If- Nina G. Jones Page 0,63

I couldn’t see who was speaking, but I remember what was said. I remember what you said. It means a lot that you would apologize. I don’t want pity though. I’m good. And I just want us to move on and forget about it.”

She smiled and nodded, letting out a great sigh of relief. “Sure.”

“But if you could give me the name and address of the really bitchy one, I would like to send her a flaming bag of shit.”

“Deal,” Marley said and we headed out of the bathroom to our first day of rehearsal.

BIRD

It happened before my eyes, but I didn’t see it until it was too late.

My life had changed overnight. One day, I was teaching at the dance school and waiting tables and the next, I was rehearsing all day for a major production.

Days blended. Sometimes I was so physically exhausted, I would fall asleep without eating as soon as I got home. Ash started to work on his pieces again and he started busing tables. We seemed to hit a positive stride. But I was so involved in the rigors of the show that I didn’t see the small changes. How Ash would sneak off to the roof at night while I sunk into a deep sleep or how he had stopped shaving or eating again.

I was barely home, and Ash was different now . . . I thought for the better. He had a life with me. If he was tired, he would sleep. If he was hungry, he would eat. He knew he wasn’t a burden. If something was wrong, he didn’t have to disappear like he did that last time. He knew he could rely on me.

Ash had finally opened up to me about why he left his old life behind, and I was helping him put the pieces together.

The newly energized Ash was having a fit of inspiration. I saw his frenzied painting as passion. I heard his rambling sentences as excitement. I saw his ability to put long hours in the restaurant and then on the roof painting as ambition. And the truth was, I was too tired to see them as anything else.

When I asked Ash how he was doing, he told me he felt amazing. He would give me a foot massage after a long day and talk and I would lay my head back and close my eyes and be grateful that he had the energy for the both of us.

It was a Thursday night when I came home to find my front door wide open with no sign of him. Papers were strewn about the floor, all sketches I had never seen before.

“Ash?” I called.

But he wasn’t there. I got a feeling in my gut that something was wrong. I always had a feeling there was something Asher hadn’t told me, something more to his story. Our relationship had evolved so naturally, and we shared about ourselves without ever pushing the other. So I didn’t push. And I had my stuff going on and he promised he was fine and that was all the assurance I needed.

I ran upstairs to the roof and pushed the door open.

Ash was pacing in his underwear, covered in paint. I stood in silence, trying to process the scene in front of me. He didn’t even notice I was there.

There was paint everywhere. Not in a messy, accidental way. He was in the process of painting the roof. I reached for the flashlight that rested on the ground and shined the light along the work.

It was a spectacular rendition of the skyline, but through Ash’s eyes. Fuchsia, turquoise, orchid, teal, navy, silver and countless other colors swirled in his rendition of the sky. Like a frieze, there was a story embedded in the work: A man seated on the ground, a girl with hair like fire who carries him to the sky. Then they are in the stars, their bodies intertwined.

It was the story of us, but only the magic of it, stripped away from the realities of the confines of the physical body.

The painting was seamless, crafted all along the floor and up the along the vertical surfaces that surrounded it.

“Ash?”

He turned sharply.

“Oh thank god, thank god, thank god,” he said frantically, charging over to me. “I ran out of paper. And I had so much I needed to get out. It’s all coming so fast and I’m thinking we could just say fuck galleries or shows and just get everyone