The Painter
Chapter 21
"I believe in going with the flow. I don't believe in fighting against the flow. You ride on your river and you go with the tides and the flow. But it has to be your river, not someone else's. Everyone has their own river, and you don't need to swim, float, sail on theirs, but you need to be in your own river and you need to go with it. And I don't believe in fighting the wind. You go and you fly with your wind. Let everyone else catch their own gusts of wind and let them fly with their own gusts of wind, and you go and you fly with yours..." ~ C. Joy Bell
~O~
Bella lay in her bed, staring at her ceiling as she rehashed the last hour in her head.
Alice in Edward made her anxious when they were together with her.
Her imagination taking hold and trying to think of things that she never considered before, but there was something about them digging at the back of her mind.
She didn't often share her art with the outside world, but with them she did easily.
Why was that?
Why could she just hand over pieces of herself for them to critique, analyze, and diagnose?
And the things they were saying…
The things she was saying.
Bella remembered the day at the bonfire.
The smoke in the air, covering the horizon with a lazy haze.
The smells of barbecue and beach and boy.
The children playfully running around and drumming the drums as other danced.
She was on the outside looking in. Watching life.
A spectator.
That was the life of an artist, isn't it?
Watching the world and trying to capture the precious moments but always from the outside looking in.
She wasn't dancing or drumming or chanting or acting it all out.
Bella was watching it all with rapture and awe, fingers itching for the comfort of her paint.
But the ceiling had no answers to give, just endless patterns of warped faces.
She was always seeing the faces and bodily shapes in everything.
Is that what she was seeing in the forest that night?
In the darkness.
No.
She didn't think so.
There was a shape there. A shadow among shadows lurking and distorted with the hazy smoke and the twilight.
But now she didn't know.
She allowed their minds to go to places unknown.
Bella was embarrassed.
How could she not be?
She just met the two Cullen's and instantly trusted them and invited them over!
Her mind reeled, circles of data tormenting her with the what, why's, and how's and the like.
With a huff she yanked the blanket off of herself and footed over the cold wooden floors to her paints.
Thumbing the pigment from their tubes, she wiped purples, blues, black, red, green, and white onto the board before she reached for her brushes.
.
"So let me get this straight," Esme huffed with exasperation. "Because I get the whole shadow thing needing to be figured out but one thing I dislike about all of this is that you went over to the girl's house to look at the paintings and critiqued them and added your own opinions of them in front of the artist?"
This was so far passed what she would expect from her children and was quite annoyed with their behavior. She had had a little time to mull it over and was now wondering how Bella was faring with such judgment.
Was she anxious?
Was she having another panic attack and no one was there to see her through?
It was late at night, almost midnight, and Edward and Alice had searched every avenue in the cyber highway of all dark and creepy things, but came up empty.
But Edward and Alice were adamant that they weren't judging the art, just merely questioning what Bella may think it all meant and if there was any danger she felt. It was their unwavering belief that Bella was in some sort of danger from a shadowy void they had never seen the likes of before.
Perhaps it was the same thing that was hindering her from making it to Forks alive if Esme and Carlisle hadn't interfered.
There were too much in the air to speculate about it and the not knowing made everyone uneasy.
Even Carlisle, the oldest, was at a loss of what- if anything- it could be.
Esme couldn't help but hope that it was nothing but an anxious girl sitting alone in the dark in an unknown place.
Was Bella someone who was usually so locked up in her own mind that she didn't notice things going on around her?
Even something as simple as the sun setting.
Bella probably didn't notice that she was sitting there for so long, Esme thought, listening to Edward go on about shadow people and Alice going on about Wraiths.
Emmett happily joined in with saying the shadows could be The Nothing and Bella was actually Sebastian sitting and reading the story on her phone or computer.
None of this was real.
It made everyone giggle and release the tensions beginning to amplify.
"Edward, lets dwell on the negative, son," Esme sat next to him and put her hand on his shoulder to add a bit of comfort. "This isn't what Bella needs from her new friends."
Edward let the air out of his chest and his shoulders sunk.
"I already feel protective of her."
"Of course," Esme smiled, eyeing Carlisle for a second. She quickly pulled a chair next to him. "Bella has a fear of the unknown, Edward, which pretty much every person on Earth has from time to time." She started and Edward lifted his eyes to his mother with curiosity. "That void, the thing she painted? It's the unknown, isn't it? You can't paint what you don't know."
It was rhetorical but Edward nodded.
"You said she saw her hand within that fear of the unknown- that void, reaching for her."
"She's afraid of me,"
"Or the opposite." Esme countered. "She could see you as saving her. Her savior. The one who will take her out of her paint and into the world."
"She's locked into her paintings."
"Perhaps it's just as simple as a coping mechanism. A sense of control. She is her paint, just as everyone around her is, too."
"That makes sense. I am green."
Esme smiled, seeing her son's dark green eyes in the night. "Of course you are."
"Her mom is purple, usually, her dad is brown."
"Don't you see? She is relating to them as she sees them. In paint."
"How do I get her out of the paint? How do I get me out of her paint?"
Esme sat thinking about her son's words before she answered. "Being in her paint isn't a bad thing, Edward. But I don't know, other than for you to show her what it is like to really live. You cannot save her. She has to save herself. Be there for her- in whatever capacity she needs to start with. Be her friend."
He chuckled, "I could try that."
"Go to her. I think she needs you. And if she doesn't, at least you'll be there when she does."
Alice came in the room, easily eavesdropping with her apology in her eyes. "She does, Edward."
If Alice could cry, she would. "Tell her I am sorry. I was just excitable."
Tears lined Bella's cheeks, old and new, salty mixed in with dirt and paint.
Cobalt, Indigo, and crimson circled the black background.
Jade, sapphire, amethyst, and ruby lines circled the others breaking the color before. Her fingers dripped with paint, lining her arms as she cried, trying to fill the dark with colors. But the black paint ate them, consumed them. It made them fold into the blackness as black paint does.
She cried, adding more paint.
The muddied canvas warped with too much paint, dripped onto the floor.
She yanked it off the easel and onto the floor, hovering over the paint, and the ends of her hair that fell, dyed with black pigment.
Tears dropping into the tinctured abyss, little orbs of water unmixed.
"Stop."
The words far away, the cool touch barely registered.
"Bella," He sighed, hating himself for causing this. "I'm here."
Bella fell forward, palms in the paint before curling into fists and it was as if she was suspended over the canvas on her knees, stilled.
Waiting.
"Hi," He said, arms reaching forward and curling around her torso, suddenly somehow in the room.
Clean ivory hands moved into the paint, suddenly dirtied, holding hers.
"Edward," she sighed, eyes closed with sudden calm.
"I'm so sorry." He breathed, taking her in and reluctantly- out. "So sorry."
She buckled and sobbed, thankful for the empty house so Charlie wouldn't see, wouldn't know.
"I'm sorry." He repeated.
She repeated his words.
She was sorry too.
This new boy, beautiful boy held her. A stranger in her house, in her room, holding her and was remorseful.
"Show me," he said, moving his fingers with hers, painting her hands in shiny obsidian, with bits of colors breaking through.
Bella nodded, her hair still in the paint swaying with the movement as she remained hunched over.
She leaned back and hit his chest, stilling her.
So close.
She moved her fingers with his, dancing in the paint with gentle caresses and sways.
Her breathing mostly settled, yet still randomly shuddering.
"I forget sometimes," he whispers in her ear, her hair, "to just see things for that they are instead of what they can be. I'm sorry."
"It's okay." She whispers back, liking the way his chest and arms shield her, protecting her.
He held her, playing together in the paint.
Sometime after, she pulled away from him, stood up on her shaking knees and legs. She held onto Edward's hands for support before she made her way into the bathroom to clean up.
He followed her.
Her body was exhausted and her mind was finally numb as she looked at herself in the mirror, taking inventory.
She didn't ask how he got into the house.
She didn't seem to care.
Edward stood watchful looking ethereal in the mirror while she looked exhausted, so Bella looked down at her hands as the remnants of paint washed down the drain.
Next, she washed the ends of her hair before the paint dried but the stains remained.
She didn't care.
After they cleaned up and the brushes rested in the thinner, Edward pulled her to her bed and held her as she slept.
He smiled when she sighed, whispering his name reverently in her sleep.
.
A/N:
As ever, thank you for reading and your kind reviews. Thank you for letting me know when you find mistakes. I was up all night painting and then went to revise the chapter to get it out before I went to bed.
Also, I don't paint the way Bella does although I do think it would be fun. As a professional artist, I love how free she is and uses the art she creates to express herself. My art was dubbed the Where's Waldo of paintings. I enjoy hiding things into the art like animals. :D