The Girl in the Painting Read online

  It’s been no less than thirty minutes by the time he makes his grand entrance into the room.

  Well, I’m assuming it’s grand, but I have to assume a lot of things these days.

  “Ansel,” Dr. Smith greets, and the sound of a door clicking shut echoes off the walls. “It’s good to see you again.”

  “I’d say the same, but we all know I can’t see.”

  “Jesus,” Bram mutters. He probably meant for it to be under his breath, but it’s really true what they say. Losing one sense heightens the others.

  “Still heavy with the sarcasm, I see,” the doc says through a chuckle, after which the room grows quiet for a moment. No sarcastic remarks from my brother and no sounds of movement from the doctor as he’s obviously settled behind his desk.

  Quiet stretches like this make me uncomfortable. Without sound to guide me, the black behind my lids seems endless.

  “Dark humor at my eyes’ expense is about the only thing that gets me through these days,” I admit to cut off the silence.

  It has just the effect I desired. Bram swallows loudly and shuffles his foot on the rug, and Dr. Smith starts typing something on his laptop. At least, I assume that’s what the clacking sound I hear is.

  I let out the breath I didn’t realize I was holding and mentally picture what his notes might look like.

  Thirty-year-old patient is still blind, sarcastic, and a dick.

  I nearly laugh.

  “Is there a specific reason you wanted to see Ansel today?” my brother asks, and the doctor clears his throat.

  “Well, I have some news,” he says. “After eight long months, we’ve received approval.”

  “Approval?” I ask.

  “For a bilateral transplant,” he answers.

  “I’m sorry, what?” I can barely keep my voice steady. I’m surprised and, worse yet, hopeful. Somehow, I push the question past the clog in my throat anyway. “Are you talking about an eye transplant?”

  “I am,” he confirms.

  “But I thought that wasn’t possible?” Bram chimes in.

  “It wasn’t a year ago, but it is now,” he explains. “Ansel would be one of the first in the country.”

  “Are you fucking with me right now, Doc?” My breathing is erratic and forced and so loud, I’m almost certain I’m not the only one in the room who can hear it.

  “No,” he says and then adds, “Ansel, we can make you see again.”

  Ansel

  “Ansel!” Bram calls toward me. “Shit! Slow down!”

  I keep moving, tapping my cane fast and furious on the ground in front of me, out of Dr. Smith’s office building and onto the pavement. I never move this quickly anymore, and I barely know this area of town, so I have a feeling the exercise is just for show. If there’s anything in my path, the crash landing is going to be hard.

  But I can’t stop my feet from moving.

  Fucking hell. He thinks he can make me see again.

  He wants me to trust him and his team to perform an intense, extremely difficult surgery that’s barely even been performed before, let alone established a solid success rate.

  Coma.

  Death.

  Permanent brain damage.

  When Dr. Smith started reading through the long list of risks, I had to get out of there.

  My heart races, and the sounds of cars rolling by on the street guide me to stay on the far side of the sidewalk.

  One of the first eye transplants in the country…

  My boots move over the concrete as fast as I can manage, and it’s not until I accidentally bump into someone that I stop.

  “Shit, sorry,” I mutter after a soft female voice squeaks out her surprise. “Are you okay?” I ask and, out of reflex, I reach out my hand, but I know my blind ass isn’t going to be able to do a damn thing to help her.

  I can hardly help my fucking self.

  “I’m fine,” she says, pity lacing the edge of her words. “It’s fine.”

  Fuck. I want to scream, pound on my chest, and break shit like a fucking lunatic, but I rein in my frustration. It won’t do me any good.

  Believe me, I’ve tried.

  All it’s ever given me is a scratchy throat and a renewed sense of self-loathing.

  It doesn’t take long before Bram’s footsteps catch up with me.

  “You okay?”

  Not even fucking close. “Yeah.”

  “You sure?”

  “Yeah,” I say through clenched teeth. “I’m fine.”

  I inhale a deep breath and prepare myself for the onslaught of his questions and concerns and fucking hopes that have most likely been created from Dr. Smith’s big news.

  But they never come.

  Instead, he wraps his arm around my shoulder. “You hungry?”

  “No.” I shake my head. Anything I eat right now will come back up.

  “Thirsty?”

  I shrug. “I guess that depends.”

  “On what?”

  “If you’re talking about grabbing a coffee, count me out. But if we’re talking whiskey, then yeah, I’m fucking thirsty.”

  “Whiskey it is.” Bram’s chuckle fills my ears. “I know just the place.”

  Three hours and four whiskeys later and I’m blessedly numb.

  I don’t make a point to drown my issues in alcohol because if I did, I’d be dead from cirrhosis of the liver by now. But every once in a while, it’s needed. And today…definitely qualifies.

  Dr. Smith’s news was meant to be some kind of godsend.

  Some answered prayer. A fucking miracle.

  But that’s not what I felt when the words came out of his mouth.

  Instead, the acidic sting of hope replaced the blood in my veins, and it did it easily.

  So easily, it terrifies me.

  The past year has been the worst year of my life.

  After the accident, I was desperate to find some sort of loophole. Something, anything, that would let me see again. But it wasn’t a wound that would mend or an illness that could be cured. My eyes were destroyed by the glass of the windshield, and there was no going back.

  I hate it. Of course, I fucking despise it. But I’ve been working toward closure. Toward finding some sort of internal peace that will fill this dark void inside of me.

  But now, Dr. Smith is trying to tell me there’s a possibility I could see again.

  It’s downright unbelievable. Preposterous.

  Unreal.

  If I start to hope for it, and in the end, I’m still the blind artist who can’t paint…I won’t be able to handle it.

  I’ll officially become a lost cause, and all of my effort—all of Bram’s effort—will have been for nothing.

  Fuck, just drink your whiskey and stop thinking about it…

  “Hello… Are you…uh…Bram Bray?” a timid female voice pulls me from my thoughts. Despite the mood that got us here—the mood that still clouds my every nuance—I can practically hear my brother’s smile.

  This is the fifth or sixth woman who’s found her way into our VIP section at this bar, and every one of them wants the same thing.

  A chance at Bram Bray.

  My brother the rock star, ladies and gentlemen.

  “I am,” Bram responds with his familiar cocky confidence.

  “Oh my god,” she all but squeals. “I can’t believe this! I can’t believe I’m meeting the lead singer of New Rules! Oh my god! Oh my god!” she rambles, tripping all over her words—and likely her tongue as it lolls out of her mouth—before finally asking, “Can I…uh…take a picture with you?”

  “Of course.”

  Of course, I mock silently. Always so doting to his adoring fans.

  The whiskey burns as I take too healthy of a pull.

  “Wait…if you’re Bram Bray, then are you Ansel Bray?”

  Ah, hell. I bite back the urge to sigh and consider pretending to be deaf too, but my bastard brother answers for me.

  “He is, in fact, Ansel Bray.” />
  I don’t even have to say anything. All it takes is his confirmation to make her start to freak out again.

  “Oh my god! I can’t believe… I don’t know… Oh my god… My name is Laura, and I’m such a huge fan…such a huge, huge fan.”

  “Well, thank you,” I say sarcastically, and because of the whiskey, it sounds like I actually mean it. “It’s so nice to meet you, Laura.”

  Bram reads the bitterness in my voice and punches me in the leg under the table.

  “I’m an art major, and you are my biggest inspiration…were my biggest inspiration…” I hear the nervous titter of her throat over the music pounding from the speakers of the bar. “God, I just…I just can’t believe what happened to you. It’s devastating.”

  And there it is. The sympathy.

  The mood around us takes a nose dive into the place I’ve been swimming all night, and I can practically hear my brother tensing up in anticipation of what I might say. In his defense, though, I have a bit of a track record when it comes to pity.

  “Something happened to me?” I ask from behind my aviators.

  “Uh…the accident,” she stutters over her words, “…the one that made you go blind…”

  “I’m blind?” I question, feigning shock and dismay. “Bram? I’m fucking blind?”

  I can’t see her, but I can feel the discomfort vibrating off her body in waves. Staccato breaths and fidgeting heels, the poor woman doesn’t know what to do with herself.

  “He’s just kidding,” my brother says on a sigh. “But it was great meeting you,” he adds in an attempt to move her on her merry way. Probably before I get another opportunity to make her uncomfortable.

  “Uh…thanks,” she mutters, my sick sense of humor officially knocking the wind out of her fangirl sails. The sound of her heels fades away and takes my brother’s easygoing nature with it.

  “Do you have to be such an asshole?” he asks. “She was just trying to be nice, Ans.”

  I shrug. “Maybe I’m just a little tired of all the sympathy.”

  “You’d think, with whiskey on your side, you could manage to, you know, smile and act friendly or something.”

  I lift my glass and shake it, the ice clanking around inside. “I think I need a few more of these for that to happen.”

  A half-amused, mostly frustrated laugh rings from his lips. “God, you’re such a dick.”

  Bingo. I shrug and move the glass to my mouth for another drink.

  “I’m curious…” he says, a new lilt challenging the usually genial nature of his voice, and pauses long enough for me to take the bait.

  “About what?”

  “When’s the last time you got laid?”

  It’s on the tip of my tongue to tell him to fuck off, but suddenly, the fight leaves my lungs in a sigh. “A while.”

  Since before the accident, specifically.

  “Be honest,” he says. “Who was the last woman?”

  “Naomi Phillips.”

  “That model?”

  “Yeah.” An extremely sex-focused woman who gets some sort of thrill from fucking anyone with a name or status.

  She was attractive and horny. I wasn’t blind. And we had some fun.

  Before Naomi, there was an up-and-coming actress by the name of Ella.

  And before Ella, there was Marissa, a backup guitarist for Bram’s band. It’s probably for the best he remains clueless about that last one…

  “How long ago?”

  “Over a year.”

  “Jesus,” he mutters. “That’s some dry spell you’re living over there.”

  “Yeah, well, sex isn’t the same when you can’t physically see the woman you’re fucking.”

  “Yeah, but you can hear her, you can feel her.”

  Instead of a response, I busy myself with another chug of whiskey.

  I’d rather drink myself into oblivion than talk to my brother about my sex life.

  “You do realize there’s absolutely no need for that long of a dry spell, right?” he patronizes through a laugh. “I mean, we’re in a bar that is practically swimming with women who keep looking over here…at you. You’re the famous Ansel Bray. The sex god, broody artist,” he adds, and his voice is etched with amusement.

  Sex god, broody artist? An absurd laugh escapes my throat.

  Sure, that might have been my life a year ago, but that’s not my life now.

  Now, I’m just the blind guy who doesn’t want to be fucking blind.

  “Seriously, Ans. There is no reason for you to have a dry spell.”

  “It doesn’t matter. I’m not interested.”

  “Why the fuck not?”

  “Because I don’t want a pity fuck, Bram!” I yell, slamming a hand down on the table and knocking over my glass.

  “A pity fuck? You really think these women are looking for a pity fuck?” Bram snorts as he scrambles to pick up the mess I’ve made. Fuck knows, I can’t do it. “Just because you’re blind doesn’t mean you’re not still the same good-looking fuck you were before the accident. Trust me, these women aren’t looking to pity-fuck you. Fuck you and get their name added to your bank account? Sure. But you and I both know, there is no pity involved here.”

  “Still, not interested.”

  He sighs, and thankfully, drops the subject altogether.

  And for a far too brief moment, we just sit back and listen to the music flowing in from the speakers of the bar. But just like most good things, it comes to an end.

  “Why don’t you want to do it?”

  There it is. The big question of the day. The thing that’s been on my brother’s mind since we left Dr. Smith’s office.

  “Would you want to do it?”

  “If I were you?” The incredulity in his voice annoys me. “Yeah, I would want to do it.”

  “Did you even hear the risks?” I question. “We’re not talking some minor little surgery here. This is serious shit. This could literally mean life or death for me.”

  “Yeah, but you’re a painter, Ans. A fucking artist,” he says quietly. “And we both know losing your vision was like losing your soul. As far as you’re concerned, you might as well be dead already.”

  I wish I could refute his words. I wish I could call bullshit.

  But the truth is, I’m a shell of the man I once was.

  Some might say a painter’s most important asset is his hands, but I disagree.

  The eyes are the windows to the soul, and once those windows are closed, darkness seeps in and spreads its roots like ivy. And without a soul to inspire and connect and create, hands are just hands.

  Fucking hands I can’t even fucking see.

  Ansel

  “Well, look who finally decided to grace me with his presence.” Unfortunately, my assistant’s far too cheery voice is the first thing I hear as I step foot inside the entrance of my office and studio on the Upper East Side. “What’s it been? Two? Three weeks?”

  Her enjoyment makes me grimace, and my grimace pulls at my temples and, like a domino effect, the hangover headache that’s been beating against my skull all morning is magnified.

  “Apparently, not long enough,” I retort and she laughs.

  Last night, I let whiskey take the wheel. And while she proved to be quite the enchanting beauty then, this morning, she’s serving up quite the sucker punch.

  It took me a good two hours to get myself moving, shove enough coffee, ibuprofen, and toast into my body to quell the urge to vomit, and call Hank, my driver, to pick me up and bring me here.

  Obviously, besides the whiskey last night, it’s the worst idea I’ve had in the past twenty-four hours.

  Lucy smacks her lips, and it sounds like a cat having a seizure. Good God.

  “Are you chewing gum?” I ask with distaste.

  “Yep,” she answers and, as if the revolting sound isn’t enough, my mind fills with an old memory of her sitting by the sleek desk in my front office, chomping on Bubble Yum like a heathen.

  �
��Spit the gum out,” I order.

  “So,” she says, ignoring my command completely, “do tell what brought you in on this rare occasion.”

  “Certainly not your office decorum.”

  She doesn’t respond. Not with words, anyway. But I’m almost positive there were a few rude gestures.

  “You’ve left me nearly fifty voice mails about assholes wanting to buy my paintings.”

  “Huh. Who would’ve thought fifty was the magic number that would finally drag your cranky ass into work?”

  “I’d say it’s lovely to see you again, but we both know I’d be lying,” I retort with a shadow of a grin. “And that wasn’t a blind joke either.”

  When it comes to Lucy, she is, hands down, the worst assistant who has ever assisted anyone. But what she lacks in proficiency and actual work ethic, she makes up for in the ability to handle my dickish tendencies.

  Whatever I dish her way, she throws right back at me. The girl has the kind of backbone that would make even the biggest macho bastard look like a pussy.

  And, the icing on the cake, she doesn’t have a single sympathetic bone in her body.

  Lucy cares about herself and no one else, and she’s far too self-involved to help anyone else.

  It’s those qualities that have kept her on my payroll despite the nature of the last year.

  I know I’ll never sense pity or sadness in her voice. I’ll never feel like she’s going out of her way to accommodate me. Honestly, she’s about the only person in my life who hasn’t changed the way she treats me.

  All of a sudden, the truth hits me, and I almost trip over my cane.

  It’s kind of a horrible discovery to find out I might actually like her.

  “Don’t be such an ass,” she responds through a laugh. “And, for the love of God, make some decisions. Sell your paintings. Don’t sell your paintings. It doesn’t matter to me. But please figure it out, so I don’t have to keep fielding all of these calls.”

  “It’s tough, isn’t it, Luce?” I retort. “Having to answer actual calls and do work.”

  If I were a betting man, I’d give some damn good odds that she’s rolling her eyes right now.

  “You know I hate answering the phones,” she whines.

  Yep. Definitely rolling her eyes.