36. Beckham
Chapter thirty-six
Beckham
S itting on my knees in my warehouse, I found myself lost, as I had been feeling for the last few weeks or so. I’d been keeping my hands rather busy to keep my mind off my misery.
Surrounding myself with portraits of the woman that was consistently on my mind would do me no good, but I couldn’t help myself.
She’d burned a piece of herself into me that I couldn’t explain. Countless sessions, countless late nights of sculpting her body into works of art, countless nights of having her all to myself while her husband wasn’t aware… It wasn ’ t enough. It would never be enough. And I needed to tell her that. I wanted to cherish her, my flower. I wanted to treasure her—and now, I realized I wanted to love her.
I never truly understood what it meant to love. I never thought about it or cared to express it through my art. But through our sessions, I began to understand that Rosenna needed love. She needed a man who was able to value her. To see her. To understand her.
My flower had rejected my confession. Granted, it was probably too soon, considering we had only been together for a short time. She’d also made it clear several times that there was no “together,” that there was no “us.” Part of me wanted to laugh at that. It was utterly ridiculous that she thought there could be any other outcome.
I knew her better than anyone, better than her clueless husband who failed to see her brilliance, her control and dominance, her depth. It was ridiculous that she believed she could walk away from me, from what we shared. No, from what we have.
The other part, the annoying part of me that suddenly wanted to understand how to feel, understood her conflicting mind, pitied it almost as she was fighting her heart and mind at the same time.
With my hands caked in clay, I leaned my head back as the paintings and portraits that surrounded me mocked me through the silence.
Maybe I shouldn’t have said anything. Maybe I should’ve stayed quiet, allowed our fire to burn a little more and my obsession to grow even greater. But my devotion had become much more than my fixation and addiction to her. Our relationship had evolved into much more than simply lustful art sessions or passionate, mindless, and starved sex.
She didn’t realize she could change me, and neither did I. But I did change. I never cared about anything before… but now, the one thing I care about is her. My obsession, jealousy, anger, envy, possessiveness… all of it is because of her. And she wasn’t willing to accept it.
If you wanted the world, Rosenna… I would give it to you. I would give you fucking everything.
It still wasn’t fucking enough.
Footsteps echoed as someone approached.
“Glad to know you’re still alive despite not hearing from you in the last few weeks,” came my father’s voice. “It’s good to see you occupying your time with something productive.”
He stood beside me as I stared down at the caked remnants of clay on my hands. He looked at the sculpture I’d been carving for the past ten hours curiously as he rubbed his chin in thought. “Your fixations… have often worried me at times, Beckham. But I’ve never seen you this consumed by them. I’m sure you’ve recognized it, too.”
I could sense that he was struggling to find the right words. He was walking on eggshells once again, trying to keep me calm as he attempted to figure out what was on my mind.
“It was a bit concerning from the beginning, but I’m sure Ms. Hart means a lot to you, does she not?”
I shook my head as I stared at the sculpture. “She’s more than just my muse… she’s become my everything.”
My father looked at all the art surrounding us—all the art I’d made of her, with her—with a slight nod of his head. “Yes, it appears that seems to be the case.”
“She doesn’t see what we could be together. She doesn’t understand that what we have isn’t just in the heat of the moment or in the middle of passion. It ’ s art. It ’ s our masterpiece. ”
“This feeling is new to you, Beckham… it may also be new to her. She may be scared of feeling this way, she may be afraid of the intensity of you two being together.”
“She wants to settle for her husband,” I uttered, almost in disgust. The words tasted like poison.
Her clueless, undeserving, spineless, weak, pathetic, useless, selfish, mediocre, idiot of a husband doesn’t see her brilliance. Doesn’t see her depth, her contradictions, her mind.
He doesn’t worship her.
I do.
“You don’t know that’s what she wants,” my father assured.
“She said it to me herself. She couldn’t accept my everything because she couldn’t give me hers.”
“Acceptance takes time.”
“How much time?” I asked, my frustration at an all-time high.
“Who knows? Look at her husband. He’s still waiting for her to accept his misogynistic and chauvinistic viewpoints…”
I sighed internally. There was no telling how long it would take Rosenna to accept me. Accept us.
“I can’t help but wonder how things would be if your mother were still around…” my father said into the silence.
I rose. “I don’t want to talk about Mom.” I couldn’t think of her. There were too many parallels between her and the woman I couldn’t keep out of my mind.
“Well, you never do…” my father replied with a slight shrug. “She would always blame things on your impulsivity but would never fault you for it. She wanted you to embrace the things that made you who you are.”
Clenching my jaw, I held my irritation at bay as memories of her began to surface. My father was right. My mother was the only person able to see past my obsessions and flaws.
She saw the beauty in what I hated about myself. The only other person who was able to see my art, able to see me , wouldn’t give me a chance to show her my devotion.
“You think she’d know how to handle this?” I muttered.
My father sighed. “In her mind, she would know the exact way to handle this. Unfortunately, much like you, her stubbornness wouldn’t allow her to recognize that she might be wrong in her approach. Whether or not she was wrong, she would still figure out a way to make things work. That was and still is one of the many reasons why I love her.”
I was silent. My father often remembered my mother, his first love, in contrast to my unhealthy coping mechanism. Sharing her stubbornness, my approach to processing her death was to process as little as possible.
My approach there wasn’t too successful, given my inability to grieve her loss in a healthy way… Actually, many of my approaches lately have been ineffective. My rejection from Rosenna seemed to be one of the prime examples of that fact.
“I don’t know what she would do… and I don’t know what to do myself,” I admitted.
“Not knowing what to do next is what makes us human.” He gazed at the paintings and sculptures thoughtfully. “Even if she wouldn’t know what to do… she would see the way Rosenna consumes you, the way she makes you reckless. The way she makes you feel…” He paused, tilting his head. “Well… human.”
Silently, he approached me, and as he stood a few feet away, something between us felt different… The look in his eyes, the one that always seemed inquisitive, cautious… was seeming more and more like understanding the longer we stood.
He wasn’t simply trying to see through me this time.
“You love her,” he murmured, “but love is never just love for men like us, is it?”
My jaw clenched, but I said nothing. And again, I could feel him staring into me again as I reluctantly looked away.
“Look at me, Beckham,” he said with the same maddening patience he possessed my entire life, that he always wielded against me.
I kept my eyes locked on the sculpture, my fingers curling into fists, clay cracking against my skin.
But then I felt it. The firm grip of his fingers beneath my jaw. Not rough. Not forceful. But unshakable.
With an unhurried certainty, he guided my face toward him, refusing to let me spiral any more, refusing to let me turn away from what I already knew.
His thumb pressed just enough to make me meet his eyes, those cold, knowing eyes that had built empires and crushed men without ever raising his voice.
I swallowed, my pulse pounding in my ears.
“All of your desires… emotions are right here. Every paint stroke, every edge and curve you’ve sculpted. It sits in this room. You told her how you feel… you are stubborn to know that if one way doesn’t work, you need a different approach.”
For a split second… I could see part of myself in his eyes. The part I hated, the part my mother loved, the part Rosenna could see.
“Don’t just tell her you love her… show her how much you do. ”
Drinking from my glass of bourbon, I silently stared at my flower in each painting within my warehouse, evidence of my devotion, utter descent into madness and love. It was probably after midnight, but after my father had left a few hours ago. I didn’t quite focus much on the time—not when I was drowning in self-doubt . Maybe I wasn’t good enough for her. Maybe I would never be good enough for her.
Fuck, Rosenna. What have you done to me?
Placing the glass down, my fingers traced the spine of the sculpture. As my eyes closed, envisioning her skin under my fingertips, part of me began to question my distinction between obsession and love. The line between the two seemed to be blurred. Obviously, I had a bit of overlap.
The questions burned in my mind, almost as the bourbon burned my throat. But the yearning for her was much more than a simple obsession or admiration. At least, that’s what I thought and confessed to her.
Maybe I had gone too far.
My father’s words again rang in my mind. I could never express my feelings, much less understand or tell them in a way that truly conveyed their intensity. But I showed Rosenna what it meant for a man to cherish her, to show her the utmost devotion, to want nothing more than to be with her. In understanding her through my art, I captured her essence, I understood her, and I began to own her in a way that was risky but worth it in every way.
He doesn’t deserve her. He will never fucking deserve her.
My eyes darkened as my fingers continued tracing the sculpture. I took the time to understand her. I took the time to treasure her. I took the time to love her… and she was fucking mine.
She knew it already. She knew the second I laid eyes on her. She knew the day she walked into our first session. She knew it when I whispered sweet nothings into her ear as I claimed what was rightfully mine.
But my sweet flower was still holding onto the past despite me telling her I would give her my everything. If telling her I wanted to be with her wasn’t enough, then I would heed my father’s advice and show her that I did.