I am nearly blinded by all the color splashed across the canvas. It is a beautiful distraction in this moment. I angle my head just enough to see the depiction of me, posing and perfect on that massive canvas. It is breathtaking. It is so captivating that I cannot understand how Tess doesn’t see that her work is incredible!
I laugh to myself. “I know you’re a strange woman, Tess…”
She stills completely then offers me beguiling, emotionless eyes. “I am an artist.”
I’m not entirely certain if she is serious about her bizarre rationale.
Clearly, she is proud of it.
Tess tucks a loose tendril of her hair behind her left ear and then gets back to work. “My work is my life, Mila, there is no space for anything else.” She lowers her head then the palette and the brush go right along with it while she stares at the floor for a while. “I have been in this world much longer than you, Mila, and I don’t say this as an insult to your spirit, but it is the truth. I have lived on God’s green earth long enough to know that this can never be more than what it is. You truly believe that you are in love with me, but I must tell you that you are not. You’re just lost. You’re just a lost girl searching for what it is that she believes she needs.”
I swallow hard at her words, holding the invasion of their truth at bay. “I’ve been coming here—"
“You cannot fall in love with someone, Mila, from watching them through a window.”
Oh, yes you can.
The words leave her in a clipped fashion and cut, cut, cut.
“You’ve been coming here now for days—”
“But I’ve been watching you for months, Tess.” Unmistakable pain laces my tone.
Why is she saying this?
Why is she disregarding me?
Why is she making the impossible more impossible?
Why such cruelty?
Tess offers me a ridiculous look and then her features soften. “Mila, whether you want to believe it or not, this is where age and experience separate us.” Her expression is agonizing. “You cannot fall in love with someone in a matter of days.” A gentle smile finds its way to her lips. “As you get older you begin to let go of the ideals, Mila.” She sighs. “One day you will understand.”
I am not a fool to ever believe that this woman’s husband wouldn’t toss her out on the street and leave her spectacularly penniless if he ever found out what she truly does with her days in this attic along with what she does with me. It is all that is stopping her from being the woman she needs to be.
“I am not like you, Mila.”
I will be wild.
I will be brave.
I will let my heart fly free.
“You most certainly are, Tess.” A broken smile fixes on my lips. “You are more like me than anyone I’ve ever met.” My bottom lip quivers and when it becomes evident that I might burst into tears, I stop it all from happening. “This can never be what I want it to be because you’re afraid of being yourself, Tess. You’re afraid to show the world who you really are. You’re afraid that people might find out one day that you are just like me and you’re fucking terrified of that.” I bare all my teeth when I say the last words.
Tess exhales and when the breath leaves her, she truly looks drained. “You don’t understand, Mila.” Her blues focus on me. “You will never understand.” She shakes her head and mumbles words to herself which I cannot hear but she does not refute my words loudly, only keeps the rest of her thoughts to herself, as always…
I only feel more broken when I am blessed with more of her silence.
She stands across the room near her beloved easel and the canvas, eyes shut.
“Tess.” I say her name with the acceptance that I cannot convince of her my feelings for her any more than I already have. “I care about you. I want to be here. You may not feel love for me yet, but I know you feel something.”
“Of course I feel something for you, Mila, but it cannot be love. It shouldn’t be. Maybe one day it will be, but right now it is not, and that is a good thing…for you.”
I beg your pardon?
My brows collide in the most painful fashion. “Do you not want to be loved, Tess.”
I might be a little naïve and maybe even wild, but I know for certain that age should not separate us or keep us apart. Yet, Tess seems to believe that it should.
She looks away from me and faces the window for a while. “You shouldn’t love me, Mila.”
I only stare at the woman across the room and find I have nothing more left to say.
The room descends into a miserable silence and soon I find myself staring at the floorboards beneath my bare feet and slipping into my own thoughts. I reminisce about my old life, my old house and Maude’s apple crumble too which makes my stomach grumble a bit. I think mostly about Fenna even though I’ve been trying my very best to forget her.
The days are long. The nights are even longer. I suffer as one should when they lose someone they love. I want you to have more in this life than a life with me could ever offer you. Let me go…I want you to let me go. And then even after that, if I come looking for you, please turn me away. I beg you to turn me away. Because I will never have the courage to walk away from you and not ever look back.
“Who is she, Mila?”
“Fenna.” I exhale, hating the sadness which swirls around in my stomach whenever I simply say her name. “She was hired as the housemaid for my family. I wasn’t supposed to touch her, and I did, but it was only because she let me.” I squeeze my eyes shut at the memory of the woman I haven’t seen in so long yet remember as if I only saw her yesterday because I can’t get her out of my head or kick her out of my heart. “My father knew about the relationship and I believe my mother did too, but they pretended for so long, which I had almost fooled myself into believing was their silent version of acceptance. I knew Fenna would lose her employment there if we did not end it. I couldn’t end it…And I could never please my parents…I have disappointed them in so many ways, Tess. Eventually they knew that the best thing to do for everyone was to ask me to leave.” I grit my teeth when I think back to that bright and sunny day when I thought things would change for me—the day I finally found my freedom… “They didn’t want me anymore, Tess.”
“Well then, they don’t know what they lost.” Nodding, she grins.
I refuse to shed a single tear over my old life because there is nothing there for me. Except for her… I allow my eyes to fall shut again and breathe in the air in this attic, inhaling the faint scent of turpentine and the lust which never seems to go away.
Tess exhales loudly. “Why did you really come here, Mila Emma de Jong?”
Confusion stains my features at the sound of my birthname.
Tess’ palm caresses my cheek, settles beneath my chin and then encourages it to lift to face her. “There is no reason for you to even be living in the hostel that you’ve been calling home since you left your old one. You do not need to be selling oranges either, Mila.” She frowns. “You do not need to be here either baring yourself for my eyes and for the canvas. Why did you come here, truly?”
I feel safe here.
I feel free here.
I can be myself here.