Keys of Life

Chapter Twenty-Two: Keenan

Chapter Twenty-Two: Keenan

   I had no idea what was going on. I was half-hoping that the universe had a plan, since I clearly didn't, but when had a misplaced sense of trust and excitement ever gotten me anywhere? I had thought I would get my 'once upon a time' long ago, whenever a girl with glittering green eyes smashed a glass at my feet and didn't even flinch. When she danced in the rain with an invisible cane, and had the most heartbreaking story behind her jokes and laughter. Whenever she baked a batch of scorched, black cupcakes and made me wait for four hours in a car while she stared into space.

   Glad I wasn't in a fairytale, then.

   So many times I almost opened my mouth, and so many times I almost leaked the pool of emotions languishing in my brain, stagnant. The seams of my heart stayed watertight, though. The dam held. It was too late for it to burst.

   It was ironic, really. The only painting I ever sold on my own merit was of the girl I was leaving behind.

   I'd gone to Belfast a few weeks ago. The taxi-driver was right. A place had been interested in my work, and they'd offered good money for it, too. It had been the one I'd done of Faye.   

   Bags packed; everything in its place. The bed was neatly made, for once. White walls, white ceilings, white sheets, white lies. All bland and boring and broken. Nothing lost, except for the tiniest sliver of myself that I felt I was leaving behind. I grinned, a bitter taste in my mouth. More like enormous chunk. This room used to be so colourful despite the apparent lack of it. You can paint walls and dye fabrics, but emotions really give houses homeliness. There was no wallpaper as strong as memories.

   With a few clicks and buzzes, a text made its way to Faye's mother. It was just words, a 'thanks' and a 'goodbye'. I quickly crushed the sim card under my heel. I didn't want to be found.

   I ripped a page out of my sketchpad, and with a few scribbled letters, a note sat on my bed. It was just words, a 'sorry' and 'I'll miss you'. Not much more to say. Nothing more except for three words - eight letters - that I would rather die than write down.

   One day I'd say them, but it wouldn't be on a scrap of paper with my jagged handwriting and what could have been teardrops. One day, I would look her in the eye, letting three syllables roll off my tongue like honey.

   I was an idiot. I didn't have to leave - I mean, come on! It wasn't like someone was after my head. I did need to be my own person, though, spend a few years actually thinking about what was going to happen instead of coasting through life with my fingertips in paint. I should go home, talk to my parents. I needed qualifications, a degree from art college, money that I actually had a right to own. Connections and common sense wouldn't be too bad either.

   I needed to face up to the real reason I left. The whispers and rumours were no cause to run away. They never were. I needed to talk to Jessica, heal my broken heart that had been torn to shreds by a friend and the girl in question. The course of love never did run smooth...

   Art had never been a passion until I needed to get away, needed a reason. Then it was suddenly my whole life, as far as my parents were concerned, and sometime between beginning the charade and selling my first sketch on the streets of London, it had become the truth. Angry slashes on a canvas or jagged holes in the tyres of a car. A divorce between two unhappy parents and a dash of hurt pride made for an eager artist. I felt a smile cross my face.           

   Memories washed over me. Arguments late at night and tear tracks on cheeks. Feeling a knife sink into rubber, feeling the sting of hurt and resentment. Smashed glasses and meetings with lawyers. Smashed hearts and the meeting of a fist on face. Just once.

   Girls came and went. Friends were supposed to be forever. So were your parents.

   I felt a car key eating into my palm, and another for the gallery. With a final glance, I walked to the door, ever so careful that even the slightest click was muffled with sadness.

***

   A heavy bag bounced off my hip as I carefully unhooked my paintings from the wall. A rather large sum of money lay on the table. After Faye's mother had bought my first painting, I decided that I would prefer if she merely showcased them at the gallery rather than had any actual ownership. In return, she would take a substantial percentage of the profit from every painting I sold. I never did sell any, but I wanted them back.

   Each one of my works was more than a canvas and a set of paints. I had spent time and energy on the creation of every single one. They were a part of my soul rendered in strokes of a brush, and I couldn't leave them behind as easily as I would the girl who had slept in the room across the hall.

   I was breathing heavily by the time I had posted the jagged chips of metal through the letterbox and loaded up the canvases. I had rented the car from the airport, and would drop it off minutes before I had to hand a slip of paper to a check-in girl. I didn't want to leave. I almost turned back, drove to the place I had called home for a little while. Then a leaf fluttered across the windscreen and my jaw set once more.

   Everything was a haze. There was no real time when seconds lasted years and minutes flashed by in the flutter of an eyelid. It had been so long since I had talked to my mother, so long since I had laid my head down on my own pillow. It had been so long since I had seen Jessica ... and a certain friend. I wondered if they were still together, or if they had drifted apart as easily as they had together.

   Not much time left for thinking. The bright lights of a runway burst across the clear glass in front of me. A check-in girl was waiting, as was the company that owned the car. As was Faye, who was still sleeping soundly in a white room with a white duvet.

   She, above everyone else, would wait. She would wait for me to wake up, maybe put her ear to the glossy wood of the door and wait to hear the sound of my breathing. She would enter the room and wait for an explanation, a phone call, a knock on the door.

   She would wait for me. I would be gone.