Page 95 of Art of Love
Mom, Todd, Grams, and definitely John, the living angel we had on earth.
We called our gallery The Art of Love.
It seemed fitting because as long as we had art we had love, and as long as we had each other, we had everything.
I couldn’t ask for more than that.
It was everything and I didn’t think I could have been more happier.
Finally I was happy and I spent my days in a bliss of love with the man of my dreams and the dreams that kept on coming.
***
Hunter
***
Another successfulopening. It was amazing to see a dream come to life, but God, the dream that I valued most of all was Jia.
The woman of my heart, the woman of my dreams.
Three years had gone by since that year we got together and there wasn’t a day that went by that she didn’t make me feel her love for me.
Jia, my beautiful wife, our precious baby girl and another one on the way.
I couldn’t believe it was me. I never expected to have such happiness and all that we were kept increasing in goodness.
Lucky me.
We were happy in England. We still saw and spoke to our family and friends who lived in the States and missed them terribly, but we were happy here.
The gallery had taken off in a way I never imagined. When I had that idea of us combining our talents I didn’t think it would explode into something truly phenomenal.
Jesus Christ. I never thought that.
We run the gallery through the year featuring our own exhibits that we rotated with the change of the season. It was our own thing that we combined music and art and often times we had guest artists. It was a really good set up and the ideas kept popping out of my head.
Tonight was a huge success with a big turnout for our exhibition we calledWhispers in Ice. We teamed up on this one because it was the start of the year and the start of a new season for us. The place looked like a winter palace, like something from Narnia. I made a series of paintings inspired by ice and Jia made some ice sculptures of mythical beings she created. Mostly ice mermaids, and fairies.
I was just saying goodbye to Mr. Pederson, one of our regular visitors when I turned and stopped in my tracks.
John was talking to Jia in the next room and I wanted to join them, but who stood before me stopped me right there.
Collin.
God. I hadn’t thought about him in years and I hadn’t heard from him either.
It was amazing, as we stood here face to face and I tried to conjure up that image of him and Emma, it didn’t come to me.
The memory was so distant it faded and all there was, was a blur of a pain.
Like a very old wound where you remembered the pain you experienced from the wound, but the action itself was the afterthought.
That was Collin for me and he was the last person I expected to see in England of all the places.
I heard on the grapevine that he and Emma never actually took off. She jumped to the next rich guy. A filthy rich older guy from Texas who proposed to her and they got married. One of those oil tycoons. I believe she was still married to him. I actually didn’t care. My friends filled in the blanks over the years, and she was more of a joke to us than anything else.
“Hi. I thought I’d try one last time to see you,” he began. His eyes never left mine.
