a study of cara evelyn

seven

The next day, Cara and I sat on the corroding steps of a yellow-brown building, fifteen minutes before its opening time. She insisted we had to be the first ones there, even after I had assured her that visiting this place would be no one's top priority, except ours, on that very morning.

Soon enough a petite girl came skipping to our rescue an unlocked the door with the words Museum of Heartbreak written in bold, capital letters across it. Once we walked in, Cara turned into a five year old in a candy store. She dragged me to anything that caught her eye and didn't stand on one place for longer than fifteen seconds, getting distracted by something.

The museum was only big enough for about twenty people to be standing inside at once. However, each side of the room was blanketed with a collage of paintings that all sat so closely together you could no longer catch a glimpse of the wall they were on.

Having been here a million times, my eyes glanced at the painting in the corner of the room. Cara insisted that I show her my favorite painting; the one I would pick if a painting could tell my story. And that's why we were here.

"Do you like it?" I inquired as soon as the painting was within arms reach. I wiped my sweaty palms against the hem of my shirt and tried to ignore the whirlwind in my stomach. I had never brought anyone here before, not my friends, not even Jeanine. Yet here I stood with Cara Evelyn; not a stranger, but not a friend - just something in between.

Cara didn't respond. She seemed too engrossed in the portrait of a girl. It was the longest time she had spent on any piece in this room, and my heart started to race.

"It's beautiful," Cara breathed, without looking at me. The left half of the canvas had the girl's face painted in a peach skin tone and black collared top. The right side of it followed a similar silhouette except the colours used created an almost abstract painting; ocean blues where her hair would flow, sunflower yellows around her dark eyes, sunset orange across her nose, blood red down at her thin lips, grass green towards her neck and turquoise for her top.

"Well," I said, taking in a deep breath. "Look at the painter's name."

Her eyes immediately slid down to the little white paper attached to the bottom of the painting, and a surprised look crossed her face.

I instantly regretted the words as soon as the they left my lips, but Cara's reaction drained that feeling and replaced it with an odd sense of relief. This painting had been my secret for a long time; I didn't realize it had turned into a burden.

"Who is she?" Cara asked, her eyes never leaving the painting. I knew it was a question that would eventually come up, and had spent the entire night trying to come up with different ways to describe the girl I painted soon after our breakup. But, I couldn't sum everything up into a story that could be said in less than ten minutes. At least not until I was staring down at it at that moment.

"Someone I once loved."

"Love?" Cara's high pitched laugh shocked me. The look in her eyes was soft and familiar, informing me that her actions were not malicious. "You're so cliché."

I put my hands in the pockets of my blue jacket. "It most decidedly is not."

"Love is a suicide mission," Cara remarked, making a finger gun with her hand. She pointed it at the side of her face and cocked the imaginative trigger, faking her death.

And that's when I saw it; the girl who had caught my attention all those years ago. The same Cara, that ten year old me admired for her irony, stood right in front of me, flesh and bone.