Page 2 of Portrait of A Lost Artist
Pushing the phone away from my ear, I wipe at my eyes, blurry from the tears. I swallow thickly, nodding. “I—I think I can send it to you. It might take a minute. I’m...I can’t see straight.”
Panic and nostalgia settle in my bones, paralyzing them, and as a compensation, my joints and muscles shake. Renna, my assistant, sighs into the speaker.
“Take your time, Nate, but try to do it as quickly as possible. I’m still here on the call. I’m getting in the car.” I move through the text application, igniting the button of my location and the muscle memory does most of the work for me, because I have fallen silent and I feel like I can’t move. “I got the location. Good job. You’re doing okay. This is not your fault.”
I close my eyes tightly at her words. She had been there, along with Jun and Simon, through the worst time of my life and I can’t help but feel guilty about dragging their names with the disaster I’ve become. I don’t speak, letting her empty words caress me in the lonesome night.
Though, sometime during the call the call, when I hear screams and commotion from the bottom of the mansion, Renna says:
“Are you okay? You haven’t said a single thing. The police must be there...”
Vacantly, the sound of the door opening awakens me and I spare one glance at the phone, as if I could see through it and towards Renna’s brown eyes just to lie like I always do to her. As I have sadly grown accustomed to.
“I’m okay.” I mumble, hearing a manly, deep voice call my name as they hoist me up from the floor. I don’t fight, letting the police officers take me wherever they want as Renna’s voice gets lost in the phone they now have in their hands.
I’ve never been worse, and I am tired of pretending.
?CHAPTER TWO
NATHAN
“Slow down, you crazy child. Take the phone off the hook and disappear for a while. It’s alright, you can afford to lose a day or two.” -Vienna by Billy Joel.
RENNA HAS A FACE THATI HAVE GOTTEN TO KNOW PERFECTLY WELL FOR THE PAST FIVE YEARS.One would think that’s the reason it’s difficult for me to look her in the eye at this moment. She sits across from me in my living room, the one I’ve barely been in for the past twelve months. I’ve been out and about, travelling so much with Jane Rae, that I had forgotten just how much I cherished this house. The painting from a Uruguayan artist that I bought four years ago. The cream couch where I sit on right now, with brown cushions that welcome the weight of my head, neck aching because of the position.
Nathan Calderwood was the brand that everyone in this room was working for. They weren’t here for the disaster I’ve become, glaring at the orange and pink hues that dissipate through the blank curtains of my living room, as I play with the cigarette that dangles from my bottom lip. My team was bigger before; Renna was the last one to join as my art manager. She was the one that contacted the museums and made the grand sales to sponsors in auctions. Venturing into the world of art, her knowledge of realism and her art degree backed us up in a career that had flourished beautifully until the accident happened. Career halted to an end, I wish I could return to who I was, but that’s impossible.
Fame wasn’t difficult to achieve for me, however, for I was born with it from the crib. Simon, my other manager, made sure to remind me of such. He was with me for longer than Renna. Mom’s assumption was that it would be great for me to have a PR manager, and that’s what Simon worked with. Normally seen in the back of my pictures, always the one organizing the event, shooting the pictures, creating the atmosphere of a nepotism child that people both loved and hated.
Jun, who is the one that settles a bottle of coffee on the table near the couch, is just my bodyguard. Though the muscles on his body enlarge him in size, they definitely don’t compare to the warmth of his persona, and how greatly he has established himself as a big brotherly figure in my life.
Renna has pushed her black hair away from her porcelain skin with an orange clip, matching the lipstick that she smeared on her mouth before she had gone out on a date last night. God, she was so excited to meet that supposed William from a dating app, and as per usual, I ruined it with my convictions and melancholia. She has rubbed her usual thick eyeliner off from her eyes after spending an entire midnight with me at the police station. Out of worry, of course. Crooking her knees under her body, covered by a long white dress, she sighs.
“I need you to talk about this, Nate.” Renna says as a matter of fact. Plainly, but with lingering worry that crashes against me. So hard that it takes me back to the accident, when she said the same exact words. I shake my head, mixing cigarettes with coffee when I drink from what Jun had just served me.
“We both know that’s not what anybody here wants.” Sometimes, I wonder why Renna stays. I haven’t painted in a long while—people sitting at the edge of their seats, waiting for my next move; for me to continue with the scenery of fame I had created for myself so far from what my parents do. Yet, it’s impossible to hunt for that inspiration that was once carved so deeply inside of me.
