Vivid Lies (26 page)

"You loved her?"

"I love you both. I thought Brooklyn was finally letting me in and I am so shitty for trying to hold on to that. I think deep down, I knew she was gone and that made it harder to let go."

I look down at our entwined fingers. I was letting him in. As Brooklyn, I craved his sweet protectiveness and gentle love. I was giving my sister her happy ending. I'm being a hypocrite if I hate Miles for holding on to the illusion that I created.
 

"I'm so sorry, London. Please forgive me, because I can't take it if I lose you too."

I launch myself at him. Miles catches me and doesn't let go. I hold on to him and his pain because it mirrors my own. Brooklyn may have been the only person to ever understand me this deeply, but Miles has been just as close. I want to be there for him because he has been there for us for most of our lives.
 

We hold each other, quiet with our own thoughts. I try to sort out the feelings I had for him weeks ago. I can still remember the way my heart fluttered when he looked at me. I remember the way he made me feel loved and worthy. Even being plucked from the strip club, he made me feel cherished. Does it matter if he was calling me a different name? Was I a different person? Who am I now?

"Kane wants to see you," Miles finally says when the room starts to dim with the setting sun. We are lying in my bed with my head on his chest.
 

"He's still here?" I ask. I fully expected him to give up. I'm not sure who he thinks he's waiting for.
 

"Yeah," he sighs. "He's been staying with me."

"You? What, are you guys friends now?"

He laughs and it's nice to hear again.
 

"I don't know if I would say that. We both still want the same girl."

I bury my face in my hands. I spent most of my life single and now I find myself with two men at the same time.
 

"Oh god," I mumble into my hands. "I was sleeping with him and then kissing you. How could I do that?"

Miles hisses and I look up to see the pain in his eyes. Maybe that was more than he needed to know.

"You didn't know. I tried to keep him away from you in the beginning. I thought he would see the truth and, to be honest, it pissed me off he was pursuing you, even if he thought you were someone different."

"What about now?"

"Kane doesn't really do what he's told to do," he says. His voice is a mixture of humor and annoyance. "He cares about you, too."

"I don't know who I am anymore," I admit.
 

"You will figure it out, babe. You don't need to cut us out to do it."

Maybe that’s true, but it doesn't make it easy. I have two men who fought for the attention of two very different women who ended up to be one. Will either of them still love me in the end when I emerge as one? What if both of them were just in love with a lie?

"I don't want to hurt anymore," I whisper. "I don't want to hurt anyone."

Miles just squeezes me tighter. He doesn't offer words of comfort because I don't think there are any. He could have lied, made up something to make me feel better. I value his silence more because it's the truth.
 

"You were always the strong one, London. You survived so much and didn't break. That strength is still there, just buried. Find it."

I digest his words and soak up his comfort until the nurse makes him leave for the night. When a storm rolls in that night, I listen to the thunder. I watch the lightening make shadows on the ceiling. I don't cower or cry, because I've been through worse storms. The winds sing me to sleep.
 

London

I was staring out the window, watching raindrops race down the glass, each drop making its own path. I breathe on the glass and watch it fog up. With my finger I draw a heart with an arrow through it. Am I capable of love anymore when my heart is so broken?
 

I feel him before he makes a sound. I don't turn around right away. I let myself focus on the way my entire body awakened in his presence. My heartbeat accelerates and my breathing picks up, fogging up more of the window.
 

"Did you bring chocolate?" I ask, still watching the rain outside.
 

"Of course."
 

His voice paired with his approaching footsteps sends a shiver up my spine. I turn to watch him come into my room and dump out a brown bag out on the bed. There had to be twenty different candy bars.
 

I laugh. "Kiss ass."

"I'm not above kissing ass, London." My name falling from his lips brings so many memories.
 

The marina. Dancing at the wedding. The first night I was with him as Brooklyn. The rough way he took me, breaking his table. The last time he was with me as London. The way my name fell off his lips when he came. The way his eyes bore into mine like he could see the truth.
 

"Did you know? When Mrs. Walker hired you, did you know the truth?"

"No," he says. "I thought she was looking for you both to bring you back home."

"But I saw those reports in your apartment about the fire." That was the moment I started to break. I saw the photo of what remained of my home and read about the body found inside.
 

 
"I asked my brother to hire you as their photographer to get close to you. I went to the club to watch you. But then I held you in the bathtub during the storm and I cared for you. More than I should have. I worried about why you were running and what you were hiding from. I had this strong urge to protect you, so I told Mrs. Walker I couldn't find you."

Kane sighs and looks down at the floor.
 

"When I started to spend time with you, I didn't feel right digging around so I didn't. I told Mrs. Walker I couldn't find you because I knew you left for a reason. I've never done that before. Work was always work, and I strived to uncover any secrets I could. But I wanted to let you keep yours."

Kane walks to the window and traces my heart on the glass.
 

"Until that night. Miles was very upset when he found out about us and then you ran off. We couldn't find you and so I looked you up, hoping to find a clue about where you went and what you were running from. That's when I found the articles and you showed up."

We stand in silence for a few moments. His presence is calming after so many weeks of being without him.
 

"Come with me?" he asks, holding out his hand.
 

"I'm not supposed to leave my room without asking," I tell him. I still put my hand in his anyway.
 

"Shh," he whispers. His fingers cover my lips and I feel the heat of them on my mouth. I've been so cold.
 

Kane slowly drops his hand and pulls me behind him. At the door, he pokes his head out in the hallway, checking both ways before opening the door wider. The hall is empty as he pulls me down to the stairwell.
 

"Where are we going?"
 

"This way."
 

Kane leads me up the stairs to the top level. I think we might be going to the roof until we step out into another hall. It's empty like it's barely used. The age of the hospital is more obvious on this floor. The paint is chipping and some of the doors have been removed. The building used to be a TB clinic when it was built over a hundred years ago.
 

We pass a large room with a piano and drums set up. Another room has a makeshift stage. They must do the activities I never join in up here. Kane pulls into a room near the end of the hall. I'm distracted by the floor-to-ceiling windows on the back wall. Without the bars, I can see the dark clouds and the fog surrounding the trees below.
 

When I turn, Kane is laying out a white cloth on the floor.
 

"I'm not going to have sex with you up here," I tell him. Is that really the first thing on his mind right now?

Kane looks up at me, his lips pulling into the confident smirk that drew me in in the first place.
 

"That wasn't the plan, sweetheart," he assures me. "I wouldn't turn it down though."

I laugh despite myself.
 

"Come here," he says in a low voice that makes my heart pound a little harder.
 

My feet obey him. Even though my mind is questioning every little thing, I can't stop myself from coming to stand in the center of the sheet. I'm still affected by him.

"You want truth?"

"Please." I nod.
 

"Take off your clothes."

I give him a questioning look but Kane stares back expectantly. His dark eyes swirl with just as much turmoil and fear as my own do, except behind all that, I see the confidence and belief that I'm seeking. My hands move to remove my clothes until I'm standing in the middle of the room in nothing but a bra and underwear.
 

I fight to stop myself from covering up. I remind myself that he's already seen it all. Plenty of strangers have as well, as I danced and stripped for a living.
 

Kane leaves me there, chilly and waiting. In the back of the room I notice the art supplies. Canvases, paint brushes, and paint line the back shelves. He grabs paints and a brush, dropping them at my feet. He keeps the white and the brush.
 

"I used to paint," he tells me as he pours the white paint on the sheet and swirls the brush in it. "I wasn't very good, but I found it therapeutic when I was going through a rough time."

"What was that?" I ask. "Tell me I'm not the only one who gets hurt."

"I loved a girl once. She was my high school girlfriend and we went to college together. I thought she was the one. That we would live happily ever after."

"I'm guessing that's not the case?"

"She cheated on me. For a year she was with someone else and I never knew it."

"Your line of work makes sense now," I muse. "And your cynical view on love."

"That was before you."

My heart pounds. This moment feels dangerous and heavy. Like it will be monumental in some way but I don't know how yet.
 

Kane puts the brush on my neck and drags it down my chest. I gasp in surprise.
 

"You want to know what I see in you, London? What drew me to you? What drew me to both of you?"

I nod silently because my throat is too tight to speak. He paints a white line down the middle of my body, dividing me in two.

"You saw two people. Opposites but bonded together." He mixes more colors.
 

"London. Blue for the calm and sensible." He paints blue down my left arm. "Yellow for your brightness and the way you always saw the beauty in everything."

He paints the colors on the left side of my body.
 

"Orange for the love of the sunrise. Pink for your sweetness and soft side."

The paint is thick and cold as he paints what he sees in London.
 

"Then there is red for your sister. Impulsive. Passionate. Reckless." He drags the red paint over my right arm. Goosebumps follow the bristles.
 

"Deep blue with confidence. Silver with her dark side."
 

I look down at myself. I'm split down the center. Each side of me color coded just as I do with everyone I meet. Tears form in my eyes at the painful visual demonstration. I see it in the most profound way. In colors.
 

"What's your favorite color?" I whisper.
 

We make eye contact and I stop breathing. I'm terrified of the answer. Does Kane have any idea what is left after you take away Brooklyn's colors? Does he still find it beautiful?
 

Did I lose some of my own colors in the fire?

"I'll show you."

Kane drops the brush and places a hand on each shoulder. His fingers glide down my arms, through the paint. Over my hips and over my ribs. They swirl the colors into a rainbow.
 

He blends the colors over my stomach and my chest. The red from the right now dances across my skin to the left. The blue reaches my right, making a purple in the center.
 

All the colors are mixed. Each side is a unique blend of all the colors. No side owns just one color.
 

"I like them all. You may think you're just one half left, but that's not true. I see a rainbow."

The tears fall down my cheeks and Kane wipes them away, smearing paint on my face from his fingers.
 

"I see sexy. Brilliant. Brave. Honest and loving. That was London who took me to the spot in the road while we waited for a car. The same girl who clawed at my back while I took her against the hotel window."

I shake my head, the tears blurring the colors on my body. They're so bright and vivid that I can't shut them out.