rule number one.” Over the past couple of years, I’d started to wonder whose back Lara truly had.
Her expression hardened. “I didn’t share anything that wasn’t public knowledge.”
“I don’t care. Look, you need to back off. I need a break. I’m not planning on showing anytime soon. Maybe ever. Focus on other clients. I’ll let you know if anything changes.”
Anger lit her features. “Brody—”
I hit end before she could say anything else. A moment later, my computer rang again. “What?” I barked.
Carson’s face filled the screen. “Geez, who pissed in your Cheerios?”
I blew out a long breath. “Who do you think?”
He made a clucking sound as he pulled a cigarette out of his pack. “I told you that you should’ve fired her years ago. You know she has to be the one who outed you to the media.”
I picked up a pencil from my desk and spun it between my fingers. I’d always thought Carson was being dramatic with his accusations, but I was beginning to wonder if they had merit. For years, I’d prided myself on keeping my anonymity. So many street artists did. When there was a chance you could get arrested for your art, it was better if no one knew your face or name. But somehow, a handful of years back, I’d been exposed. It could’ve been any number of people, but Lara was certainly one of the suspects.
I leaned back in my chair. “She’s one of my oldest friends. And, honestly, what would she have to gain?”
“She wanted you to go public. Magazine spreads. Interviews. Gallery openings.”
I snorted. “Well, that didn’t work out too well for her because I never do interviews, and I rarely go to openings. Even my own.”
Carson blew out a stream of smoke. “Doesn’t mean she ever stops trying.”
I was quiet for a moment. “I told her I might not show again.”
“I knew your head was in a bad place, but your work is your life.”
It had been since that first fateful trip to New York when I was barely fourteen. But I’d lost myself somewhere along the way. “I have to find a way to make it mine again. It’s not just what happened this past year. It was long before that. The minute my face was out there, things changed. I lost some of the…rawness. The bravery. I played it safe.”
Carson studied me through the screen as if he were trying to find the right words. Ones that would help me out of this bizarre identity crisis. “Brody. I think you’re being too hard on yourself. Your pieces have always been some of the most authentic I’ve ever seen. And the most terrifying. I don’t know if it’s possible for you to pull punches. But if you have recently, it’s understandable. You’ll get back there.”
I let my focus drift to the canvases and various mediums scattered across the room. Darkness had always pulled at me. All the things that people hid beneath the surface. What they would look like if we could see those parts of them that they disguised because they were too ugly or scary to face.
But someone had taken that art and perverted it. Turned it into something it was never supposed to be. It had messed with my head. And not just that I was afraid to put it out in the world anymore. A part of me worried what it said about me that my creative soul had called to a murderer.
“Brody.”
Carson drew my attention back to the screen. I blinked a few times, clearing my vision. “Sorry. Lost in the weeds for a minute.”
Carson rested his cigarette on an ashtray he’d welded from spare parts. “Do you want me to come out there? Maybe we can work on a project together.”
“Car, you’re a sculptor. I work with spray paint.”
“You could paint a sculpture that I make. We’ll come up with the vision together.”
“And how the hell are you going to get welding equipment and a bunch of metal to my place?” He was trying. And it meant something to me—his support and dedication to making sure I got my head in the game.
“I could figure out a way.”
I leaned back in my chair. “I’m sure you could. And I appreciate it, man. I really do. But I need to find my footing on my own. I’ll get there eventually. I just need to do it without Lara or anyone else in the art world breathing down my neck.”