17. Neil
— ? —
Neil
The elevator ride took forever.
Sixty floors of Anika standing next to me, close enough to touch, close enough that I could smell her shampoo that made me want to bury my face in her hair and never come up for air.
I kept my hands at my sides. Didn’t reach for her or speak.
She’d asked to come here. I wasn’t going to do anything to spook her.
The doors opened and she stepped out first.
And stopped.
I knew what she was seeing. The evidence of the last three weeks.
Takeout containers on the counter. Empty bottles by the sink.
Clothes draped over furniture because I couldn’t bring myself to do anything that felt like moving on.
I asked my housekeeper and private chef to have a paid vacation because I couldn’t stand having anyone else in the penthouse.
And in the dining room, still visible through the archway, the anniversary table. I finally cleared it last week, but the tablecloth was still there, faint wax stains marking where the candles had burned down to nothing.
Anika’s eyes found it and lingered.
“You left it,” she said.
“I couldn’t make myself touch it. Not for a while.”
“How long?”
“Two weeks.”
She was quiet for a moment. Then she turned away and kept walking.
“You’ve been a mess,” she said.
“Complete mess.”
She looked at me over her shoulder. She looked satisfied.
“Good.”
She walked through the apartment slowly, touching things. The kitchen island where we’d had our last fight. The couch where she’d waited for me a hundred times. The hallway that led to our bedroom.
She paused outside her studio door.
“I’ve been sitting on that floor most nights,” I said. “Since you left. Staring at the canvases you scraped. Trying to understand.”
She pushed the door open.
And stopped again.
I’d been going in there every night. Sitting with my back to the wall, surrounded by the ghosts of paintings she’d destroyed. Last night, at two in the morning, I’d finally done something other than sit.
I’d cleaned it, dusted the shelves, laid out her brushes in the order she liked. Put a fresh canvas on the easel. Made her coffee and left it in a thermos on the table.
Just in case. Just in the desperate, pathetic hope that she might come back.
“When did you do this?” Her voice was strange.
“Last night.”
“You didn’t know I was coming.”
“Yes.”
“So why…”
“Because I hoped.” I stayed in the doorway. Didn’t crowd her and didn’t push. “Every night since you left, I hoped. And I wanted to be ready. Just in case.”
She walked into the room. Picked up a brush and put it down again.
“The coffee’s probably cold,” I said. “I can make fresh.”
“It’s fine.”
She turned to face me. The light from the windows caught the gold in her hair, the warmth in her skin. She was so beautiful it made my chest ache.
“I’m not moving back in,” she said.
“Of course, I understand.”
“This doesn’t mean anything. It’s just… I wanted to see.”
She stood there, in the middle of her studio, surrounded by all the brushes I’d laid out and the canvas I’d prepared and the hope I’d been too afraid to admit.
“I want to paint here sometimes,” she finally said. “Not at Anwesha’s. Here.”
“Whenever you want. I’ll leave if you need me to.”
“I don’t need you to leave.” She picked up the brush again. Studied it. “I need you to stay. Be quiet. Let me work. Can you do that?”
“Yes.”
“Without checking your phone? Without getting distracted? Without finding some excuse to leave?”
“Yes.”
She looked at me for a long moment. Then she nodded at the couch.
“Sit down. Don’t move or talk.”
I sat.
She picked up a palette and started mixing colors. And for the next few hours, I didn’t move or try to speak to her.
I just watched her work.
I’d never done this before. Never just… sat. Never let myself be still long enough to see her in her element. She frowned at the canvas. Tilted her head when something wasn’t working. Her whole body relaxed when she found the right color, the right stroke, the right line.
She was always beautiful. But this was something else. This was Anika in her truest form. Creating, making something out of nothing.
And I was here to witness it.
At some point, she started painting me. I realized it slowly, watching her glance at me and then back at the canvas, her brush moving in quick, confident strokes.
When she finally stepped back, the light had changed. The sun was setting, painting the room in shades of orange and gold.
“Come look,” she said.
I stood. My legs were stiff from sitting so long but I didn’t care.
The painting showed a man on a couch. His face was calm, patient, present. No phone in his hand. No tension in his shoulders.
“That’s who I need you to be,” she said.
I looked at the painting. At the patient man she’d made me into.
“I can be that.”
“We’ll see.”