Page 29 of Wild Thing
In typical Brax form, he wasn't going to let that go.
"Drink up then," he demanded as he topped up my red wine. “Because I want to know why one of the most talented artists I’ve ever met hasn't been drawing. You used to draw all the time. You loved it."
"Yeah, I did."
"So what changed?"
"Everything changed."
The mood shifted as those two words landed. He knew I was referring to our break up. The truth was that everything did change for me when we split. When we were together, I didn't realize how much our relationship inspired me and made me feel alive. I certainly realized it once we had broken up, though.
It was like a light went out inside of me.
I quickly tried to cover up the truth.
“And, you know, life stuff.”
“Life, huh?”
"I guess."
"Youguess?" Brax asked. The raised inflection on the word "guess" indicated that he wasn't buying my bullshit.
I didn’t know how to get into the nitty gritty of why I’d lost my passion for art without bringing up how unhappy I was. If I brought up how lost I had been feeling, I’d have to bring up my relationship with Zack.
And I wasn’t ready to do that.
For once in my life, timing appeared to be on my side, as the waiter delivered a carbonara and pesto gnocchi to our table.
“Parmesan?”
We both nodded and watched in silence as the waiter shaved fresh parmesan cheese onto both our meals.
***
Dinner was delicious and before long, we’d polished off the bottle of Pinot, and ordered another glass each.
It was still pouring rain outside.
“So, we’ve danced around the elephant in the room,” Brax said as he leaned forward, bracing his forearms on the table. We’d reached the point where we’d had enough to drink that we could finally ask the questions that we’d been too scared to verbalize.
“Have we?”
I knew what was coming, but made him say it anyway.
“Are you seeing anyone?”
Avoiding his eyes, I spun my wine glass around and contemplated lying. For a split second, I fantasized about being single and imagined this was the rekindling of a love lost. But this wasn't some romantic comedy. This was real life; messy and complicated.
I had to be honest. I had to tell Brax about Zack.
The silence was a dead giveaway anyway.
Sighing, I nodded my head in confirmation. I raised my eyes to his and wondered if he’d run far away from me and my uninspired, unhappy and un-single life.
Brax leaned back in his chair, rubbed both hands over his face, and ran them back through his luscious hair. He didn’t say anything for what felt like minutes, before he looked at me with a lazy grin and said, “Damn.”
I gave him a soft smile as my heart raced.
