Page 80 of His Mistress, His Muse, and Other Madness
“I would never hurt you. But I will do what I must to make a life for us. I have a career, and I could be good at it if—”
“You willnotsell other people’s sins to pay for my life, Theo. Why do you wish to live off of other people’s pain? Why can’t you leave it alone?”
“It’s not their pain I’m living off of, Cordelia, it’s justice. I’m—”
“Exposing injustice. Yes, I know. But there’s more you can do. Your drawings are funny and sweet, and—”
“Those are meaningless. A lark I should not waste time on. The satires are what I do.” His hands became manacles on her wrists.
But she did not squirm. “It does not have to be. You do not have to dig up others’ dirt to help the world, to make it better. The drawings you give to children make the world better. The beauty of the art you created at the party—that makes the world better, too. You have talked of teaching. Why must you play at… artistic vigilante? I do not know if I wish to have those shadows in my life.”
He let go of her wrists as if electrified. “What are you saying?”
“I don’t know, Theo.” She cupped her cheeks, and their heat seeped into her palms.
“You said you loved me.” He pulled a folded bit of paper from his pocket, crushed it in his hand. The letter she’d left for him.
“I do.” She laughed despite it all, hugged the satchel as if it were him. “God help me, I love you.”
He lurched toward her, an infinitesimal movement as his mouth parted. For a brief, breathless moment she knew he’d grab her to him, return the words. He loved her. She saw it in his face, the lines of his body, his actions, even if he could not recognize it himself. But would he say it?
He rocked back onto his heels, snapping his mouth closed and shoving the letter back into his pocket. “My father pretended he loved me, too.”
“Theo.” She reached for him. “I’m not pretending. And neither was your father. You must stop living in the past.”
“Living in the past? What does that mean?”
“It means every decision you make, every action you take is determined by your father, taken because you think it makes you less like him. How long has it been since you’ve asked yourself what you want to be instead of merely attempting to be as unlike him as possible?”
His cheeks hollowed, and his breaths lifted and dropped his chest in a steady but hard rhythm. “You think I’m stuck? You think I let my father define me?”
“Yes—”
He stormed from the room.
After a moment of shock, she followed, putting the satchel’s strap around her shoulder, oddly unable to let it go. But when he threw open the door to her Gallery of Shame, she hesitated, her heart beats stopping just as the slap of his boots against the wood flooring had.
“Come look, Cordelia.”
She closed her eyes, wrapped her hand around the doorframe, and took a step into the room.
“Open your eyes and see the pastyoulive in.”
She opened her eyes but kept her gaze trained on him. She had expected the mottled red-and-white of fury to distort his face, but he looked at her only with softness, a hint of despair.
“You let him tell you who to be for four long years. And even now, when you’ve taken on new dreams, you still keep these around you. What are they, Cordelia, and why do you keep them? You are not the failed artist my father and your instructors thought you are. You are a promising headmistress. You are a bringer of light and laughter. You are a source of good in the world. You are not—”
“Stop.” She held out a hand. “You’re right.” Why hang onto the artifacts, why let them define her? Why continue to see herself by others’ standards for happiness and success? If she asked him to step into the present, then so must she. “I have only ever been wanted for my beauty, which will fade, my connections, which I lost, or my talent, of which I have none.”
She picked up a silhouette she’d drawn of Mrs. Barkley that looked more like St. Paul’s Cathedral. “This? I am not good at this.” She ripped it in half and let the pieces flutter to the floor. Then she picked up a ceramic… something or other. Difficult to tell. “And this? I am not good at this either.” She threw it to the floor where it shattered, a rather satisfying sound. Then she swept her arm across the entire shelf of ceramics, sending them all crashing. “Yet, you are right, I’ve long defined myself by them, refusing to do what I ask you to do—to see what you could be, to try to be what you most want to be, what brings you most joy.”
She tugged a painting off the wall and snapped its frame across her knee.
Theo winced.
“You are right. I can inspire in other ways. I have other talents. And I will choose to define myself. My past does not have that power any longer, andyoudo not have that power. No one does anymore. I take it for myself. Now, Theodore Bromley. What will you do?”
The pile of her broken past spread between them, and he seemed broken, too, his brows drawn low, and his shoulders hunched. Then, slowly, he nodded. But still, he did not speak.
