I loved him. Oh my god. It hurt how much I loved him. I wanted to see that face every day, wanted to roll over in bed in the mornings and watch him wake up. I wanted to hold him close and kiss him breathless and drag him cavewoman-style into my bedroom and do things to him that would make Tabatha blush. I’d been coming to the ICU for less than a week; this mural had surely taken longer than that. And all this, after I had hurt him. After I had taken his love and deemed it false. While I was holing myself up in my apartment, determinedly pushing him out of my heart, had he been up on a ladder, painstakingly re-creating my likeness?
“Angie,” he said, alarmed.
“Oh no,” I said. The tears had already started dripping down my face before I could even register that they were there. “Ugh, can I go one day without crying over you?”
“You’ve been crying over me?” Ricky said sardonically. I scoffed, swiping my face with the heels of my hands.
“Of course,” I said. The rush of ecstasy, so soon after despair, made my legs buckle, and I struggled to stay on my feet. “Of course I’ve been crying over you. I was so stupid, Ricky, and I’m sorry, but this is . . . this . . .” I took a shuddering breath. “You made me so beautiful. I still can’t . . .”
Ricky closed the distance between us, wrapping his arms around me from behind. I melted into his embrace, and we looked up at his work together. He tucked his head into the crook of my neck and inhaled.
“You know you destroyed me, right?” he said. “I . . . didn’t even know I could feel like that. I didn’t want to die, exactly . . . but I wasn’t too excited about waking up every day either.”
I closed my eyes, remembering the hollow look he’d given me a month ago, and nodded, ashamed.
“I’m sorry—” I started, but he pressed a kiss to my neck, silencing me. Then, with one hand on my elbow, he guided me to sit next to him on the bench. I followed him numbly, staggering as I turned back to stare at the mural, still in a state of shock.
“I was so angry, at first,” he said, “but even with that, I still wanted to see you. Kept waiting for Fate to kick in again, the way it did in the beginning, you know, when we used to just run into each other. But of course, no dice.” He smiled to himself, reaching up to brush away my tears with a drag of his thumb. “I was flipping through my sketchbook one day. And I came across that picture I drew of you, the day that we met. And I don’t know. Next thing I knew, I was walking to Lydia’s, and asking her if I could have use of her wall.
“I told myself all sorts of things. That you were toxic, and this was for the best.* That painting you would help me get closure,” he continued. “You know, art therapy, and all that. But really, I think part of me was hoping that you’d walk by and see it. And then, maybe you’d realize that you were wrong about me. And that maybe after that . . . you would come back.”
There was only one tree in the garden, and its leaves had begun to yellow and fall. I nudged one with the toe of my shoe. Even if he had forgiven me, I could still hear the pain in his voice. I tried to imagine if our situations had been reversed, if I would ever be able to look at him again.
“I should have trusted you,” I said in a small voice. “I just . . . I was scared.” I looked up at him then, my vision blurring. “Ricky, I’ve . . . I’ve never felt the way I do about you about anyone. You have no idea how much power you have over me. It’s too much. It’s like I can’t be a reasonable human being about you.” I bit my lip. “All you have to do is change your mind about how you feel, and I won’t be able to function.”
“I won’t change my mind,” Ricky said, shaking his head. He reached for one of my hands, brought it to his lips. “You frustrate me. So much. But you also make me better. I like who I become when I’m with you.” He cocked his head toward my mural, and I followed his gaze toward it, feeling tears prick my eyes again. “I’ve always wanted to try something like this, but it always seemed like something out of my reach. But I watched you work your ass off every day, throw yourself out of your comfort zone, make yourself learn new things. Always for things you thought were right, even when people told you you shouldn’t. So screw not being good at painting. I gave it a shot, and I did pretty good, didn’t I?” He squeezed my hand. “You know, I posted this mural on my website, and one of the reps from Rogers reached out to me. Wants to commission me to paint over that creepy mural on the third floor.” I snickered, remembering walking through the hall in the early morning and feeling the mural’s round, chalky eyes trailing after me. “They’re offering a lot of money for it. Like, maybe ‘pay off the rest of my student loans’ money.”