Sometimes it still feels strange. Like everything is finally right again, and yet it's not. Or it shouldn't be.

I finally got the blue right. After so many attempts and wasted canvases, I could get the blue right. Even though I was the one who painted the hues and the little details, and I can see the process of strokes and layers in my head, looking at the finished product, I am impressed with myself. It feels like I could reach my hand out and the butterfly will drift away. It remains still under my fingers as I touch the paint. Like a photograph.

That was the reason, of course. Painting is the ancestor of photography, but I turned time around and made painting the evolution of photography.

Max the photographer became Max the painter. Yes, it was weird to think about it - or it would have been, had I thought much about the decision. It wasn't actually a decision either.

When I was denied to capture the reality that should have been, I started to create it. Simple.

I took what should have stayed from all those alternatives realities, all those choices that ended up meaningless in the end. I had to bring back whatever I could from those realities into this one, the one Chloe died before we could experience all our adventures.

Sometimes, I questioned if everything had been some fucked up fevered dream, but I know fully well it wasn't. Chloe's last words would echo then, making me feel guilty for ever questioning it at all, for unwillingly scatter her aside as a dream I could forget. I know it wasn't a dream. Everything felt - feels so real - because it was.

That was when I started to paint.

I absolutely sucked at first. I could hear Chloe's laughter in my head, the only possible reaction at my attempts. But I insisted, and at last, I got a good result. The butterfly painting was done.

That was the first. It had to be the first, because it was the first photo I took that changed everything.

All the photos no one but me remembered, all the moments no one but me lived, I learned to paint them. It wasn't fair that no one else remembered them, that no one remembered the Chloe that lived in those days.

.

The exhibition was absolutely wonderful. Joyce and David were obviously honored guests. Joyce had been so touched when I asked her blessing for the project, and her tears were contageous. David kept holding her close, his own eyes gleaming. Frank was there as well, and praised how unbelievably touching everything ended up looking. 'Even that stoneheart punk would be moved', I think his words were.

"She would have loved it," Joyce said at a certain point. "Look at you two here! My goodness, true Chloe right there. My girl... This phot- I'm sorry, I can see these are paintings and yet they're so... I'm lost for words, hun, truly. You've just captured her perfectly."

"Thank you, Joyce."

.

I ended up getting contacted by a freelance reporter who made a whole article on the showcase. How wonderful is that, right? Hella great. I was bursting with joy that so many would see everything we went through, everyone woud get if not but a glimpse of the awesome Chloe Price that should be alive and here with me.

"What's the meaning behind the showcase's name?" the reporter asked me in the interview, pen ready to note down my answer.

I smiled, looking at the simple framed lettering. I'm sure you would have come up with something way more cool looking, Chloe, but I guess this is what I have left.

"I wanted people to see the wonderful moments my friend and I lived, somewhere, in some alternative place. But in this one, in our reality, we never got to. The paintings are poor substitutes, but that's the reality that was left. This is all that was left of what should have been."

.

the end

.

.

I won't give up on you

I can feel you in my heart, just show me the way

I don't belong here alone

I can still see your face where it's into my mind

I die everytime I close my eyes

You're always there

Never Go Back ~Evanescence

.

.

Author's Note: Although I do think it may have happened before, I don't remember having cried while writing. Which was quite embarrassing, since I was working.

Thanks for reading, comments and corrections of grammar/typos are appreciated.

EDIT: I've written a parallel piece for Chloe called 'The reality that never was'.