There Is No Devil (Sinners Duet, #2)(43)

“But you didn’t do it,” Mara says, her jaw set, eyes locked firmly on mine. “You were a child—you could have been anything. She gave up on you.”

Mara is angry, though not at me.

She’s angry at another mother that failed in her eyes. A mother that looked at her own child and only saw ugliness.

“She was right to give up on me,” I tell Mara. “I didn’t kill the rabbit, but I killed many more.”

“I don’t give a fuck what you’ve done!” Mara cries. “I only care what you do now that someone loves you!”

She flies at me, and I think she’s going to hit me. Instead, she grabs my face between her hands and kisses me, as ferociously, as passionately as ever she’s done.

“I love you!” she cries. “I fucking love you. Your life starts here, today, now that I’ve told you.”

I look at Mara’s furious face.

I touch the tears running down on both sides. I kiss her again, tasting the salt on her lips.

In that moment, I finally realize what Mara knew all along:

She won’t die like that rabbit. I WILL keep her safe.





11





Mara





I understand now why Cole has always stayed in this house.

He destroyed his father’s office but not the garden. He kept the garden living and growing for his mother, long after she was gone.

I wonder if that one act kept a spark of humanity burning inside him, in all the years that followed.

Cole seems strangely light since he told me this last piece of his history. He’s unburdened—finally understanding that I do see who he is, without judgment.

I can’t judge anyone. I’ve been a fucking mess for most of my life. A literal crazy person at times.

Everyone is a mix of good and bad. Can the good cancel out the bad? I don’t know. I’m not sure I even care. If there’s no objective measure, then all that matters is how I feel. Cole is a shade of gray I can accept.

He suits me like no one ever has.

He understands me.

How can I reject the only person I’ve ever felt connected to?

We were drawn together from the first moment we saw each other, when neither of us wanted it. Like recognized like. We bonded in place, like mercury atoms.

If Cole is wrong, then so am I.

When he pushes me to change, the change feels good.

It’s like his corrections to my paintings—once he points out the improvement, I can see its merit just as clearly.

He’s been encouraging me to promote myself more openly on social media. I was always hesitant to post anything too personal, too specific. Still plagued by that old fear of exposing myself as weird, broken, disgusting.

“You think the painting is the product, but it isn’t,” Cole tells me. “You’re the product: Mara Eldritch, the artist. If you’re interesting, then the work is interesting. They have to be curious about you. They have to want to hear what you have to say.”

“I’m the product?” I tease him. “You know who you sound like …”

“There’s a difference between creating a fake version of yourself for market,” Cole says, sternly, “and simply understanding how to show people who you really are.”

Cole encourages me to dig out my old Pentacon and take photographs of my paintings in progress, before they’re perfected, before they’ve even fully taken shape. I photograph myself at work, in moments of frustration, even breaking down in front of the canvas, laying on the floor.

I photograph myself in front of the gloomy plate-glass windows, thick with fog, tracing my finger through the steam.

I photograph myself eating lunch, food scattered amongst the paints, hands filthy on my sandwich.

When I need a break from painting, I pose naked and streaked in paint. Wearing a sunburst crown of paintbrushes, swaddled in a canvas drop-sheet like the Madonna.

The pictures are moody and grainy. Sometimes melancholy, sometimes charged with ethereal beauty.

I don’t worry about my privacy or if I might look unhinged. I post the pictures and I tell the truth about my mental state, for better or for worse, as I update my progress on the new series.

At first I’m mostly doing this for myself, a digital diary.

I have few followers, and most of the interaction comes from friends and old roommates.

Slowly, however, I start to pick up more friends. At first, it’s people I’ve begun to follow myself: a girl who sews hand-drawn patches onto vintage shirts. A guy with phenomenal spray-painting techniques. A woman documenting her heartbreaking divorce with a series of self-portraits.

I comment on their posts, they comment on mine. My feed becomes more inspiring than before. I stop stalking old acquaintances from high school and begin the process of what Cole calls “real networking”—making friends intentionally amongst people I respect and admire, people who inspire me with their creativity.

I wouldn’t have had the confidence to message any of these people before; they’re legitimate working artists. But so am I now. I’m not a cosplayer anymore. I’m passionate about my current series, I believe in it. I’m not embarrassed to talk about it. Quite the opposite—I want to discuss childhood trauma and self-destructive impulses. My mind is full of ideas.