Page 14 of Portrait of A Lost Artist
?CHAPTER SIX
VERONICA
“Thanks to you I can’t love right. I get nice guys and villainize them. Read their texts like they’re having sex right now; scared I’ll find out that it’s true.”- Emails I Can’t Send by Sabrina Carpenter.
THE TURMOIL OF LIVINGBETWEEN PEOPLE WHOSE ROMANCES PARTOOK TOWARDS PERFECT STANCES LINGERS WITHIN ME.It prepares me for when, evidentially, my mom will sit down with me to talk about the matter at hand. She hasn't, much like Nathan hasn't responded to my letter. I get busy with work at the office and around the restaurant. Mom takes up jobs that she can’t do on her own and while Adam is tremendously helpful, I’ve seen him tug at his hair a few times thanks to the church work the family is doing.
The restaurant closes at nine on most days, and when it does, all the life that breathes and mingles through the walls dies down. Like a leaf in fall, and a rose in winter. The leftovers my dad saved for me went unheated, plucked by my fork as I toy with the rice that was served. I haven’t been sleeping alright, much less eating as I should. I prefer junk food over anything else, snacking here and there, just not feeling like filling my body with what was once comforting for me.
“Vero,” Dad says from his spot in front of the TV, turning off the popular telenovela that he was watching. He rubs at his eyes when taking off his glasses, standing up and towering over me with his height. Adam and I surely didn’t take him up on those genes. “My old ass is falling asleep. Could you please stay with your mom until she finishes? I’ll be heading to bed.”
My parents live right across the restaurant, so it’s not a surprise that dad cuts the night to a sharp end. I nod, filling my mouth with more fried rice. “Yeah, sure. Want me to walk you home or—?”
Dad smiles on top of my head, pressing a chaste kiss before nodding. His digits trail through the knots of my wavy hair, looking down at me with the adoration that represents him. What mom lacks in giving me, dad always serves. “I said ‘old ass’, but I didn’t mean it so literally. Stay here. I’ll be fine.”
I chuckle at his words softly, as much as I can muster as I still try to heal from the wounds perpetuating my chest. “Fine. Have an enjoyable night.”
These times, as the night engulfs me in the sound of my mom washing the dishes and the faint tune of the wind whisking against the wooden frame to our glassed windows, I wonder what Adam did differently for his life to go so well. For mom to cherish him as if he were the very light of her eyes, illuminating her world with joy and pride, and for him to discover a woman who would embrace the journey of life alongside him, steadfastly supporting him through his highs and lows. Perhaps it’s easier for men to find that—for someone to love them with each imperfection, or maybe I was stupid enough to think it would happen to me.
I close the lid of the food, feeling my stomach churn at the mere idea of eating more, before I rub my mouth with the back of my hand. I’m about to throw the food away and take out the trash when I hear the door opening one last time. With my back turned to the entrance, I can only imagine my dad lingering in the doorway instead of going to bed. He stays, driven by the need to protect his two girls from the unsettling quiet of the night.
“Dad, just head to sleep, goddamn it, we’ll be fine—”
The door closes, the bell stops ringing at the top of it, and I turn around at the silence that follows. A face that I had seen not too long ago appears and engraves itself onto the scars that had appeared in the muscle of my heart. Lorenzo pulls the beige hood of his shirt down, his hair shorter than the last time I saw him, polished to utter perfection. Of course, I imagine that’s how he wants to show off to the town. As if he was not the one that quietly promised the world to me, but then shredded it to ruins.
“Hi,” is all he says, and on any other occasion, I would have grinned at that word alone. However, my hands clasp at the edge of the counter, trying to regain my posture as he gets closer. His palms dig into the depths of his pockets, just standing there, as if he hopes for me to rush into his arms.
I don’t.
I don’t think I would ever be able to when he shattered what I believed of me and my future in just one night.
I lick the inside of my cheek out of annoyance, bleeding and yet wishing for him to do the same. “We’re closed, Lorenzo. I think you know this by now.”
“I’m not here to buy anything.” Lorenzo comes closer then, and I wish to step back, but I’m unable to move. He swings his steps, as if carefully tempting the space between us, waiting for me to go towards him. Instead, he reaches me, and where my hands have gone pale for the strength I have on the edge of the counter, he touches. Palm against palm, with a thumb tracing my knuckles. “I wanted to talk. See you again, you know?”
I cackle at his words. Full-on laugh at his face because I am sure tears have not awakened this man in the middle of the night as he wondered what he did wrong. Heartbroken by him, I was, and I still blamed myself in my nightmares. “I have nothing to talk about, so if you’re not buying anything, I’d like you to leave.”
“Baby...” Lorenzo drags, lowering his face so he can see my down-cast glare. He tilts my chin up, but I pull away at the contact. “Okay, I understand. I had a lapse of my judgement and I am so sorry for what I did, but I—”
“But you slept with someone else, and that’s totally valid. I was the stupid one who thought—” I stop myself from rambling. What am I about to tell him? That I believed he was going to propose to me just because of some dumb assumption me and Zeke had? “I’ve loved you for so long and we both know this. I wish you would have had the decency to tell me to my face that it wasn’t mutual.”
When I pull my hands from his, Lorenzo trails after me. He reaches for my stomach behind the counter, and I’m backed up against the aquarium that was once filled with fishes, but is now just a puddle of memories of what it was. Like us.
“Of course, it’s mutual. It’s just—I paid for it. She’s just some whore. She doesn’t come relatively close to you.” The bile goes up my mouth, wishing to throw the entirety of my dinner up. He speaks of women in a way that seems disposable, as if it should make me feel better that there wasn’t a connection between the two. He clasps his thick hands on my waist, pulling me closer. “Just give me another chance and Iswear, holy fuck, I swear I will make you the happiest woman alive.”
When the heartbreak first happens, those are the words anyone wants to hear. That’s why couples always get back together, after all. However, as my heart has settled on the pain that it felt, and my mind has had conversations with itself about what I didn’t deserve to go through, I realize that as much as I loved and idolized Lorenzo—even though I still do—; he doesn’t deserve a second chance. Not when we had our perfect opportunity when reuniting after our separation.
“Lorenzo, let go of me.”
“Please, baby, no...” He lowers his head on my chest, taking one of my hands and placing it on his hair. From this position, it looks as though he needs me to breathe and live, but I don’t want to be that for somebody, do I?
For a long time, I believed that my worth was tied to the idea of being needed by others. But as time has passed, I’ve come to realize something deeper: what I truly crave is not just necessity, but genuine love. I yearn for someone who chooses to be by my side willingly, who sees value in our connection even when they have the freedom to walk away.
I push at his shoulders, watching those same brown eyes that had once sweetened our first kiss, first time...hell, even my first love. Has it ever been real to him, too?
