Get a Life, Chloe Brown (The Brown Sisters #1)(82)

She looked horrified. “What else happened?”

“Sit down, and I’ll tell you.”

Slowly, reluctantly, she turned and sat again. Back where she belonged, in his arms. He kissed the top of her head and kept going. “So I broke up with Pippa, and kind of lost it. She told me … well, she told me I was nothing without her anyway and she’d been slumming it, and blah blah blah. She said that her dad had only promoted my work because I was with her. And that people only bought it because she’d made me someone. I think she said she created a, uh, cultural moment around me. She was always saying shit like that.”

Chloe’s hand came to rest over his, and the soft, warm pressure jolted him out of the cold, hard place his words had dragged him into. He blinked at the realization that he’d been drifting away as he spoke, back into years of imposter syndrome and paranoia and constant, toxic whispers chipping away at him. Grateful for the touch, he squeezed her hand. She squeezed back.

He cleared his throat and said, “I think the success coming all at once after so many years of trying so hard, it fucked with my head. I didn’t think I deserved anything, so I believed her. I yanked my work from just about everywhere, shut down the website and social media I’d finally gotten set up. I cut off the friends I’d made in the art world—before and after her. Anyone. Everyone. Like Joanie, like Julian. I burned bridges and disappeared in a blaze of glory. ’Course, it didn’t feel so glorious when I finally stepped back enough to realize what I’d done, but … It was too late. I almost got somewhere, and then I took myself back to square one. And when I thought about trying to fix it, I just … froze. I spent over a year frozen.” He shrugged. “Bad choices and fucked-up decisions. That’s me.”

She stiffened. “You were hurt, and you reacted. You were in an unhealthy situation in more ways than one, and you panicked and cleansed everything with fire. Don’t dismiss your emotions and your self-protection as just a fucked-up decision. Don’t reduce something so complex and real and important to nothing.”

That sudden, unexpected stream of words was delivered with Chloe’s typical crisp precision and calm certainty, as if she couldn’t possibly be wrong. Maybe that was why the words didn’t feel wrong. They weren’t what he’d believed for so long, and yet, somehow they sounded just right. Like he was only human and his mistakes could be excused. Like a few fuck-ups didn’t make him a fuck-up.

Like maybe he should forgive himself for everything. And maybe he should trust himself again. He’d really like to trust himself again.

“Have you ever had any therapy?” she asked.

He cleared his throat, tried to focus on the conversation instead of his tangled thoughts. “I just started, actually.”

“Good. Gigi says therapy is the most important medical service there is.”

“Really?” he asked dryly. “So it’s just, Fuck antibiotics, huh?”

“I didn’t say she was right. Or wrong, for that matter.” Chloe wriggled around until their eyes met, her hands rising to his shoulders. “I’m just emphasizing its importance. Now, here are some more things I’d like to emphasize.” She leaned closer until their noses touched. “First of all: that fucker did not make you. She spotted you before anyone else, which was smart, and she sank her fangs into all your loveliness like a leech, which was disgusting. Second: I know you regret leaving everything behind, but that doesn’t mean it was wrong, and that doesn’t mean it can’t be fixed. You can fix it. You will.”

The way she said it, the sentiment came out as strong and natural as the forest around them. She stared at him so hard he was surprised she hadn’t burned through her glasses. She seemed to think she could get the message into his skull through sheer force of will, and her will was pretty impressive.

He cleared his throat, tried to sound unaffected and missed the mark. “Anything else?”

Her expression became gentle, almost tender. “So much else. You always say such lovely things to me, Red. Do you say them to yourself?”

No. No, he didn’t. It had never occurred to him that he should, not until recently.

“I’ll say them,” she murmured. “I’ll tell you how incredibly clever you are, and how you’re funny, and kind, and sweet, and a damned good artist. I don’t understand how things work in creative circles, and I don’t know how much Pippa actually did.” She screwed up her face and spat out the name like it tasted nasty, which he enjoyed way more than he should have. “But no matter what she did or did not do for your career, no one can change the fact that you’re talented. You’re skilled. You’re good.”

He hadn’t been sure about that for a long, long time, but things had changed these last weeks. He’d known they were changing. And now, when she said that out loud and he believed her without question, he realized things really had changed. It was done. Something in him had been knocked loose, back then, but somehow it had clicked back into place without him looking.

He was good.

His grin started in his toes. It was a warmth that rushed through every inch of him, a warmth he wanted to share with her because it was pure and so was she. He couldn’t think of anything to say, of a way to explain what he felt right now—how free he was all of a sudden. So he showed her.