Author's Note: This story is a companion to 'Tall Like You Are.' You can read one without reading the other, but if you're going to read both, I suggest you read that one first.
The Jackson Pollock
I've been staring at this painting for a while. I know people are watching me. I know they think it's odd, but I can't take my eyes off of it. It's a Jackson Pollock and I love him. None of my friends understand, they say it's just a bunch of paint splattered on a canvas. But I know better. There's more. There's so much more. So I stare. And I stare. And I stare. And no one comes near the weird popstar in the corner staring at the Jackson Pollock painting because they think I look like I want to be alone. I do.
Then I hear you walk up next to me and you start staring too. You don't say anything, you just look. Like I do. And then you sit down on the floor. That gets my attention and once I've glanced down at you curiously I can't look away. You're not like the rest of the people in this museum. They all want to seem intellectual and classy, it's the only reason they're here. But you sit there in your black tank top and tan cargo pants, your jet black tresses pulled up into a high ponytail, your legs crossed, your arms folded and your dark, almond shaped eyes just fixed on the painting, not caring about what they think. You don't care about class and intellect. You care about art. Meaning. Emotion. All the same things I come here for. I can't stop looking at you.
"What are you doing?" I finally ask, unable to understand why you're sitting on the floor.
"Looking at it from a different angle," you reply.
"Oh." I'm silent again as we both continue looking. I wonder what you're seeing. I wonder if your 'different angle' really makes a difference. I decide to find out. You look at me as I sit down next to you, but quickly avert your gaze back to the painting when you realize I've seen the little smile on your face. We don't say anything. We just look. And I realize that this different angle does make a difference. I don't know how, but it does. Somehow it makes the paint all seem as though it's going in a different direction and that changes the meaning. You speak.
"Audra Li," you say. I'm confused at first, but then I realize you're telling me your name. I return the favor.
"Justin." I leave off my last name, curious to know whether you'll figure it out for yourself. You don't look at me, but I see that smile again as you continue to gaze up at the painting.
"Do you have a last name, Justin?" you ask. I can tell you genuinely don't know who I am. That makes you all the more interesting to me.
"Timberlake," I tell you and you pull your knees up to your chest as you turn your head slowly to look at me.
"What do you see, Justin Timberlake?" You just stare into my eyes waiting for my answer and for a moment I feel like I can't speak. I force myself to look away from you and back at the painting. What do I see?
"I see pain," I finally say. "Hurt...anguish...heartbreak." You nod.
"Morbid," you say with a laugh before dropping your voice to a whisper. "But I see it too."
"I have to tell you something," you say quickly and I'm worried. You look miserable. Completely miserable. A million thoughts flash through my mind about what you could be about to tell me. None of them are very good. I lead you over to my bed and we sit down.
"What's wrong?" I ask, my brow furrowed with concern. You're wringing your hands and looking around nervously like you're afraid to tell me whatever it is. I wish you wouldn't be afraid. You can tell me anything. I love you. I'm here for you. You should know that by now. Finally I see that look of determination I know so well as you begin to speak again.
"You know my show the night before last?" you ask and I nod. Of course I know. It killed me that I couldn't be with you; it was your first big art show. I wished with everything in me that I could be there to support you and hold your hand. I wanted so badly to help you through the nervousness I knew you'd be feeling. But I hadn't been able to.
"Yeah."
"Well, um...I met this guy there and..." You're fidgeting a lot more now. You look like you want to cry. I don't like where this going.
"What?" I ask softly.
"Uh...he was...I...we...god, I can't tell you this," you whimper, raking a hand through your hair. I feel the blood draining from my face as I realize what you're trying to tell me before you even say it. Don't say it. Please don't say it. If you don't say it, it can't be true.
"Blackbird singing in the dead of night. Take these broken wings and learn to fly. All your life, you were only waiting for this moment to arrive," I sing softly as my fingers dance across the piano keys. I realize you're humming along as you paint in the corner next to me and I smile. You can't carry a tune to save your life, but I don't care. You and me here together is all I need. All I've ever needed since I met you that day in the art museum a year and a half ago.
"Why'd you stop?" you ask. I look over at you. You have a dab of paint on your left cheek and your hair is pulled up carelessly as it always is when you paint. I didn't even realize I'd stopped playing until you said something.
"I was just thinking," I reply, standing up and walking over to you. I wrap my arms around your waist and kiss your temple as we both look at the painting you're working on. I can't tell what it is yet, but it's full of dark, muted colors. I think I see the beginnings of a crying woman.
"About what?" you ask curiously as I begin to sway and you move with me.
"How much I love you." I press my lips to your cheek and you smile.
"Don't go being all sweet right now," you order in the sort of tone that tells me you don't really mean it. "I'm trying to express depression through my art here."
"Express depression later," I suggest and turn you around so I can place a kiss on your smiling lips. Your hands slide into my hair, twisting it between your fingers and I sigh into the kiss. I love you more than you know.
"No," I say, shaking my head in disbelief. I stand up and run my hands through my hair. You've just said it. The words I thought I'd never hear from you. You've just told me you slept with another man. I feel like I can't breathe, I can't speak, my heart isn't beating. I'm dead. Or I'm dreaming. I must be. This isn't real. "No."
"Yes," you whisper. Why do you have to do that? Why can't you just leave me in peace? Why can't you just let me wake up from this dream?
"You're lying," I insist. That's it. That's definitely it. You're lying. You're testing me. You have to be. You would never do that to me. Never. Not you. Not my Audra. Not the love of my fucking life.
"I'm not."
STOP IT! Stop! Tell me you're lying. Please, baby, please tell me you're lying. The room feels like it's getting smaller. The walls are closing in on me. I want to hide. There's nowhere to go. I look at you. I stare at you. You aren't looking at me. You're looking at the ground, trying not to cry. I realize this is real. I realize you've betrayed me. I can't breathe.
I start thinking about you with another man. I think about his hands on your body, his lips on yours. I feel overwhelmed with jealousy and rage. I see red. I yell, you respond, I yell again. I don't even think about what I'm saying, it just comes out, fueled by the pain I'm feeling. You say you're sorry. I know you mean it. I can see it in your eyes. I can see it as you start to cry and I want to stop yelling at you, but I can't. How could you do this to me? I don't understand. I would never do something like that to you. Never.
"What do you mean you can't come?" Your voice is full of disappointment and I can picture your dark brown eyes clouding over with sadness as your voice drifts over the phone. I feel terrible. Absolutely terrible.
"I'm sorry, baby. I have a concert in Detroit that night. You know I'd come if I could," I tell you pleadingly. I really would be there if I could. I thought I had that night off from the tour and that I could fly back to be with you for your art show, but I can't. I've already been gone for a month and I know you're upset. You hate it when I'm gone. You always beg me not leave, but we both know I have to.
"Isn't there something you can do?" you ask desperately. "I really need you there, J. I don't want to do this alone. This is a big thing for me."
"I know," I insist. "I know it is and I really want to be there, Audra, but I can't." It isn't the first time I've missed something that's important to you and I know you're probably mad at me, but you don't say it. You don't say anything. You're completely silent.
"Audra?" I finally say when you don't speak. I sigh. "I'm sorry, baby."
"It's fine," you reply. I know it isn't. I can tell you're sad and lonely, even though I can't see you. "I have to go start setting up. I'll talk to you later, sweetie."
"Okay. Bye. I love you."
"I love you too."
"Damn it, Audra!" I yell. I want to cry, but I can't, so instead I lash out at the closest surface I can find. Before I know it, my fist comes into contact with a wall and it results in a hole. God, why is this happening to me? What did I ever do to deserve this? What the hell did I ever do to you to deserve the way you have just shattered my heart into millions of pieces? I loved you, didn't I? I did everything I could for you. Why would you do this to me?
I feel you touch me and my body reacts without my permission, shoving you to the floor. I shouldn't have done that. I don't want to hurt you. I hate you right now. I really hate you, but I don't want to hurt you. You're still my Audra. You're still my everything. Why would you ruin that? My chest is heaving up and down with silent sobs and you're talking, but I'm not listening. I'm just trying to clear my head. I'm trying to make some sense of this.
"Why?" I finally manage to ask. I almost don't want to know the answer. But I need to know. I need to know why you would hurt me like this. I need to know where exactly I'm so lacking that you would feel the need to go find some other guy to fill some void. "Just tell me why."
I keep looking for answers. You don't give them to me. I want to scream. I want to die. Please let me die. Right now. Please. Someone stop the pain.
I wake up in the middle of the night and reach over to pull you closer to me. You're not there. Frowning, I get out of bed and go to look for you. It's one of the few nights we have together before I go back out on the road, the day after your big art show. I can't imagine you've left already. I find you in my living room, sitting on the ground with your legs crossed and your arms folded just like the day I met you. You're staring up at that same painting. The Jackson Pollock from the art museum where we met. You found it and bought it for me for our one year anniversary and it's been hanging in my living room ever since - a constant reminder of the most important person in my life. You.
"What are you doing?" I ask quietly as I walk up behind you. You don't look at me, you just keep looking at the painting.
"Justin, what do you see?" you whisper. You haven't asked me that since that very first day. I look at the painting thoughtfully. I stare. And I stare. And I stare. It doesn't look any different than it did last time.
"I see what I always see, Audra," I reply. "I see pain. I see someone hurting. Someone who's heartbroken. I see tears." Silence falls over us as it almost always does when we're looking at art together. It isn't a bad kind of silence. It's the best silence in the world. I love it even more than I love the talking and the laughing that we do together. Our silence is where I'm most comfortable.
"I see that too," you finally tell me. "But there's something else as well."
"What?" I ask.
"Guilt." Your voice is labored and sad and I look at you curiously. You stand up and go back to bed, not saying another word. I stand there for a few more minutes, staring at the painting and trying to see what you see. I don't.
"He reminded me of you," you tell me. "I was lonely. I was upset and nervous. And he looked like you."
"So you're saying you only did it because you wanted me to be there and I wasn't?" I think about what you're saying. You were lonely. You missed me. You were upset. For a minute I think about forgiving you. I think I understand because I feel the same way when you aren't around. I feel sad and empty when you aren't there. Can I really blame you for trying to fill that void?
"Yes," you respond to my question.
But then I think about you with him again. I think about him touching you in the way only I am supposed to. And I realize there's no excuse for what you've done. If you really loved me, you wouldn't have done it. And even if I could forgive you, I'd still think about it all the time. It would eat away at me from inside like it is right now. Every time I kissed you, I would think about you kissing him. Every time I held you, I would think about his arms snaking around your waist. It would kill me. I can't live like that.
I watch you pull your legs up to your chest. You look miserable. Distraught. Depressed. Everything I feel, but I feel it so much more. I don't think you can even begin to fathom what I'm feeling right now. I don't think you can ever understand how much I'm hurting. You betrayed me.
"Bullshit," I say as I make the hardest decision of my life and walk out the door. I walk out the door of my own bedroom and I don't look back when I hear your sobs. I force myself to keep walking and not go back to comfort you. I can never go back. We can never go back to how we used to be. You destroyed it.
"Audra?" I call to you as I walk into your loft. "Baby, are you home?"
"In here!" Your voice drifts from your studio and I follow it, glancing around the rooms as I pass through them. I love this place, I really do. I love the art that adorns all the walls, and the unexpected color combinations of your furniture. It expresses your personality so well.
"Hey you." I smile as I walk into your studio and see you standing behind a canvas, the usual dabs of paint on arms and face and your hair pulled up as always. You grin back at me.
"Hey, baby," you greet me. "How was your trip?"
"Fine," I sigh. It was long and tedious as promotional trips always are, but I don't want to bother talking about it. I just want to be with you. "What are you working on?"
"A painting." You have a mischievous gleam in your eyes and I raise an eyebrow.
"Clearly. What's it of?"
"You," you say nonchalantly, immediately moving to cover it as you see me get up to come look. I try to pull the cover off so I can see the canvas, but you grab my arm.
"Nope." You shake your head, smiling at me. "You can't see it 'til it's finished." You use your brush to dab paint onto my nose. It's your way of showing affection, though it's always quite hard to wash off.
"Hey!" I exclaim, grabbing another of your brushes and doing the same to you. You stick your tongue out at me and paint a streak of blue down my arm. I gape at you. "You do realize this means war?" You just nod.
We attack each other with paintbrushes, wrestling and laughing the whole time and I have never been so happy to be back with you. It's juvenile, I know, but I don't care. It's you. You're everything. You're all that matters. I tackle you and pin you to the ground.
"Marry me," I say. It's more of an order than a request. You look surprised and I don't blame you. I wasn't even expecting to say it. It just came out.
"What?" you ask breathlessly. At first I'm uncertain of what I'm doing, but as I look into your almond shaped eyes, all uncertainty melts away. I'm supposed to spend the rest of my life with you.
"Marry me," I repeat. You smile and push me off of you. I wait for an answer as you push yourself up off the floor and return to your canvas. You look over at me again, your eyes dancing and that perfect smile still spread across your face.
"Okay," you say.
I stop in the living room on my way out. I can still hear you sobbing down the hall. I look at the painting on the wall. The Jackson Pollock. I look. And I look. And I look. I try to see something new in it, but I don't. I just see what I've always seen. Pain. Hurt. Anguish. Heartbreak. But for once I don't just see it. For once I feel it. I feel it in every fiber of my being, and I know what every splash of paint means. For once I look at the painting and I don't see some other man's emotions. I see mine. I see myself. And I hope the next time you look at it, you see that too. I hope you see me and what you did to me.
And as I walk out the door, I pick up the engagement ring you left sitting on the coffee table. I toss it in the trash and I wipe away the one tear that's fallen from my eye. I walk away from my house and from you, hoping that when I return, you'll be gone.
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