Chapter 7
SEVEN
STERLING
“How are you?” my mother asks, resting her hand on mine as we sit together in a quiet corner of a café overlooking Central Park, the scent of percolating coffee and freshly baked bread only adding to the comforting atmosphere. Outside the leaves on the trees have already begun to change to burnt orange, deep maroon, and ochre as the season slowly transforms from summer into autumn.
“Shouldn’t I be asking you that?” I reply, squeezing her fingers as I take in her gentle smile. Despite her almost serene appearance, her pretty ice-blue eyes, that are so similar to mine, are tinged with a lingering sadness that she can’t hide from me.
“You know I’m fine,” she says, gently patting my hand.
“Fine is not the same as good,” I argue, frowning a little.
“Then I’m good. Truly . You need to stop worrying about me. It’s my job to worry about you, not the other way around. How are you enjoying New York City? Have you made any friends? Are you happy?” Her voice trails off as I sigh heavily.
“Stop changing the subject. I know you’ve heard about dad’s upcoming wedding. Christ knows he’s called me often enough to gloat about it. I imagine he’s taken great pleasure rubbing it in your face too. God, I fucking hate that man.”
“Firstly, I’m not changing the subject, I’m simply interested in my handsome, talented son’s life,” she insists, reaching up and briefly cupping my cheek. “Secondly, yes, your father has informed me of his plans to marry again. I’m happy for him.”
“You are? Why ? He hurt you, Mum.”
“He did, you’re right, but I prefer to live in the present with forgiveness than wallow in the past with bitterness,” she says, tucking a strand of silver-blonde hair behind her ear. “Nothing good ever comes from holding hate in your heart, Sterling. It was important to me to move on from my marriage to your father with grace and humility. Besides, I am happy. I have a good life. I get to travel the world and see all the places I always wanted to visit before I met and fell in love with your father. I also get to see you doing what you love. Your art is… My gosh, Sterling. It’s extraordinary . I’m so very proud of you.”
“Thank you,” I murmur, letting her words of love permeate the anger I feel at my dad for breaking her heart. Despite his flaws, of which he has many, she loved him, and she was devastated when he ended their marriage.
“So, have you made friends? Are you happy here?” she persists, lifting her cup of chai latte to her lips and taking a sip.
“I’m happy,” I reply, not wanting to tell her the truth, or give her any reason to be worried about me, because despite being able to work on my art freely without my father’s constant disapproval, I’m lonely. So fucking lonely.
“Sterling,” she warns softly, knowing me only too well, “Please don’t try to protect my feelings. I know you. Tell me how you really feel.”
I could lie to her.
I could tell her I’ve made lots of friends who accept all that I am. I could say that I’m not tormented every day by the vision of a woman who I spent a few incredible hours with, and who is forever immortalised in my best pieces of art to date. I could pretend that I’m as happy as she tells me she is, that I’m thriving in this incredible city so bustling with life, but it would all be a lie.
Instead, I scrape a hand over my face, and heave out a sigh, needing a moment to just sit with the truth. I still hold so much anger and hate towards my father, not just for hurting my mother, but for hurting me . I’m not sure that I’ll ever be able to let that go, to forgive as easily as my mother seemingly has.
No matter how much I’ve tried, I can’t seem to shake the gut-wrenching rejection I’ve always felt from my father. He’s a selfish, cruel man who only cares about himself and the billions that line his pockets. I’m not sure what’s worse, not having a father at all, or having a father who hates my guts. Not only that, I’m constantly afraid that I will feel this lonely for the rest of my life, and that I’ll never experience what it means to truly belong to someone, without fear of being rejected. But mostly I just feel a desperate kind of longing for a woman who walked away from me over a month ago, a woman who gave me a false name and number, and who has become my muse and my complete and utter obsession.
“Talk to me, Sterling. Let me comfort you, like you’ve comforted me this past year since my divorce.”
“This city is incredible,” I begin, giving her a half-hearted smile.
“But…?”
“But I haven’t made any friends. I spend my days and nights alone. The only thing that has kept the loneliness at bay is my art, and even then…” I grit my jaw, hating how fucking pathetic I sound.
“Even then?” she gently prods.
“It’s not enough. I thought it would be, but it isn’t.”
“Oh, Sterling.” She takes my hand in hers, her warm touch, soothing.
“Don’t get me wrong, I love the freedom of being able to paint without dad’s constant disapproval, but it doesn’t seem to matter where I go, I can’t hide from the fact that I’m still different , despite all the years dad spent trying to change me into his view of the perfect son.”
“Your uniqueness is a good thing, Sterling,” she says fiercely.
“He doesn’t think so,” I argue.
“You are incredible just the way you are. Your art is utterly captivating, and your father is a fool for not realising that, for not seeing what I see, what other people will see if you gave them the chance.”
“I appreciate you saying that, but–”
“No buts. Not only are you a gifted artist, you are a good man. You are thoughtful, kind, intelligent, tenacious, hilarious when you allow yourself to be,” she adds with a wink, that softens into another smile, “And you have so much to offer the world. Do not give up hope. Good things are coming, I promise you that.”
I laugh, shaking my head. “How can you be so sure?”
“I’m a mother, we tend to know things about our children.”
“And what is it that you think you know?” I ask, humouring her.
“I know that you will attend your father’s wedding–”
“I’m not going. I fucking refuse,” I bite out, interrupting her.
“You will go, and I’ll tell you why. It won’t be because your father demanded that you attend, but because it’s time to face him as the man I’ve always known you could be: strong, independent, formidable . This is your opportunity to prove to yourself that you are worthy of the Blade family name, not because you are anything like him, but because you are so uniquely you.”
“You have a lot of faith in me,” I mutter.
“Of course I do, and that isn’t just because you’re my son, but because I’ve seen with my own eyes how you’ve traversed a world that can be unutterably cruel with spirit, and enduring strength.”
“I don’t feel particularly strong,” I admit, and as difficult as it is for me to voice that out loud, it’s the truth.
“I know that, but I also know this is just a season you’re passing through. It won’t always be this way. You will continue to grow, evolve and flourish, and that loneliness you feel will someday be filled with contentment, happiness, and so much love. I know it, as sure as I know that I will never stop loving you.”
And that’s what I love the most about my mother, her unwavering positivity. Fuck knows I could use some of it because I want to be happy. I want to be this man she sees. I mull over her words, ruminating on them as I sip on my coffee, barely tasting it.
“Do you want to talk about that beautiful woman in your paintings?” she finally asks, filling the silence.
“She’s just someone I passed on the street. I thought she had an interesting face,” I say, the lie slipping from my mouth far too easily.
Fuck, if only Friday were just someone I’d seen in passing and been inspired by, but she isn’t. She plagues my every waking moment, she’s all I dream about at night. Somehow she’s buried herself beneath my skin and settled into every goddamn cell. She’s my utter obsession, and I’ve spent my nights searching every backstreet bar and club just to hear her voice, to see her again, but it’s as though she’s disappeared off the face of the earth. I even returned to Smokey Joe’s to see if they could give me some more information about Friday, but they had nothing. I can’t find her, and as each day passes it’s as though she wasn’t even real, that she was a figment of my imagination.
My mother lifts a brow. “That is not a painting of someone you passed on the street, Sterling.”
I huff out a breath. “There’s no keeping anything from you, is there?”
She grins. “So, are you going to tell me who she is?”
“Will I ever hear the end of it if I don’t?” I counter.
“Absolutely not.”
We both laugh then, but my smile slowly fades as I recall the night I met Friday. “I heard her singing in a club in Brooklyn just over a month ago now. It was late, and I was on my way home when some arsehole bumped into me in the street. Somehow my headphones got knocked off and…” I blow out a breath, even the memory of that night has me itching to head back to my studio to paint.
“And?” she persists softly.
“And I was completely overwhelmed with colour, Mum. It was like I was standing inside a fucking rainbow. Everything was so bright, so vibrant, and my whole body reacted in a way I’ve never experienced before…” I clear my throat, glancing her way, wondering whether she’s picking up on what I’m implying, but she just nods, listening intently. “All I could do was follow the sound of her voice… Fuck, it was incredible, like nothing I’ve heard before or since. I have never reacted so intensely.”
“That good, huh?” she asks, eyeing me with interest.
“Yeah,” I agree, swiping a shaky hand through my hair. She notices me trembling and the interest in her gaze turns to concern.
“Sterling?” she questions. “Did something bad happen?”
“No, I mean, I did pass out, but she helped me.”
“You fainted? That hasn’t happened since–”
“I was a kid, I know,” I reply.
“So you fainted on the street? How did she help you if she was inside the club?”
“Not then, I passed out later,” I explain.
“Okay, go on,” she urges.
“Drawn to her voice, I acted on autopilot,” I continue, “And I ended up stumbling into the club, and sitting at a table right in front of the stage. I couldn’t keep my eyes off her. Every note just exploded into colour, it was like looking through a kaleidoscope, the colour shifting and changing form.”
“That sounds incredibly intense, Sterling.”
“It was,” I agree. “But it was more than that. As she was singing, I felt this connection.”
“A connection?”
“Yes, a physical one that went beyond my synesthesia, I was…” I wince, not sure that I’m comfortable having a conversation with my mother about my sexual attraction to Friday, or whatever her name really is.
“Sterling, I may be a mother, but I’m a woman too, I understand what you’re getting at here,” she says, quirking her lips into a smile.
“She was beautiful, not just because of the colours she conjured within me. Yes, I was initially drawn to her by the sound of her voice, inspired by it, but something about her called to me too. It went deeper than my synesthesia. I can’t even explain it, to be honest.”
“Some things are just unexplainable,” she says, patting my hand. “So what happened next?”
“My brain short-circuited from the over-stimulation, and I passed out,” I say, with a shrug. “When I came to she was crouched beside me. She wanted to call an ambulance.”
My mother gives me a knowing look. “I’m guessing you didn’t end up in A&E?”
“No.”
“Sterling!” she scolds.
“You know as well as I do that there isn’t anything they could’ve done,” I say in an attempt to placate her. “Anyway, the bouncer kicked us both out. He thought I was high, Friday helped me to my feet and kept me steady as we left the club.”
“She sounds like a good person,” my mother says.
“She is, at least I thought she was,” I reply, swiping a hand over my face, feeling the sting of Friday’s rejection still.
“What do you mean by that?”
I wince. “Let’s just say I invited her back to my place, we spent the night together but when I woke up she was gone.”
“Ah, I see.”
“She left a note, gave me a false number, and I haven’t seen her since.”
Though not for lack of trying.
“That must’ve stung.”
“It did. It does . I thought she’d felt what I’d felt too, which is fucking stupid, right? How could she possibly? It was just a one night stand for her, just sex, but for me…”
“It was more?”
“So much more. I can’t get her out of my head,” I say, reaching up and tapping my temple. She frowns at that, but keeps her thoughts to herself.
“Because you felt connected to her in a deeper way?”
“Exactly. I can’t stop thinking about her, and it’s messing with my head. No matter how many times I paint her, this feeling remains. In fact, it just deepens.”
“And what exactly is it that you’re feeling?” my mother questions softly, cautiously almost.
“I honestly don’t know,” I lie, because I do know, and this obsession is getting worse every day. Most nights I can’t fall asleep, so consumed by the memory of Friday’s body beneath mine, how it felt to be inside of her, to kiss her, to taste her. Fuck, I can barely remember to eat most days because all I’m doing is painting her image over and over and over again. If I didn’t leave my apartment much before, then it’s even worse now, only venturing out late at night to search another club or bar in my attempt to find her. The only reason I’m sitting in this café freshly showered and wearing a different set of clothes, instead of the same jogging bottoms and t-shirt I’ve been wearing for fucking weeks, is because of my mother’s visit. I’m a fucking mess.
“Have you tried to find her?”
“Yes. I’ve searched every bar and club in New York City. She’s disappeared. It was like I imagined her or something…”
“Oh Sterling, I am so sorry. I wish I could help.”
“There’s nothing you can do. She clearly doesn’t want to be found, and I’ve just got to find a way to get her out of my system once and for all. This will pass in time.”
But even as I say those words, I know it's bullshit, that I won’t rest until I find her, until I make her mine.
My mother nods. “Well, now that I’m here visiting for a while, I can help to take your mind off things, yes?”
“That’d be good,” I reply, plastering on a smile as I reach for the bill and move to stand so I can pay it.
“Sterling,” she says, grasping my arm.
“Yes?”
“I know you said that you don’t want to return to Princetown for your father’s wedding, but perhaps it’ll be a good thing?”
“Mum, you know how strained things are between me and dad.”
“Like I said before, it’s time to be the man that I know you are, but I’m not just talking about that. I’m sure Benedict would love to see you, Dalton and Drix too. You might not have made any friends here, but those men are your friends, and it looks like you could use their support now more than ever, yes?”
“I’m not going back home to live with dad in Princetown. No way.”
“I’m not suggesting that, but a short visit can’t hurt, can it? Go home, attend your father’s wedding, spend some time with your friends.”
“Maybe,” I reply, but a couple of months later I find myself back in Princetown with no idea that my short visit will become a more permanent stay.