Erin McCarthy: Believe

“Who are you?” she asked angrily, shooting me a glare as the noisy scraping sound of the chair made her aware of my presence.

“I’m just going in the other room,” I said carefully, not wanting to go a round with her. I had no doubt I would lose, especially in my current emotional state. Easton obviously felt the same way. He bolted into the living room without a word.

“Good,” Angel said, playing with the ring in her nose.

“She doesn’t have to leave,” Phoenix said, gesturing for me to stay. “This is only going to take a minute. So what did you want to tell me, Angel?” He crossed his arms and leaned on the kitchen counter.

I stood up anyway, despite his words.

“I’m pregnant.”

I couldn’t prevent a gasp from leaving my mouth. Yeah, I should have left the room. But Phoenix didn’t react at all. His face never revealed any surprise, and the only movement he made was to flick his eyes over her flat stomach.

“You don’t look six months pregnant to me.”

“I’m not. I’m only two.”

He’d been in prison more than five months. Jessica had said that. I knew that. What I didn’t know was why I cared one way or the other about it being his baby, but I felt horrified for him that he’d been cheated on, and a little bit of relief that he wasn’t the father.

“Then I don’t need to know that.” Phoenix went and opened the door. “Bye, Angel.”

“Don’t you even want to know what happened?” She looked disappointed. “Who the father is?”

“No. All I wanted was to know for sure that we’re broken up, and we clearly are, so good luck. Lose my number.”

“You’re an asshole,” she said.

I wasn’t sure how he qualified as the jerk in this situation, but I kept my eyes on the canvas as she stomped out the back door, and he slammed it loudly behind her.

“Well, now I guess we’re even,” he said.

I glanced up, curious to see if he was going to rage or look upset. But he didn’t. He looked . . . neutral. “Even how?” I asked.

“Now we both know each other’s personal business.”

I finished my brushstroke. “True. And I’m going to stay out of it, like you did with me.” I just wanted to paint, to lose myself in the wet sound of sliding paint.

He came over and looked down at my canvas. “You don’t need Easton here to paint? You’re doing it from memory?”

“Yes.”

“Cool.”

He watched me for a minute, and I didn’t actually mind. I didn’t need quiet or solitude to paint pop art, and it felt good to lose myself in the narrow focus of creating lines on canvas. But while I wanted to respect his privacy, I also knew that it had to have hurt him that his girlfriend hasn’t visited him in prison, that she had cheated on him. I also felt guilty that I was a cheater, that if it ever came out, I would be the one causing pain. I hated that.

“I’m sorry,” I told him, glancing up, hoping he would understand.

“For what?”

I didn’t want to be specific. I didn’t think he would appreciate that. “For what I heard. For what you heard.”

“That you heard it? Or because it happened?”

“Both. But mostly that it happened. It hurts, I know. And I’m sorry.”

Phoenix shrugged. “I’ll live. I’ve survived worse.”

I wanted to say that she wasn’t good enough for him anyway, that she was a liar and a cheat and a shitty girlfriend who didn’t deserve him, but did I really know that? And if I was no better than her, did I have any right to say anything?

“Sometimes we do stupid things.” Very stupid things. Sometimes we needed forgiveness.

“Yeah. Some of us more than others.” Phoenix pulled out a chair and sat down across from me. “I’ve never painted before. I sketch. It must be hard to get the subtlety of the lines and the shading in paint.”

“You sketch?” I asked, amazed, then not sure why.

He nodded. “And I do tattoos. I guess the difference is with oil paint you layer on top, right? With a tattoo you do a little, but mostly it’s about precision and shading.”

“Do you have pictures of your work?” I asked, curious to see it. The idea of tattooing someone with a needle scared me. There was no retracting a mistake.

Sort of like life.

“Nah. But I did the original design for my cousins’ arm tat, the one they all have, and I did Tyler’s dragon on his leg.”

“Cool. That dragon is beautiful.”

“Thanks.” He drummed his fingers on the table. “We’re a fucked-up family, you know. We haven’t always gotten along, depending on whose mom was hooking the other on what drugs.”

“Why aren’t you living with your mom?” I finished the outline of Easton and started shading in his strong features. Even in the brilliance of yellow and magenta, I wanted to capture the deep sensitivity of his eyes.

“I don’t know where she is. She didn’t leave a forwarding address.”

So not only had his girlfriend cheated on him when he was in jail, his mom disappeared and neglected to tell him? I wasn’t sure I could be so casual about it. In fact, I knew I couldn’t. My parents were all about family. They loved me and my older brothers in a way that was almost smothering, and I was grateful for it. “Oh my God, I’m sorry.”

He shrugged. “She’ll turn up eventually. But Riley and Tyler are being cool and letting me stay here.”

I wasn’t sure what to say. “Family seems important to them.”

Those fingers increased their rhythm, but the rest of him stayed completely still. The only movement seemed to come from those anxious fingers and the intensity of his stare as his eyes raked both over me and the canvas. I was never still. My mom had always commented on that. I fidgeted and shifted and couldn’t stay in a chair longer than ten minutes without creating a reason to get up for a task before sitting down again. I struggled to sit through movies and I hopped up and down off bar stools, going out on the dance floor and outside to smoke cigarettes, which I didn’t even like. Even now I was bouncing my knee up and down rapidly and chewing hard on a piece of gum. His immobility fascinated me.

Which may explain why I said, “Do you want to paint? I have another canvas and brush.”

Again, there was no reaction. I wondered what it would take to draw emotion out of him. “Nah, I don’t want to waste your supplies.”

“It’s a cheap canvas. It was only five bucks.”

But he just shook his head. Then a second later he asked me, “Do you have a boyfriend?”

“What?” I almost dropped my paintbrush. “No. Why?”

His phone slid across the table toward me. “Then give me your number.”

“Why?” I said again, which was a totally moronic thing to say. But I didn’t get any vibe he even liked me, let alone was interested in me.

For the first time, I saw the glimmer of a smile on his face. The corner of his mouth lifted slightly before he controlled it again. “Why do you think?”

For a split second, I felt like myself, and I said the first thing that popped into my head. “So you can send me honey badger videos?” I joked, because it seemed like a safer response. He was just out of prison, and he had just broken up with his girlfriend ten minutes earlier. So not a good idea to get involved with him. I wasn’t up for dating anyone, let alone him.

“Yes. And kitten memes.”

“Well, in that case.” I took his phone because I wasn’t exactly sure how to say no. It seemed super rude, and I doubted he was actually going to ask me out. He would probably send me a typical guy text of “hi” or “what’s up?” and I could say “hi” back or “nothing” and we’d be done with it. Guys put no effort at all into communication or pursuing a girl. If you didn’t go into a huge, long text of explanation of what you were doing and dug deep into their text to get an adequate response back, the conversation just died. A big old waste of time, that’s what most texting with guys was.