Chapter Two - I Guess We Can Be Friends Then
A loud banging on her door made her lift her head in slight panic. She had been in a productive groove for the past week or so, cranking out paintings left and right.
Her living room, if you could call it that, was covered wall to wall by plastic floor protectors, most of which were covered with different colored drips of paint. The walls were hung with various works, mostly hers, but a couple of paintings by other small artists she knew locally.
There were easels set up in almost every free space, all housing drying paintings she had worked on recently. The other three rooms in the house were in similar states, even her kitchen had work on the counters.
But her state of panic wasn't from the clutter, it was from her half clothed state. She hated to be dressed while she worked. Clothes always seemed to get in the way and she had ruined more than one good piece with dragging hems. She had a sports bra on, and leggings, which she figured was decent enough to peek around a door for a moment to see what whoever was still banging on it wanted. She hoped it wasn't religious people. Those were worse than the ones selling things, but only marginally.
"Who is it?" She called, wiping her hands over her leggings to get the paint off them. It did nothing more than smear the colors together a bit.
"Er, I'm your neighbour next door and I was just coming by to tell you that-"
She pulled the door open, and he cut off. She tilted her head to one side, eyes narrowing for a second in thought, then widening in recognition.
"I know you!" She said suddenly, and he tensed. "I met you in the stairs the other day."
"Oh, er, right," he said, rubbing the back of his neck. He glanced her over once, then his cheeks tinted a bit and he looked over her shoulder.
"Oh, sorry about this," she gestured over herself, trying to use talking to counter the awkwardness she always felt when taking to someone new. "I was just working. I'm Jamie by the way. I'd shake your hand, but I doubt you want to have paint on you."
"I'm Dan," he said after a moment.
"Uh, did you want to come in?" She asked, tilting her head a bit. She wasn't sure what the usual protocol in this situation was. He shrugged, so she stood aside, not sure if that was an acceptance or not. She left the door open, assuming he wouldn't stay very long, since she had nowhere to sit available. "Sorry about the lack of furniture. It's just me here and no ones ever come to visit before, so I never saw the need."
"Did you paint all these?" He asked, his voice soft and far more comfortable than she'd heard it since she'd met him all those weeks ago.
"Yeah," she said, just as softly. "Well no, not those three, but the rest yeah."
"Wow," He said, looking around the room. She wasn't sure if that was a positive 'wow' or a derisive one, and she started fidgeting, her anxiety crawling up on her.
This was why she never went to her own shows, she hated seeing people's reactions, even if they were good. It made her nervous.
"So, what were you saying?" She asked, trying to draw his attention away from the paintings. It worked.
"Oh, uh, I was coming over to tell you that we are having a few people over tonight, and I don't think we will get too loud, but if we do, feel free to come over and tell us to quiet down," he said, tucking his hands into his jeans pockets, which seemed like a struggle since the fabric was basically painted on.
"That's okay, none of your other parties have ever bothered me," she said. "I like having noise while I paint."
"Other parties?" He asked with a frown and head tilt.
"Yeah, well, I mean, you're right next door right?" She pointed at the far wall that connected to the next apartment over. He nodded. "Well you had a party two months ago, and three months before that, and maybe more in between when I wasn't home. None of them have ever bugged me."
"Didn't you just move in?" He asked, confused.
"Last year in January," she said with a smile. "So almost two years now."
She grinned as his mouth dropped in surprise.
"Really?" He asked after a moment. "We didn't know anyone lived here. We thought this place was empty actually, until we heard music playing last week."
"Well usually I'm pretty quiet and I don't go out much," she said with a shrug. "I used to travel quite a bit last year, too. Since my family is all in America. I actually only know you guys moved in last October because Margie told me, I wasn't home at all that month."
"Margie?" He asked with another head tilt that made her smile.
"Don't you know any of your neighbors?" She asked with a laugh. "Margie is the old lady in 1806." She pointed to the far end of the hall. "1805 is empty and the guy in 1804 just moved out last month. 1803 has the Connors, and their two cats and a parakeet that I think is against the building rules. And 1801 is me, which leaves you in 1802."
"Oh," he said, absorbing the information.
"Yeah, sorry I never did the neighborly thing and came over with cookies to introduce myself when you moved in but that's not really my thing," she said with a shrug.
"Mine neither," he said with a small smile. "Well, it's nice to meet you."
"You too, I think," she said.
"You think?" He asked, looking slightly offended.
"Well for all I know you could be a serial killer or something," she said with a shrug. "In that case, it's not so nice to meet you."
He laughed at that, and she relaxed a bit, glad she had made him momentarily happy.
"See you around," he said, heading to the door, then turning around once he reached it. "Would you want to come? To the party I mean? Tonight?"
"I mean this in the least rude way possible, but hell no, thanks," she said shaking her head. "Party's are definitely not my thing, or people or strangers or loud atmospheres. Unless you have a cat or a dog, then I'd consider it."
"Nope," he said with a laugh, and she was glad to see he hadn't seemed offended at her words. "Party's aren't my thing either," he said. "We only have them so our friends know we are still alive."
"I see," she said, resting a hand against the edge of the door as they stood. Her fingers still had blue paint on them, which she didn't notice had smudged on the outside of the door a bit. "Thanks for coming by, see you later." He nodded and she closed the door.
He stood there for a moment, eyes drawn to the blue thumbprint left where her hand had been resting. It was the exact same color as her eyes, he noticed, before walking back to the door down the hall.
While they did become quite loud that evening, Jamie was so lost in her work that she didn't care at all. In fact, most of what she could hear was laughter, and music, both of which she liked to listen to, especially while painting.
She had been stuck on landscapes recently, probably because there was such a lack of landscape around the city. She didn't mind the city, in fact, she loved the noise and business of it, but she did miss home, with its huge forests and lakes and rivers. Plus landscapes were so calming to do, and she'd had a hectic week. Well, month really, and she used these to stay calm. And it also helped that she had started taking her medication again. No more panic attacks, and very little thinking about dying. Also, slightly less creative. She always did her best work when she was unmedicated.
At least, it seemed that way for her. She felt better about working anyway, and more accomplished when she finished something. The meds didn't make her a zombie, but she had a hard time caring about anything while on them, which would in turn make her think she was okay (better off even) without it. That led to her stopping the meds, spiraling down into heavy depression and panic attacks until the point where she would realize she really did need the meds.
This whole cycle took anywhere from a couple weeks to several months. The best times were when she had just quit them or just started them again. After she stopped, she would still feel the effects for a week or so, but she would have that feeling of freedom that came from purposefully skipping her pills.
The days she started them back up was also good, because she would feel the desperation to die being packed back into its little box next to the panic attacks and feeling of worthlessness.
Her mood would balance out, the little part of her mind that pointed out easy ways to die as she noticed them would fade, and she could pretend to be a normal, fully functional adult for a while.
A burst of laughter from next door rang through the walls, and she smiled, closing her eyes. She could almost pretend that the joy that was present in the next room was surrounding her as well. It warmed her, filling her with a fake sense of belonging for a moment, until she opened her eyes again, focusing on the canvas in front of her. She had started it to be peaceful and beautiful, but it had slowly morphed into a dark and dreary place. She had used too much black to paint the night sky, and too many grays to make up the moonlit scenery, and the blue of the lake was too dark.
She frowned at it a moment, then picked up a clean brush and dipped it in white, then swirled it though the purple, just a touch, and painted a single perfect lily flower in bloom on the shore.
She stood back, tilting her head at the painting, then stepping farther back to repeat the action.
Yes, that was perfect. One bright spot to bring out the darkness of night and lack of color.
She grabbed the dirty cup of water that was soaking all her used brushes, and stacked it on top of various palettes of paint she had been using, then deposited the whole pile into the utility sink next to her laundry units hidden behind a folding door in the kitchen that she almost always left open.
She grabbed the handful of brushes and spread them out on the bottom of the sink in the tray she kept there for that specific purpose, and ran cold water over them.
There was something cathartic about running her fingers through the bristles under the water and watching the paint wash away. It always made her feel clean, like a fresh start.
There was a tapping on her door almost so quiet she couldn't hear it over the running water, but it was continuous so she caught it.
She turned the water off, dried her hands on her leggings, and went to answer the door.
It was Dan again, which shouldn't have surprised her since he was the only person who had ever visited her in this apartment.
"Hi," she said when he didn't say anything.
"Hi," he replied, shaking his head a little as though to clear it. He looked sad, she realized after a moment, and she recognized the tiredness and self doubt that came from having a good time with a lot of people, but having to stamp down the depression the whole time. She smiled, stepped away from her door, and gestured him inside, closing the door behind him. She moved some empty canvases off the solitary old couch that was pushed more into the kitchen than the living room, and set them on the already crowded table.
"Have a seat," she said, waving a hand at the couch. "You want some tea? Or coffee? Something stronger?"
He had been shaking his head through the first few options, and shrugged at the last, so she took a few beers from her fridge, and a bottle of whiskey, setting them on the only available edge of the table and going in search of cups.
"Well, we'll have to use coffee mugs, I don't have anything else," she said with a frown. "You want Bob Ross or Mr. Rodgers?"
"Doesn't matter," he murmured softly, as she set both down next to the whiskey. She unscrewed the cap, filled each mug half full, and handed a mug and a beer to him.
"So," she said, sinking down to the floor to sit cross legged as another burst of laughter rang through the walls. "What's up?"
"I just..." He started, but shook his head, not really knowing what to say.
"Needed a break from the people?" She asked, and he nodded. "Because even though you were having fun and surrounded with people that you genuinely know care about you and your well-being, the contentment only lasts so long before it fades and you start doubting yourself and then wondering if they actually do like you or if they just feel sorry for you, and wondering if you're a burden and if they would be better off if you left, and then wondering if they would even notice if you left, or if they would secretly be relieved you weren't there anymore. And all of this builds up in your head until you just have to leave, and be in a quiet place for a minute to calm down before you break down in front of those people who don't even really know you at all, and this pushes you to just get out and go to the closest quiet space available."
He's quiet for a moment, watching her with wide eyes.
"Do you read minds?" He finally asked, and she laughed at that, finally taking a sip of her whiskey, relishing the way it burned down her throat.
"That's what I feel like at parties," she explained. "Or any social gathering really. You weren't freaked out by coming across my breakdown in the stairs, and neither was your friend, so both of you must deal with panic attacks on a regular basis, which means one of you probably gets them."
"You're very talkative with someone you don't know," he said after a moment.
"Well how else am I supposed to get to know you?" She pointed out and he smiled a bit, but it faded fast. She knew what she would want in this situation, quiet, comfort, peace. "Hey, I have a bit of cleaning up to do real quick, would you mind?"
"No, no, sorry," he said, moving to get to his feet.
"No, stay," she said, pointing to the couch. "I'll just be a sec." He resumed his seat and she went back to washing out her brushes, setting them all in a drying rack, then moving on to the palettes. When those were clean she washed her hands and arms, and her bared stomach, then pulled on a T-shirt that was sitting on her dryer. She sniffed it to make sure it was clean as she pulled it on. While she was perfectly comfortable in leggings and a sports bra, she wasn't the one on the edge of a panic attack, and he was likely more comfortable with her skin covered.
She took her seat on the floor, draping a nearby sweater over her lap and picking up her mug again for another sip.
"You wanna talk?" She asked. He looked a bit better than he had before.
"What is this, a therapy session?" He asked with a grimace.
"Nah," she said, flapping a hand. "You couldn't afford me." He snorted at that and she smiled. "Tell me about you."
"That's the worst ice breaker question," he pointed out. "It's not even creative."
"Well, words aren't my chosen form of expression," she said, gesturing at the canvases around them.
"Right," he said with a resigned shrug. "What do you want to know?"
"I do have a question actually," she said, her voice serious as she leaned forward a bit. "It's really important and very personal, do you mind?"
"Uh, maybe?" He said, not knowing what could possibly be so important.
"Are you sure?" She asked. "You don't have to answer but the future of our friendship depends on your reply."
"Okay," He said with a nod, and leaned forward in concentration. "What is it?"
"What Hogwarts House are you in?" She asked, her voice dead serious.
He laughed, his entire face brightening, and she noticed that he had dimples in both his cheeks that stood out when he grinned. He looked younger when he was happy, the stress lines around his eyes disappearing into joyful wrinkles.
"I'm a Gryffindor at heart, but I was sorted into Slytherin first," he said. "I went back and took the quiz again after about ten minutes of feeling guilty about my answers."
"Hm," she said, pretending to consider him.
"Do I pass?" He asked, a smile still lingering on his face. "Can we be friends?"
"Well, I suppose," she said at last, her lips curving up into a smile.
"Wait a sec," he said with a frown. "How do I know I want to be friends with you? What house are you in?"
"Ravenclaw, with a side helping of Slytherin," she said. "I took it twice too," she explained at his small head tilt.
They both laughed for a moment, but stopped when a louder burst of laughter sounded through the wall. His smile faded fast, and she sighed, taking another mouthful of whiskey. Neither of them had touched their beers.
"So what's the party for?" She asked, making small talk to keep his mind off the anxiety she could see bubbling under the surface. "Any special event?"
"It's Phil's... friends birthday next week," he said with a shrug that was probably aiming for nonchalant but came out tense. "We are having the party a bit early because he's going home next week to spend time with family."
"Phil's the other one I met?" She asked.
"Yeah," He said. "Tall, skinny, blue eyes." He trailed off his describing and she frowned in thought.
"Well, you can feel free to come over here and watch me wash out paintbrushes to avoid socializing anytime," she said, trying to lighten the atmosphere again. "I'm always here and I always have brushes to wash."
"Faces too," he said, gesturing to the side of his neck to indicate she had paint there. She shrugged.
"Bound to be some somewhere," she said, making no move to get it off. "I'm used to it. I'll go out sometimes and look down and there's paint on my arm that I haven't used in a week. There's always some no matter how much I scrub it off."
"Your art is really good," he said after a moment of silence.
"Thanks," she said with a smile. "It's my favorite thing to do. I just... love everything about it. The smell of the paint, the feeling of the canvas, everything. Even when something doesn't turn out how I'd intended it, I still love the process of getting there. It's cathartic."
"Do you sell any of it or just do it for fun?" He asked. He'd been nodding along with her speech, so she assumed he had a similar passion for something.
"Sometimes," she said with a shrug. "I've got a couple connections with a few art studios in town, and one of them runs a website with my paintings on it. It's not much income but it's enough to pay for this place and food and supplies and that's all I really need."
"That's practical," he said with a smile.
"I get some from commissions too," she said, standing to pull a stack of canvases to the floor with her to show him. "Most of the time, commissioned pieces are based off a photo, and I just find them really boring. Like, why bother paying extra for a scene you already have a visual of?" She shrugged a bit again. "Since I don't like doing them as much as other stuff, I charge more," she said with a wink and he chuckled.
"So what do you like painting then?" He asked, watching her slide the stack of portraits back onto the table.
"I love it when people just ask me to paint something for them without specifying what they want," she said with a smile. "Most artists hate that, because it's the first thing people ask when they find out you're an artist, but I like being able to put what I see about someone down on paper for them to see. Everyone is different, and everyone has flaws, and sometimes that's all you can see about yourself, so it's nice to be able to give someone something based off their best self, the self that I can only see when they let down their guard a bit. That's why I like making people laugh, a genuine laugh, not a polite one. It's like a glimpse into their soul, just for a second."
"Are you sure that 'words aren't your chosen form of expression' or whatever that was you said earlier?" He asked, finishing off the whiskey in his coffee mug. She smiled, standing to put both empty mugs into the sink.
"They aren't my preferred, but I do seem to be good at them," she said. "Unless I'm around more than two or three people. Then I become a stuttering silent shadow."
"Nice alliteration," he said with a laugh.
"Are words your preferred way of expressing yourself?" She asked. "Since you know what alliteration is and your accent is... what do you call it here? Posh, right?"
"Articulate," he corrected immediately and she could tell it was something he said often. "Yeah, I suppose they are."
"You suppose?" She asked, tilting her head to the side a bit, something she realized after doing it that she was mirroring from him.
"Well, I'm in the public eye a lot, so I have to really watch what I say, and what I do, so it sometimes feels like I'm... trapped into acting a specific way," he explained.
"So that means you're either in politics, or entertainment," she said. "I'm guessing entertainment, since you don't seem much like the political type, but I could be wrong."
"You aren't," he said with a smile. "Entertainment is a pretty good summary."
"So you are limited and shaped by your target audience into what you want them to see about you..." she thought out loud. "That seems exhausting. What do you do for fun then? As something where you can just be you, and not worry about being judged for it?"
"I guess I don't do anything," he said, frowning in thought. "Just stay at home and play video games sometimes, or scroll through social media."
"Well that's good enough, I think," she said. "You've gotta have something to do that you can be your whole self while doing it. Otherwise you go crazy."
"Well doesn't painting for work negate painting as a fun hobby?" He asked, tilting his head to the side again.
"Sometimes," she said with a nod. "But then I stop working for a while and just paint what I want until I feel better."
He nodded and they fell silent for a moment.
"Can you paint something for me?" He asked, remembering even through his more than slight buzz, that she had said she liked to do that. Her face lit up with a brilliant grin and she jumped to her feet immediately, searching the table for a blank canvas.
"It may not be up to my usual standard because I'm more than a bit tipsy," she said as a general disclaimer. She always made excuses like that, it was second nature, a way to defend herself against negative comments.
She pulled an easel in easy viewing distance of the couch, and turned it so that he could see as she worked, which she knew was the opposite of how most people worked, but she also knew that watching an image form from nothing was her favorite part of painting to observe and she wanted others to observe it too.
She wanted to paint his eyes, they had stuck with her since the first time they had met. Her eidetic memory could put the colors in front of her mind with perfect accuracy, but now that she had gotten to know him a little better, she wanted to add more. She turned to look at him for a second, taking in more detail, then went to get a clean palette and a brush.
"Are you a cat person or a dog person?" She asked, trying to keep the conversation flowing as she used a dark brown as a base, and a large brush to cover the canvas with it.
"Dog," he said immediately. "I like cats just fine, but I like dogs better."
"But you don't have one?" She said, remembering their conversation earlier.
"Nah," he said with a shrug. "We travel too much to be able to take care of a dog properly."
"You refer to yourself as 'we' quite a lot," she pointed out.
"I guess I do," he admitted with a shrug. "I live with Phil and work with him, and we spend most of our time together, so its habit."
"And you aren't together?" She asked, the curiosity of some of his earlier words growing too strong to resist. He was quiet a moment.
"No, we aren't together," he said simply.
"Sorry, it's none of my business," she apologized immediately, not turning away from her painting. "It's just that, I don't know you well, and you seem sad, and I want to know why, because I want to help, but obviously you don't know me either, so there's not really anything I could do to help anyway because it wouldn't have any personal meaning."
"You're rambling," he pointed out, and her mouth snapped shut. "It's okay, I don't mind. I'm used to people prying."
"That's not a reason for me to do it too," she said, her voice soft. "What kind of entertainment do you do?"
"Youtube," he said.
"Oh, like video games and stuff?" She asked. "I don't go online much. I don't even have a computer."
"It's more like... vlogs and stuff I guess, but games too," he said. "I've actually been taking a break for a while."
"How come?" She asked, glad he was opening up a bit more.
"I just needed some time to myself to figure out... what I want to do I guess," he said. "There's no break as a youtuber, it's constant content, constant working, and there's no break. I just wanted to step back for a while. I want to be more open with them, but I don't know how to do that from the image I have formed online."
"I can't say I have been there," she said. "But I understand."
"Is it rude to say I can tell what you are painting?" He asked, leaning forward to rest his elbows on his knees.
"No," she said with a smile he couldn't see. "I don't imagine it'll make sense till it's done, and even then it'll only have the meaning you give it."
"That... weirdly makes sense," he said. "It's like a 'beauty is in the eye of the beholder' type thing, right?"
"Exactly," she said with a grin. "I can tell you exactly what I think of any painting, mine or not, and what emotions I get from it and what the artist was trying to convey, but it would only be that way for me. We could both look at an abstract painting of shapes and colors, and I could see green as the dominant color and you could see blue. Even more, I could look at the same painting on two different days and where when I'm sad I see emptiness or hatred, when I'm happy I could see passion and excitement."
"I guess that's why therapists use that ink blot test," he said with a laugh.
"I always thought those were useless," she said. "Who goes to a therapist when they feel happy and comfortable? No ones ever going to see anything good in an inkblot test when they only take them when they are down and out of sorts."
"That's true," he said.
"That's my 'thing' in the painting world," she continued.
"Thing?" He asked.
"Yeah like, the thing that sets you apart from everyone else in your field. The thing that makes you stand out or recognizable," she said. "I don't label my art. No titles, no stories, no description. Just my name, and that's all."
"My thing is wearing black," he said with a smile. "And being depressed. And British."
"So if I googled 'British depressed youtuber wearing black' I'd find you?"
"Probably," He said with a shrug. She wiped her hand on her shirt and pulled out her phone to do just that, then laughed a second later and held her phone up. "Look at that, the first picture is you."
"So if I google 'no title paintings' would I find you?" He asked, glancing down at his own phone.
"I doubt it," she said. "I'm not a known artist, I don't have my own studio, and my art is only sold through a small gallery in town."
"Found you anyway," he said with a laugh, holding up his phone.
"Really?" She asked, turning in surprise.
"Yep. Local artist Jamie Taylor," he said, holding his phone up for her to see the little picture of her next to a list of the other people who sold through the gallery.
"How'd you know my last name?" She asked with a laugh, turning back to her painting.
"I didn't, it just says it by your picture," he said with a chuckle.
"You're pretty good at internet stalking," she said, her voice teasing.
"Well it's only fair since I'm so easy to find," he said, glancing at his phone again with a frown. "I probably should go back. It's been more than an hour now and they'll be wondering."
"Okay," she said, nodding. "I'll keep working on this."
"If it's taking up your time too much don't worry about it," he said slowly. "It's not important."
"Of course it is," she said narrowing her eyes. "You can't just discount something you asked for just because you don't want to feel like a burden," she said. "Just because something is about you doesn't mean it's unimportant."
"You're strange, you know," he said, shaking his head a bit.
"I know," she said with a grin. "What's the fun in being normal?"
"Good point," he said. "I'll see you later."
"Bye Dan," She said as he closed the door. She went back to her canvas.