I'm Not Charlotte Lucas(81)

In a life where I seemed to run around like a chicken with no head, where my attic apartment was perpetually messy, errands never ceased, and I was constantly doing something for someone else, I was so focused on everything else that I didn’t give myself time to breathe. It was exhausting, and I was ready to take a break.

Beth was right. I’d saved a lot of money since moving home last year, and as undignified as it felt to admit that I was living with my parents, it really wasn’t that big of a deal. I only focused so heavily on it because it made me feel insecure, like I wasn’t a real adult. But when I asked myself why it disqualified me from adulthood, I had no good reason.

Mr. Kirkham’s words, the very man who’d buoyed me up in high school and made me feel like I had talent, stuck with me most of all. At the end of the day, do other people’s opinions really matter if you love what you paint? Or the joy you get from painting it?

I was so busy worrying about what others thought of me that I couldn’t take the time to consider my own feelings.

“What do you say, Ms. Lucas?”

I looked up, holding Barry’s gaze and feeling more secure about this decision than any I’d made in quite some time.

“Thank you for the opportunity, but at this time, I’ll have to decline.”

***

Stopping by Safeway on the way home for my mom’s spinach dip wasn’t even a hardship. Ever since Barry had left my office with a formal resignation in hand, I’d felt lighter, like my body recognized that the confines of my bank job had been alleviated. I did promise to remain for two weeks and help find replacements in whatever way I could—they’d be needing both an assistant manager and a branch manager now. I submitted Fernando’s name for assistant, and I had a feeling he was going to be pretty happy with the promotion.

It wasn’t until I’d delivered the groceries to the kitchen and gone up to my apartment that it occurred to me that I would have to submit work to galleries again. I couldn’t rationalize quitting my job to paint if I didn’t at least try to make a go of it as a professional. But that was okay. As much as I hated to admit it, something about hearing the women talk about my work last night in the theater, especially when they had no idea they were passing the artist as they spoke, opened me up to considering that even if Mrs. Grisham hated my work in college, she wasn’t the only person out there. There was an audience for every piece of art, and I needed to find mine.

Letting myself into my studio, I started at one end of the room and shifted through my old paintings, pausing on the one that had won first place in the school art show my junior year of high school, and then the rainy ocean scene Liam had particularly liked.

Liam.

I dropped my head in my hands and rubbed the tired away from my eyes, picturing his stunned, hurt expression when I’d yelled at him in the theater lobby. I’d been so angry, and he had crossed a line, but I owed him an apology. When I considered the depth of betrayal that had sliced through me, it was clear that it hurt so much because I cared for him so deeply.

I loved Liam Connell, and I had been a fool for letting him go. He’d never once given me cause for doubting him, but I’d been so terrified that I would wake up one day and it would all end, so I’d sabotaged our relationship, ending it before things got too real.

Clearly, I was an idiot. As soon as I finished sorting these paintings, I’d call him.

Arranging the paintings in piles based on themes, I took the time to analyze my work through an objective eye. I felt like I’d been reunited with old friends.

Glancing at Vera’s house through the window as I passed to the other side of the room, I froze, my gaze connecting with the man standing at the window across from me. Was that Vera’s guest room?

Liam’s face was void of any expression, his jaw line solid, arms resting by his sides. How long had he been there? Had he seen me come into the studio and watched me look at my work? My cheeks warmed.

Reaching over the stacks of canvases leaning against the wall—I really needed to come up with a better system for storing these—I unlatched the window and lifted it, pleased when he mirrored my actions.

“I’m sorry,” I said over the expanse of air between our houses.

“No, I’m sorry,” he said. His arms strained against his long-sleeved shirt as he leaned forward on the sill. “I shouldn’t have done that without asking you first.”

I shook my head. “I never would have let you. But if you hadn’t done it, I never would have overheard people talk about my art like that.”

He opened his mouth to speak but then shut it and turned around, like he was talking to someone I couldn’t see. When he turned back, he had his phone out, and he was doing something on it. A second later, my phone buzzed, and I pulled it from my pocket and answered Liam’s call.

I put it up to my ear, my heart racing.

“I didn’t want to yell anymore.”

“That’s fine by me,” I said softly. It was weird watching his lips move and hearing the sound a half-second later.

“Can you forgive me?” he asked.

“Yes. Can you forgive me?”

“That depends,” he said. “What am I forgiving you for?”

I slid my free hand into my back pocket. “Breaking up with you so suddenly and for a stupid reason. Yelling at you in the lobby. Calling you an ignorant fool.”