My face begins to burn as the man hovering over me dumps something in my eye. White hot pain sears through me. I can’t see. I can’t move. My body is in total shock.
Their laughter fades, and I try to pick myself up from the cold pavement, but I can’t move. I try to crawl away, but the squealing of tires grows nearer, and I feel every bone in my leg shatter as the car runs over me.
“Serafin,” she sobs, her voice beckoning me forward. I don’t know if it’s truly her, or if it’s my brain hallucinating, releasing all those chemicals one does right before they die. “I love you. The police are coming. Hang in there.”
“Get away from me,” I choke out, my words choppy. “Get as far away from me as you can. I never want to see you again.”
Not on this earth, and not in hell, where I am certainly bound for. The sound of sirens lull me to rest, as my body gives in to the comfort of unconsciousness.
2
Mia:
Twelve years later
“You gotta come out of there sometime, Mia.” My best friend and roommate Janka stands in the doorway of my bedroom with a bottle of vodka in her hand. I can tell by the way she’s twirling her long black hair between her fingers and the sing song tone of her voice, she’s already had a little to drink.
I stub out my cigarette and immediately light up another one. I take my paint brush and load it up with blue oil paint from my pallet, slapping it onto the canvas with dramatic flair. This thing has so many layers it probably weighs more than I do, but something about it feels incomplete.
I don’t know if it’s missing a light source or a shadow, or what’s wrong with it, and in this moment, I seriously regret not paying more attention in art school.
“It stinks like a Petrol station in here,” she says as she slinks across the room on drunken legs and yanks on my window, a burst of winter air hitting me right in the face.
“Paint thinner,” I say, motioning to the bucket of solvent.
“You’re gonna blow yourself up!” she shouts, grabbing the cigarette from my hand and running out into the living room. I shrug and set down my paintbrush, taking a step back so I can see the entire picture as a whole.
Blowing myself up might not be the worst option right now.
I’m a divorced loser with no steady job. Janka and I get money, but it’s definitely not in a way I’m proud of.
When I could still afford her, my therapist suggested I work out my feelings through picking up painting again, but the only thing I seem to be making is a bigger mess out of my life.
I clench my paintbrush between my teeth and fix my ponytail.
“What’s it supposed to be?” Janka asks.
I shrug and cock my head, examining the blue and gray piece of abstract art I’ve been cranking away at day and night for the last three weeks. “A metaphor?” I ask.
“Makes sense,” she says, wrapping her arm around my shoulder. “I love it. It’s gorgeous, but it’s the saddest thing I’ve ever seen.”
“You’re being too generous.”
It’s been a long time since I painted. Even talking about it is an incredibly sore spot for me, which Janka knows. Back before the divorce I was really starting to make a name for myself outside the city, even getting some of my paintings featured in a local gallery. There was a point in time where I really truly thought I could make a career out of doing something I love.
Bartek put a stop to that real fast though as soon as the divorce proceedings stopped. He dragged my name through the dirt and made sure he was entitled to all my paintings in the settlement.
I almost quit forever.
“You should totally sell that. I bet you could get at least five hundred Zloty for that.”
I laugh because she’s so innocent about some things, art being one of them. A painting this size would warrant at least twenty times that. A thousand zloty wouldn’t even cover groceries for the week, and I’ve been pouring my blood, sweat, and tears into this sucker for a month now.
Janka is innocent when it comes to some things, but when it comes to other things, the raven haired vixen knows exactly what she’s doing. She’s the kind of woman who is devious and manipulative, and even though men know it, they keep coming back for more.
“Speaking of zloty, I have a job for us tonight.”
I scratch at the paint smudge on my forehead and wrinkle my nose.
“Rent’s due in a week,” she says, matter of factly. “Unless you have some other option, we can’t afford to turn this down. Besides, you need to get your ass out of the house. Breathing in these fumes all day is going to kill all your braincells.”
I sigh and grab the bottle of vodka from her hand, taking a long swig. Maybe if I was beautiful like her, confident like her, tall and mysterious like her, I’d actually enjoy these jobs. Instead, I always end up feeling like the third wheel, or a hairy mole on an otherwise perfect complexion.
She walks over to my closet and starts flipping through my clothes. “Just because you’re divorced doesn’t mean you have to dress like an old maid.”
“Hey, it’s not a hundred percent my choice,” I retort. That’s only half of a lie. Bartek got most of my stuff in the divorce including my clothes, and I know it was only because he was trying to keep me reliant on him. When I started buying new things, though, I always gravitated to comfort over fashion. I’m happiest in jeans and a cardigan or sweats and a tank top.
She grabs a red sequined tube top from a hanger and tosses it to me.
“That was my Halloween costume,” I remind her. “Where are you taking me? A haunted house?”
“Oh, it’s better than that. We’re going to the casino tonight, baby!” she says with a toothy smile.
“Okay, you have my attention, you evil bitch.”
“I knew you’d like that.”
What isn’t there to like about the casino? The drinks are free and we can usually shove enough food in our purses from the buffet to feast for at least a few days. I don’t have a lot of cash to gamble with, but I always manage to find some pocket change to feed my addiction.
“Maybe you can even meet yourself a hot date while we’re there. How long has it been since you had a hook up? Maybe if you got a little dick you wouldn’t be painting caves covered in cobwebs and calling them a metaphor.”
“Shit, it does kind of look like that now that you mention it,” I say, shaking my head at my masterpiece. It has been a long time since I just went out and had fun. My vagina is definitely a cobweb filled cave at this point. “I thought we were working though.”
“Oh it’s an easy job. He’s seventy eight years old for fucks sake. It’ll be like shooting fish in a barrel.”
I throw off my chunky sweater and slide the tube top over my head. It’s uncomfortable as hell, the sequins cutting into my armpits every time I move, but I have to admit, I don’t hate what I see in the mirror.
She whistles at me and nods in approval. “I have the perfect shorts to match.”
I plug in my curling iron and take a makeup wipe to my face, trying to scrub off the paint remnants from my skin. Janka returns with a pair of black leather shorts and some fishnet tights.