21. Nick
NICK
T he next week and a half passes in a blur of work, coffee, and a shitload of denial. Not the most mature approach, but it’s all I can do to survive.
I want Zinnia so badly I can’t think. I’ve never wanted a woman like this, and I can’t shake the feeling. Trying only makes it worse.
Every time I close my eyes, I see her in that stairwell. The way she looked at me, begging me to admit my feelings. All I wanted was to lean in and kiss her soft, full lips. To finally let my hands roam the curves that have mesmerized me for weeks.
Nick… tell me what you feel. Please.
Every time I think about it, guilt twists through me like a knife. All she wanted was the truth. Truth I’m certain she already knows. It must be all over my face every time I look at her.
Instead, I lied. I told her I feel nothing, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. I feel things that I shouldn’t. That I’ve never felt. That I didn’t know I could feel.
And it’s fucking terrifying.
She doesn’t approach me during the next week.
No chit-chat after lectures, no hanging around to talk after life drawing.
I’m equal parts relieved and disappointed, half knowing it would be better if I never saw her again, and half wishing she’d come to my office, shut the door, and undress on my desk.
Fuck, I’m a mess. Jackson Pollock has nothing on me.
I’m so distracted by Zinnia that I almost forget about Marcus’s bachelor party.
Frankly, it’s the last thing I feel like doing, but when he texts to remind me to meet him at a bar in Brooklyn Heights the following Friday night, I know I can’t let him down.
So, I dress in dark jeans and a forest green button-down, and force myself onto a train.
Maybe a drink will be good for me. God knows I could use one.
I don’t know what to expect when I walk into the bar in Brooklyn Heights. Marcus promised no strippers, and it’s pretty clear as I take in the dark wood paneling on the walls, worn leather barstools, and low lighting that this isn’t that kind of place.
My brother is already in a booth with a bunch of guys, and he waves me over, grinning. This time, when he rises to hug me, I’m not surprised. It could be because I’m used to this new Marcus, or it could be because my head is a million miles away.
He introduces me to the group, and I smile politely, taking a beer when it’s offered to me, joining in the conversation as expected. They’re all doctors like my brother, and all married, teasing Marcus for finally going through with it. I’m two beers into the night when they finally turn to me.
“What about you, Nick?” one of the guys asks. “Married?”
I open my mouth to respond, but Marcus speaks for me.
“Nick doesn’t do relationships,” he quips over his beer. “Not even with family.”
I frown, surprised by the sting of his words. Is that really how he sees me? I think back over the past month, learning Marcus was engaged, visiting his place for the first time in years, meeting Priya. I know we haven’t been close, but that’s not entirely on me.
And as for the comment about me not doing relationships… that wasn’t by choice. It just kind of happened. I only recently realized how much I’ve withdrawn from life, and as I gaze at my brother across the booth, I know exactly when that started.
And I’m not in the mood to get into it.
Shaking my head, I rise. “Excuse me,” I grit out, heading to the bar, where I order a whiskey. After the week—hell, weeks —I’ve had, I need something stronger than beer.
Marcus appears at my side a moment later. “Sorry, man,” he says, face ruddy from alcohol. “That was below the belt.”
“It’s fine.” I nod my thanks when the bartender deposits a whiskey in front of me, enjoying the burn as I take a long swallow.
Marcus orders another beer, sliding onto the stool beside me. “I guess… Priya has made me see life differently, you know? She’s super close with her family. It reminded me that we used to be close.”
“We’re not kids anymore,” I say, studying the amber liquid in my glass.
“Sure.” He twirls his beer. “But do you know how fucked up it was wondering if my brother would want to be at my wedding?”
I glance up. “Why would you question it?”
“I don’t know, maybe because I don’t hear from you for months?”
“You never call either,” I point out.
Marcus gives a slow nod of acknowledgment. “True. I guess I’m wondering when things changed. When you closed yourself off like this.”
I sip my whiskey, thinking of the night he found my sketchbook. The guy I looked up to most in the world, mocking what I loved. Humiliation burns my chest as I think about it, even now.
Draining my glass, I shove the thoughts away. There’s no point getting into it tonight, not when we’ve been drinking. He’ll get defensive, say it was just a joke, and we’ll argue. I don’t want to ruin his bachelor party.
Besides, he’s not wrong. I have been closed off. It took meeting Zinnia for me to see that.
“Maybe I set a bad example,” Marcus continues, picking at the label on his bottle. “I was super focused on my career for so long, but I had to be. That’s what it takes to succeed in my field.”
I adjust my glasses, ignoring the heat on my neck. His words feel like a subtle dig at my job. My work matters to me greatly, whether he understands it or not. Art shapes the world in ways we don’t even realize. It shapes culture. Shapes us .
Take Venus of Urbino , for example. Of course, Zinnia was smart enough to understand the power of Venus’s gaze, but what surprised me was the way she described the positioning of Venus’s hand.
She controls how much we see. She could choose to reveal herself completely, but she doesn’t.
That feels powerful . It reminded me of Zinnia in life drawing, how she removed her bra when she felt comfortable, but always kept her panties on.
That’s why I’ve felt so powerless in that class, even though she’s the one exposed. She controls how much I see.
Even now, while she’s nowhere in sight, she holds the power.
I can’t stop thinking about her. Wondering what she’s doing, who she’s with.
She submitted her final assignment earlier this week, and I couldn’t bring myself to look at it.
It’s the last piece of work I’ll ever read by her, and I’m certain it will contain something equally as insightful as what she said at the Met. I just know it’s going to undo me.
“It took the right woman for me to realize what I was missing,” Marcus adds wistfully, cutting into my thoughts. “Once I met Priya… it was like a light came on. All these years I thought I’d been living, but I was kidding myself.”
My mind drifts back over the past six weeks, since meeting Zinnia in that first life-drawing class.
The unfamiliar feelings she stirred in me, feelings I tried to ignore—until I couldn’t.
I’d always thought my life until then was good.
Respectable, predictable, and good. But is Marcus right?
Was I kidding myself? Maybe it’s the alcohol, but for the first time I see my life in two clear parts: before Zinnia, and after.
And everything before suddenly looks bleak as fuck.
Marcus motions to the bartender, ordering us another round. Then he turns to me with a rueful smile. “Don’t keep yourself closed off forever, little brother.” He claps me on the shoulder in a way that I think is supposed to be comforting. “It gets lonely living like that.”
Lonely .
I watch my brother join his friends again in the booth, that word echoing through my head.
It’s not a word I would have associated with myself in the past, but then I’ve never been very good at looking inward, have I?
Not only inward; I never look at myself at all.
Every mirror I pass, I turn away from. It’s easier not to look.
Not to let myself see, to acknowledge all the things missing from my life. To let myself feel any of it.
You feel this too. I know you do .
I slump onto the bar, remembering Zinnia in that stairwell for the thousandth time, and guilt washes through me, like the alcohol pumping in my veins. I shouldn’t have lied. How could I say that to her, tell her I felt nothing? When it comes to Zinnia, all I fucking do is feel.
I sip my whiskey pensively, glancing around the bar. The music is louder, the lights lower, and a group of young women enter and head toward a booth. My gaze follows, certain I’m seeing things. She’s all I’ve been thinking about for weeks, and after a few drinks it wouldn’t surprise me.
But I’m not.
She’s here, in this bar, with her friends.