Page 64 of The Breakup Artists

“Hey,” I say, stumbling over the word and blushing at my thoughts.

She stands with a smile, pulling a flowy black dress over her head, and smirks. “Not this again.”

“What?” I say innocently, and I know she probably thinks I’m embarrassed because she’s beautiful, which I am. But I can also recognize how stupid that is. I live in a beach town. I’ve seen attractive girls in far less bathing suit my entire life.

“That look,” she says.

I clear my throat. “Your house is intimidating.”

She lets out an unexpected laugh. “Isn’t your mom on a yacht trip right now? I’m sure yours isn’t too shabby, either.”

I shrug. “Not like yours.”

She watches me for a second. “You know what, Holden? You’re definitely your own cat.”

“My own cat?”

“Yeah, like you march to the beat of your own drum,” she explains, handing me a glass bottle of water. “Cats just make more sense to me because they’re so nuanced.”

I smile. “I have a twenty-year-old cat, and I could not agree more.”

“Totally pegged you as a cat guy.”

“It’s my best feature.”

She smiles, too, and once again we hold eye contact.

“So painting,” she says, clearing her throat and gesturing to the far corner of the deck, where an easel is already set up in the shade of the trees. “Should we do this thing?”

“Yeah,” I say, trying to cover the hesitancy in my voice.

“Don’t worry,” she replies like she can hear it despite my efforts. “I’m way more nervous than you are.”

“Nothing to be nervous about,” I say to both of us as we cross the pale wood.

She sits down in a chair in front of the easel. “That’s because you haven’t seen me in action yet. I suck. And I’m about to show you how much and forever be embarrassed.”

I nod, and in a way her worry eases my own. You can’t talk someone down when you’re anxious yourself. I set my feelings aside for a moment and focus on her. “When I was a kid, my mom always said that there was no such thing as a bad painter, only unexpressed artists.”

She grins. “And you believe that?”

“Actually... yeah, I do,” I say, imagining Tiny’s shock that I agreed with something so optimistic. “I don’t think there’s any right or wrong to art. It’s one of the things I like best about it.” It doesn’t occur to me until I’ve already said the sentence that I’ve put it in present tense. I decide not to think about it.

Instead, I busy myself with looking over the wicker table piled with the supplies she gathered. I grab a simple set of watercolors and pour some water into an empty plastic cup. It’s disorienting handling paints again, almost like touching a piece of my own body that I haven’t seen in years.

“So first”—I place the watercolors on a small table near Ella—“you need to choose what you’re going to paint. It should be something you relate to, but not something overly complex or exacting.”

She scratches her elbow. “Okay...” She glances around her deck and backyard. “Maybe the pool? I’ve always loved being in the water.”

“Perfect,” I agree.

“That’s it? I should just paint the water?”

“You should just paint it.”

She gives me a look that suggests I’m breaking my end of the bargain by not walking her through it, but she also doesn’t ask for help. She chooses a brush, dips it in water, and then in blue paint. Ella turns to the canvas, staring at it like it might bite her. She lifts her brush but after a long second puts it back down.

As the time stretches, she exhales. “You think my house is intimidating. I’d argue this canvas is much worse.”