paint this? How did you know?” I swallow the lump in my throat, trying to regain control so I can sort through all these things that don’t make any sense. “Unless you and Drew literally shared a memory, there’s no way you would have seen that and been able to recreate it.”
He presses his lips together and inhales through his nose, long and deep, letting his eyes drift closed, like he too needs a moment to try to find some sort of calm and control.
My knees shake. “That was the night?—”
His eyes fly open and meet mine, a swirling maelstrom of uncertainty overtaking the blue. “The night of my mom’s birthday party.”
I nod hesistantly, holding out my hands as panic wells in my chest. “You weren’t even there . I hadn’t even met you. How did you…”
How?
That moment.
That specific moment.
No one else knows about it.
Not even Marlo.
I never told anyone about what happened that night.
The moment that changed everything between his brother and me.
Cam stands stock still and watches me, like he’s anticipating my response before he even says whatever it is he’s about to unleash on me. Goosebumps break out over my skin as I wait, and finally, he takes a half-step closer. “I was there that night.”
“What?”
His throat works hard as he rubs his free hand through his hair, pushing it off his forehead and tugging on the ends before it flops right back into place.
“I hadn’t seen Andrew or our mom in almost a year, and I thought it would be a nice surprise.
I checked into a hotel because I didn’t want them to know I was in town, and I took a cab to the house.
I wanted to sneak in through the back door and surprise them, but… ”
I suck in a sharp breath.
He doesn’t have to say the rest.
All the pieces are finally clicking into place.
Tears pool in my eyes. “But I was sitting out by the pool…”
A vivid memory of that night slams into me so hard that it’s like I’m still sitting there.
The smell of the chlorine.
The slight summer breeze.
The side gate squeaking as Drew walked through it and closed it behind him.
The way his gaze drifted over me with so much heat. “That was you ?”