Super Avenged

I led the way into the third bedroom that I had converted to a studio. Jimmy stepped in behind me and instantly stopped to marvel at the room. Half-finished paintings lined the bases of the walls, resting dormant against the walls until I would decide to continue them. Some were abstract paintings, twisted with colors and ghoulish images. Others were portraits of the building across my balcony. Still others were of dawn, shoots of color spraying from the horizon.

Photos were tacked to the wall above the paintings. They were photos of everything. I would take the picture, develop them, and then tack them to the wall for viewing. Once I found a select few pictures that were absolutely amazing, those would be put in the art galleries. The rest would remain in the studio forever, gathering dust and praying hopelessly to be shown off to the rest of the world.

The walls themselves were something to behold. Every once in a while, I would empty out my studio, put plastic on the carpet, buy cans of paint, and just splatter the paint all over the walls. So, all four walls and even the ceiling were splashed with dots and smears of different colors. To some it would appear annoying and chaotic, but to me, it was pure inspiration. And it was fun too.

But I stalked right past the paintings and photographs to the closet door in the corner. Crouching down, I moved paintings away from the door and straightened to my feet again. I wrapped my fingers around the doorknob, glanced back over my shoulder to see Jimmy gawking at my art, and pulled the door open.

Inside the closet was a giant plastic tub shrouded in a thick navy blue blanket. Taking a deep breath, I fisted the soft cloth in my hand and pulled the blanket delicately off of the tub, almost like I was uncovering a mummy rather than a clear plastic tub. I abandoned the blanket on the ground and pulled the tub out into the studio.

“Stop gawking and come over here,” I snapped over my shoulder. “I’m only telling you this once.”

“Sorry, sorry,” Jimmy apologized. He hurried over and sat down across from me, beside the plastic tub. I sighed and closed my eyes for a few moments, patting the blue top of the tub.

“Inside this tub is my life through drawings,” I began, opening my eyes again. Jimmy watched me intently, clearly hanging on to my every word. “There are about thirty sketchbooks in here, one or two for each year since I began to draw.” I rose up onto my knees to pull the lid off. I dug through the sketchbooks to the one on the very bottom, and dragged it out from beneath all the others. Flipping it open to the first page, I turned it around to show Jimmy a very crude drawing of a Christmas tree and sank back on my legs.

“This is my first drawing ever,” I told Jimmy. “I got this sketchbook for Christmas my kindergarten year. My mother had seen me get so much joy out of drawing with chalk, and decided to get me a sketchbook. None of the sketches are very good, but they’re a hell of a lot better than most kids could draw.” I closed the sketchbook and set it beside me. I began to search through the sketchbooks again, looking for one of the more recent ones. Finally, I found one I was looking for. I leafed through it before finally finding what I was looking for.

“This is the sketchbook from my sophomore year in college. And that,” I turned the sketchbook around to show Jimmy the drawing of a handsome young man with tightly curled hair and a beautiful smile, “is Brendan.” I put the sketchbook on the carpet between us and began to leaf through it. “And all these sketches depict what I call The Brendan Chronicles.” Most of the sketches were of Brendan posing next to a tree, or smiling a different smile, or concentrating on a project. Any sketches that weren’t of Brendan were happy sketches, about happy things, like a fully intact heart or flowers or something.

“Brendan was the coolest guy on the planet to me,” I continued, still leafing through the sketchbook for Jimmy’s benefit. “I loved him with all my heart, and I thought he truly loved me back. We spent every waking moment that we could together. If we weren’t taking classes, we were hanging out together. He was taking a class for computer design. You know, he might design the credits for a movie or something. I remember it as the best time of my life.”

I closed the sketchbook and set it on top of my first sketchbook ever. I quickly found the next sketchbook that I wanted and began flipping through it as well.

“This is the end of The Brendan Chronicles,” I continued. I stopped about a fourth of the way into the sketchbook. “This is the last sketch I made before...well, before it happened.” The sketch was one of Brendan, smiling as innocent as could be. It hurt my heart to just look at it. “Brendan was older than me. I was only twenty, and he was twenty-two. He could drink, while I couldn’t. He always offered to have a fake ID made for me, but I always refused. Even before then, I knew I would never drink. But he drank. He drank until he was drunk off his ass. And then, he would come to me. Most nights, he was perfectly okay. We would talk a bit, and then he would fall asleep. He’d wake up in the morning to me holding a Tylenol and a smile.

“But one night...he just...shattered me,” I said. “He started saying things. The conversation started innocent enough, with him telling me how beautiful he thought I was. But then, he started saying that my beauty was all he liked about me. ‘I love your body, Miya,’ he told me, ‘and that’s all I love.’ All that time, he hadn’t cared about my personality. He was too busy staring at my chest and ass and body. I was so love-struck that I never even noticed. And you know the old saying, ‘A drunken man’s words are a sober man’s thoughts.’ Well, it really meant something to me then.

“So, I started to tell Brendan that I wanted nothing more to do with him. I told him, and he was silent for a few moments. And then, he just attacked. He leaped at me and knocked me down. My head hit the wall really hard, and it knocked me out almost instantly. The next thing I remember is waking up the next morning with the worst headache ever. I went to the hospital to make sure I wasn’t seriously injured. I told the police what had happened, they arrested Brendan, and he went to jail for about five months for assault.”

I turned the sketchbook page. The first drawing was of a broken heart, split right in two, shaded as dark as I could make it. The next drawing was of a broken heart as well, except this heart had a twisted, broken face on it.

“There is a clear difference between what I was feeling,” I commented. I flipped through the rest of the sketchbook, and most of the sketches were of broken hearts and broken faces, along with other darker sketches of a skeletal heart and all sorts of other things. “I call this the Post-Brendan Demise. For about six months afterward, I was completely broken. I don’t know why it shattered my soul like it did. I mean, he was one guy. But I had been thinking of spending my entire life with that guy, and then only to learn that it had all been a lie, a big lie to get in my pants! Which never did happen, thank God. I kept our relationship purely without sex, because I didn’t want the responsibility it could bring.”

“But...I don’t want to sound pessimistic here, but couldn’t that guy have raped you when you were knocked out?” Jimmy asked.

“Don’t think I didn’t think that,” I answered. “I was right worried about that, since he had said he only wanted my body. But there are tests they can perform to see if there’s any damage to the tissue or whatever, and I had those tests done, and I hadn’t been raped. And it hadn’t felt like I’d been raped either. I’m quite grateful for that.”

I stacked the sketchbook on top of the other two and grabbed another one out of the tub. I opened it up, and the first sketch wasn’t dark like the previous ones had been. It was a good mix of the dark and the light. It was a sketch of a tree, with one half healthy and alive, while the other half was skeletal and empty.

“And thus begins The Recovery Stage,” I explained. “I thought this tree represented me quite well. I was on my way to being better, but the darkness of my broken heart would forever remain with me. But that was okay. It would give me wisdom for later years.” I began to leaf through the sketchbook. Gradually, the sketches got happier and happier, but each and every one had a sad undertone to it that no one would really notice unless they had experienced what I had, like the rotten fruit buried in a bucket of healthy fruit.

With a snap, I closed the sketchbook and placed it in the pile of sketchbooks beside me. I looked up at Jimmy, and he was staring back at me. I couldn’t read his expression, though. It was an odd mix of emotions that I couldn’t define with words.

“Congratulations,” I told him. “You are the first to hear that story.”

“That’s why you are so bitter about men,” Jimmy muttered. “It all makes sense now.”

“I’m glad,” I said truthfully as I put the sketchbooks back in the tub. I snapped the lid closed and shoved the tub back into the closet. I threw the blanket back over it before closing the door again. Wiping my hands on my jeans, I turned around. Instantly, Jimmy’s arms wrapped me up in a hug. And instead of resisting, I just wrapped my arms back around him and buried my face in his chest.

We both knew our relationship would never be the same.