Chapter 7
WILLOW
My mom gifted me an easel for Christmas, but I forgot it when I returned to Berkeley in January. I’m thankful for that now. I left so much behind in that old apartment with Parker, I think I would’ve left this easel too.
My dad called the manager of the building I was living in and bought me out of my portion of our lease. He offered to drive up to Berkeley and recover the rest of my things, but I assumed Parker had already tossed them out by then.
I’ve been meaning to check in with my friend Chelsea to see if she might have intercepted anything after I left.
Her boyfriend, Hayden, is Parker’s best friend, so they spent a lot of time at our place.
She’s called a few times since I left, and I was intending to call her back once I figured out how to explain my situation to her.
She and Parker have always been close.
Though, I’m more lost about what to say to her now than I was a few weeks ago. Back when I convinced myself this was nothing more than an uncomfortable situation that obliterated my attraction to my boyfriend and made me want to leave him.
It’s so much worse now.
Parker assaulted me. He put me at risk without thought for my well-being. Without my consent.
Now I’m the one facing the consequences of his actions.
After today, I will never be the same, and he’ll never even know it.
The shades of indigo, lavender, and soft orange across my canvas blur behind my tears, matching the sky in front of me. I was painting the sunrise, but all I see now is my own pain.
I didn’t sleep last night at all. Not a single minute.
The moment daybreak lightened the sky just enough for it to fade from black to blue, I crawled out of bed and walked down to the cove.
I like the West Coast sunrise. It’s less dramatic than sunset.
People don’t flock to the beach for it. Nobody notices except those of us who wake before dawn to appreciate its quiet beauty.
Soft and pastel—the slow awakening of a new day.
I haven’t painted in the month and a half since I’ve been home, and this morning was the first time I felt the urge. I think part of me is afraid that after today, I’ll never want to paint again.
I don’t know how to feel about any of it, so I find myself anticipating every emotion possible: fear and relief, freedom and shame.
I channel my emotions through my art—it’s how I express them.
It’s the path I planned to explore for the rest of my life.
The name I aimed to create for myself. I’ve been double majoring in art design and psychology, hoping to someday help others as an art therapist, treating patients through the guise of their creativity, teaching them how we can heal ourselves through the act of art.
But after what happens today, I don’t know what emotions will pour out of me, or how they’ll alter the way I create.
If I don’t know what comes next, at least I knew the sun would rise this morning, and that was something I could paint.
A Celestia Cove sunrise is as familiar to me as my own breath. I could paint it with my eyes closed.
So, even through the tears, I swipe my brush across the canvas.
I wipe my eyes with my forearm before I swap the feather brush in my hand with a mop brush and mix pink and white before swirling the sky’s wispy clouds, softening the edges with a brighter shade of fuchsia.
My breathing is choked, tears cascade down my cheeks and drip off my chin, but I keep going. I lose myself in the blur of colors and the brightening sky. The movement of my arm swiping across the canvas is a feeling akin to floating weightlessly in the cove when it’s calm.
Just flowing. No direction, but not directionless, either. The purpose finds you.
My emotions even out, and the rocks rattling around my chest cavity settle. I’m entirely focused on the current moment, my existence centered on the painting in front of me.
Until the clearing of a throat nearby breaks my concentration.
I whip around, finding him standing on the bottom step of the staircase that leads from the house and down to the cove. “Sorry,” he says gruffly. “I didn’t think anyone else would be down here.”
I turn away, wiping beneath my eyes and willing the tears to stop flowing.
“It’s fine.” I laugh, but it comes out in broken pieces. “It’s your beach now too.”
Weston is undeniably handsome, standing in front of me with his wetsuit folded at the waist, his toned and tapered chest on display. His skin is smooth and sun-kissed, hard jawline clean-shaven. All of his features are hard. Broad nose, wide mouth, deep-set brows over stormy-blue eyes.
He doesn’t have the kind of eyes that reflect the sun or portray the shades of the sky. No, his eyes are the kind of blue that absorb light and create shadow—as if they’re hiding whatever lies behind them. A raging sea and thunderous clouds.
He blinks at me, descending the final step and propping his board into the sand beside him. “Am I . . . Should I come back?”
Somehow, a laugh bubbles out of me. I don’t even know why.
I know he’s not trying to be funny. It’s just .
. . for how different he looks now than the day I met him when we were young, he seems just as lost as he did back then.
A little overwhelmed by the world around him, like he’s searching for his place within it.
Back then, I just wanted to help a kid who looked a bit scared feel better.
Now, I wonder why the hell I relate to the feeling so deeply when I’m standing on the same foundation that’s held me up my entire life.
“No, you’re fine. I was just about to leave.” My painting isn’t finished, but that honestly feels like the most accurate representation of my current emotions anyway. “But, uh, just so you know, my dad is going to be pissed if you go out in the water before he gets down here.”
Weston sighs, placing his hands on his hips as he lifts his head to the sky defeatedly. “I was attempting to be proactive.”
I smile, gathering my brushes off the tray attached to my easel and slipping them into the pouch of the smock tied around my waist. “He’s strict about surfing alone—especially for amateurs who are a bit too fearless.
The person most at risk of being caught in a riptide is always the one who thinks they can outswim it. ”
“It’s a cove. There aren’t any riptides here.”
I lift my head, raising a brow as I give him a once-over.
He stands in front of me like he has no fucking clue what he looks like.
The backward baseball cap atop his head has a lock of his dark hair peeking out over his forehead, and the way he’s now crossing his arms as he leans against his surfboard makes his biceps flex and bulge.
He’s obnoxiously attractive, without any ounce of the arrogant aura most men who look like him would possess, which almost makes him more annoying.
“If there is water, there is a chance of drowning. Always. You should never go out alone.” I shrug. “But feel free to test his temper about it if you’d prefer.”
He huffs, frustrated, and I want to laugh at that too.
I haven’t spoken to Weston directly since he moved in Friday. I’ve mostly stuck to my room. But I saw him through my window after he arrived, so I knew he’d know I was home too.
“I’m not meeting with your dad, though. I’m meeting some other coach,” he says incredulously. “I guess your dad is preoccupied this week.”
Yeah, sorry. Hate to be inconvenient, but I’ve got a pregnancy to terminate.
I roll my eyes, capping each of my paints and adding them to my smock before I untie it from my waist and roll it up.
“Would the other coach even care?” he asks.
I stuff my smock into my tote bag before folding up my easel. “I mean . . . yeah. It’s a rule my dad set for anyone surfing in the cove. Plus, Liv is going to report back everything you do toda—”
“Liv?” he asks.
I pause, lifting my head, and suddenly, Weston is a step closer. Close enough that I can smell whatever aftershave he used this morning. Something like lemons and sandalwood. My breath catches at the proximity, and I lean back.
He clocks the movement, keeping his eyes on mine as he gently takes one of the legs of my easel from my hand, pulling it toward him. His lips tilt at the corner, and I wonder if it’s supposed to be a comforting smile. I let it go, and he steps away, continuing to fold my easel for me.
“Yeah,” I breathe. “Liv Costa-Ramos. Please don’t tell me you’re attempting to be a professional surfer and you don’t know who she is.”
His head snaps up as he pauses, jaw dropping. “I’m . . . I’m being trained by Livia Costa-Ramos today?”
“Yeah? Dad didn’t tell you? Liv is family.”
“What?” he gasps, staring after me in astonishment as my easel hangs limply from his hands. “I . . . I knew your dad trained her before her first Olympics, but I hadn’t realized—”
“She’s married to my cousin, Lou.” I point to my easel. “Are you going . . . What are you doing with that?”
He blinks rapidly, dropping his head and inspecting his hands as if realizing for the first time that he’s holding something. “Sorry. I was trying to help and then you . . .” He sighs as he drops to his knees in the sand and continues folding the legs together.
“Thanks,” I say, tucking my unfinished painting beneath my arm as I swing my bag over my shoulder. “And Liv is great, by the way. Don’t be nervous. She’s . . . intense. But great.”
He nods, standing and holding my compacted easel that was definitely folded incorrectly.
I bite my lip to hide my smile, taking it from him. “Thanks.”
“No problem.” Weston is so stoic, it’s as if his skin is made of something impenetrable, and I’m frustrated by how frustrating I find it.
“Well, I’ll see you around, Weston.” I pass him, and he anchors his eyes to mine—just as he did the other night through my window—watching with rapt focus until I reach the stairs.
His stare is steel, impassible and impossible to comprehend, though he doesn’t look away.