Page 34 of Bring You Back

Tommy keeps talking, but I’m back inside my head. How the fuck was I supposed to know that Reyna wouldn’t sell her pieces? Her stuff is amazing. She’s more talented than most people around here. How was I supposed to know that this is how her night would end? Only someone who has no faith in her would think that.

That’s exactly how she feels, I think now. The people around me just showed her that they have no faith. They looked her art in the eye and blinked away. And I showed her the same by not even showing up.

On time, anyway.

I snap out of my thoughts when the last part of Tommy’s spiel breaks through. “—especially tonight, she needed to feel wanted.”

Those words hit a nerve and I fire back, “Then go make her feel wanted.”

“I try.”

We lock eyes, his pointed with meaning. He was here for her. He’s always here for her. But I’m the one she really needs that from.

“Get out of your own head,” he scolds me, the exact opposite oflaying off, then shoves into me as he stalks after his girl. My girl. His girl. I shake my head. All I know is, if someone shoves me one more time—

“Nice going.”

For one blissed moment, I wasn’t thinking about Camille. But her voice, dripping with disappointment, reminds me that she’sstillhere.

She’s the one I should be telling to lay off. She has no right to even be a part of this. No right to have an opinion.

No fucking right.

“Fuck you,” I say, the words flat, half-assed. They’re out, and I know she heard them. So I look at her, my voice harder, louder, committed. “Fuck you for coming backnow.”

I regret the commitment as soon as I make it.Real nice, Julian.I might as well have saidFuck your brother for dying, and fuck you for not doing something to stop it so you wouldn’t have to be here.

My thoughts and emotions need to get a hold of themselves. Pick one and stick to it.

Camille’s reaction to my verbal slap would be inscrutable if I didn’t know her so well. Her hard face and blank stare, seemingly unaffected. She’s preparing her own verbal slap. That’s who she is, but that’s also one of her defenses. A mask. She cares more than she lets on.

No matter the circumstances, Camille is Camille. She has a smart mouth, and it’s one of the things I’ve always enjoyed about her. Not necessarily when it’s directed at me, but I can’t always win.

I want her to use that mouth. And she does.

“Timing is a bigger ass than you, isn’t it?”

We should be on the same side of that line. We’ve both been dealt shitty hands, both acquainted with shitty timing. We should be on the same damn side. And it’s her fault we’re not. But the fact that we’re not doesn’t stop the unwelcome remorse from rising through my chest, spreading to my arms, and pushing out my hand to take hers as she tries to walk past me.

“No, fuckyou, Julian,” she seethes at me, ripping her hand from my hold before I have time to remember how warm, soft, and still so familiar her skin feels.

No, I felt that. All of that.

Don’t touch her again.

I scrape my nails along the inside of my palm and focus on my anger. On how she stormed off with hers.

Good. I can take her mad. I can’t take her sorry.

“Showing’s over, son,” says the guy a foot to my left as he exchanges people’s art for people’s cash. He runs this jig, if I remember correctly. He’s around my age, too young to be calling meson.

My eyes scrutinize the art being passed between hands, trying to see why these pieces are more worthy of being taken home than Reyna’s. I’m trying to give these people the benefit of the doubt. I don’t know a lot about art, but being friends with a talented artist trains your eye to see the talent.

I can’t say I see much of that right now. Half of this shit just looks thrown together. Random shapes that tell me nothing. There’s a squirrel—or a monkey, I can’t even tell—that’s discolored, giving it a sick look. Some self-portraits, which—why? Why is a strangers’ ill-constructed face something someone wants on their wall? What the fuck is wrong with these people?

Most of these buyers are tourists, so what can I say, but some are locals, and the locals know Reyna. They know her talent. They know what she’s capable of. Why aren’t they holding her paintings in their hands?

I’m probably being bias, but—No, I’m not being bias. Reyna’s creations are a hell of a lot better than whatever this is right in front of me.Is that blob supposed to be a tree?

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