Not Today, But Someday(24)

He turns the light off, though, returning the room to its relatively dark state. The only lights are soft ones that line the walls, highlighting his artwork.

“You get so caught up in it,” I say to him softly, still not fully understanding how he works.

He shrugs his shoulders and walks toward the door. “Mom says I spend too much time in my head,” he calls back to me, walking out of the room. I stare after him, and eventually follow in the direction of the hallway. He comes back in with cushions before I reach the entryway, setting them against the wall by the door. “I don’t know how else to be. I grew up alone. I had a lot of time to myself... thinking about things, reading, discovering things around me. It’s just like any other challenge. I work though it until its solved. Sometimes it’s just about the painting. Sometimes it’s about something more... something that’s going on in my life...”

“So what’s been going on the past few weeks that you’ve needed to work out?” I ask him. It’s similar to the question I’d posed before that he avoided.

“Have a seat,” he says. “Are you cold?”

“Yeah,” I admit. “I could go get my coat.”

“No, there’s a blanket in the closet here.” He opens a door that blends so well with the wall I never even saw it there, pulling out two blankets and handing one to me. “It’s the only bad thing about this room. With the windows, it tends to get a little chilly.”

We finally sit down on the two cushions – obviously ones he pulled off of a couch from another room. I pull my knees into my chest, leaning against the wall and pulling the blanket tight around my body. Situated next to me, he throws one side of his blanket over me as well. “You can lean on me, if you need to.”

“Thanks,” I tell him, not needing to yet.

Nate clears his throat. “It was this girl,” he starts. “She was my first, uh... well, my first,” he settles on the word that leaves no doubt in my mind as to what he’s referring. I lean my head on my knees, facing him. I try not to look surprised. I guess, honestly, I’m not. Something about him is admittedly sensual. He clearly has a lot of passion.

“What happened?”

“Three weeks ago, out of nowhere, she dumped me. And the next day, she started dating a mutual friend. Sleeping with,” he corrects himself. “Just f*cking, really...” his voice trails off into a distant whisper.

“Is that what you did with her?” I ask him.

“I didn’t think that’s all it was,” he says, “but the more I think about it, the more I’ve come to realize that there was nothing else really there. I thought there was. I truly believed there was. I was wrapped up in her, completely. She had all my attention – all the time, really. When I was with her, when I wasn’t. She was all I thought about. Being with her was all I thought about. She was addictive.”

I look around the room at the different canvases that still sit atop easels. There are six of them, each with a drop cloth beneath it. I’m guessing these are his most recent works. I can only see the front of three of them from where I sit. “So which one of these is about that?”

“None of them,” he says. “I couldn’t paint when we were together.”

“Really?”

“She consumed me.”

“That doesn’t sound healthy.”

“Really?” he asks. “Because some people would argue that what I typically do isn’t healthy. Isn’t that what love is about? Being everything to someone?”

“What’s the point? So that person can just take advantage of you for years and years, making you think they love you, and then one day just suddenly change their mind? Why would anyone want to do that? I don’t ever want that.”

“What do you want?”

“I want whatever won’t hurt me. I want whatever leaves me whole, and keeps my faith in the belief that bad things don’t happen to good people.”

“But they do,” Nate says. “That’s inevitable.”

“Well, there’s fate that intervenes, and then there’s humanity. There are people who f*ck up. Who choose to do that. People who make a conscious decision to hurt another person.”

“Which one do you think happened to my dad?”

“Fate,” I answer quickly.

“No, he f*cked up,” he clarifies. “But I forgive him.”

“But he didn’t cheat on your mom,” I counter. “He didn’t decide to hurt you and your mom.”

“But he did,” Nate argues. “He didn’t think his decision through to the conclusion. Had he thought of the consequences of his actions, he could have saved himself.”

“Nate,” I say softly. “He probably wasn’t thinking clearly... with the alcohol...”

“There were plenty of times when he was sober. Times when he should have been considering those sort of things. By no means was he drunk all the time. He was never drunk when I was around. Never,” he says, and I can hear his voice begin to waver.

“I’m sorry, Nate.”

“But would I ever say I hated him, or that I wish I’d never had a father because I know what it’s like to lose one? Not in a million years.” He swallows hard while I try to think of something to say. Words fail me. “What my dad did was so much worse than what yours has done. You still have a father. He may not be the best one right now, but he’s still on this planet. And he has a lot of time to make it up to you.”