The Painting

Three years.

It was three years when Anna and I were apart. We still saw each other, but we did nothing together. She finished her last year of school and she worked odd jobs to save up for art school in New York and had moved there a year ago. Art was her passion and she pursued her dreams to the fullest. She was a woman with a passionate soul, somewhat like a kindred spirit like me since I had music as my passion.

My son, James was born seven months after Anna and I said our goodbyes. He was a healthy boy, with no complications. We called him James after Jimmy, after he threatened to blackmail us if we didn’t name our son after him. It was all in good nature and we liked that name anyway. I stayed with Michelle all the way through. Our relationship wasn’t truly happy, because there was no spark, nothing to ignite that fire that bound lovers as whole. But we managed to make it work as best friends in a relationship for the sake of James.

After when James was born, I finally properly joined Avenged Sevenfold in touring and recording. I refused at first for obvious reasons, but I realised I needed some sort of income to support Michelle and James. So I packed my guitar and set out on my dream. We quickly became big. Being on tour was the times I could forget about Michelle and surround myself with drinking and girls. Despite that, I still thought about James and all of those times I was going to miss out on him.

I was on tour when I finally saw Anna for the first time in a year. We had a show in New York. It was after a successful show. I was smoking out on the back alley, hidden away from annoying pestering people. I revelled in the solitude. It was difficult to be alone on tour, but here was the moment and I planned to enjoy it as much as possible. I leant back on the wall, swinging my left arm lazily. I studied the alleyway. It was near pitch black in darkness save for the light that illuminated the exit door nest to me.

My ears perked up as I heard voices. There weren’t any fences or anything since the venue was a small one within an inner city building. Anyone could walk past me. I pushed myself off the bricked wall to see two girls turning the corner. One of them was pulling out a smoke to light it. They paused in their path when the taller one caught sight of me, seemingly surprised.

“Hey.” She said, raising her hand in greeting. She was the one without the cigarette. She had long blonde hair with a body that could have men eating out of her palm. She was pretty much my type for a quick bang. The other one had her head bowed down, so I couldn’t make out her features.

“Hey.” I raised my eyebrow. The other girl finished igniting her smoke and she finally looked up to meet my eyes. I totally could recognise those brown eyes anywhere. She still had the same brown bob haircut. Pretty much nothing had changed apart from that she had become more womanly.

“Anna?” I smiled, elated that I saw her once more. Her face expressed shock, her pink lips in an adorable oval. She blinked before replying.

“Brian.” She nodded to me before taking a drag of her smoke.

“You’re smoking again. I thought you quit?”

“Art school does that to you. I’m surprised you aren’t dead yet from all of that smoking.” She cocked an eyebrow offhandedly. I gave a chuckle, covering up the fact that I felt somewhat disheartened at her attitude. It was as if nothing had ever happened between us. Was she over me? God knew when I would ever be over her.

“You know each other?” the blonde friend interrupted, clueless.

“Of course. Jimmy is my brother, you know.” Anna chuckled.

“Oh right. Silly me.” She giggled, smiling at me coyly. I decided that she was far from my type now. She didn’t matter now that Anna was here.

“Oh, my bad, Frankie, Brian. Brian, Frankie.” Anna lazily introduced us with a flick of her hand. Frankie gave me a hundred watt smile as she offered her hand. I politely smiled and shook her hand. My eyes and heart solely belonged to Anna.

“So… what are you doing here?” I said after a short silence.

“What? Is there a law that I can’t see my brother perform?” she said harshly to me. I was taken aback from her tone. I rolled my eyes as we were interrupted by the door slamming open. Jimmy peeked out to me and indicated that I come inside. I groaned as I flicked away my cigarette butt. A loud shriek met my ears and I winced in the sound.

“JIMMY!”

“ANNA!” Jimmy had bolted from the door, picked up Anna and gave her an enormous hug. He spun her around with loud giggles spilling out from her lips. Envy flooded from my hairline to my toes, wishing that it was me making her laugh like that. They finally broke apart, chatting animatedly. He dragged her back into the doorway, Frankie in tow. After a moment, Jimmy once again poked his head out. He stared at me enigmatically for a minute.

“You come with me too.” He finished and disappeared. I followed them inside. We walked through a white hallway, roadies and crew members bustling around wrapping up this night. Jimmy and Anna were still conversing. Frankie slowed down, falling in stride with me. I gave her a tight smile. I didn’t want to be with her.

“You play the guitar, right?” she nodded to me slowly, her voice seemingly interested.

“Yep.” I replied shortly.

“You were amazing up there.” She gave me a nudge.

“Thanks.” We went on like this for the rest of the way to the dressing room. She was constantly asking me questions and I always answered with one word replies. Zack came to my rescue by pulling me away, muttering something about an accompanying harmony to a riff, I wasn’t too sure. The topic didn’t matter to me. I just needed to get away from Frankie and hoped to hell that I would manage to get to Anna at some point tonight.

The whole time when we gathered in the dressing room to hang around and drink, my eyes always flicked to Anna. She seemed to ignore me the whole time, directing her attention to anyone but me. Later, when people began to disperse, either to move on to another place or to go home, I had enough of Anna’s behaviour. I reached to her as she was laughing with one of our roadies, Jason Berry. I clutched her arm and dragged her off before she could even finish her conversation.

Growling, she attempted to twist her wrist free from my iron grip, but I wasn’t letting her go anytime soon. I pulled us into an empty room and slammed the door shut, encasing us in silence. I stonily stared at her as she glowered to me, fuming.

“That’s rude of you to drag me off like this!” she broke the silence, hissing.

“What the fuck was that tonight?” I growled back, ignoring her previous statement.

“Seeing friends.” She said simply.

“Oh, so I’m not even your friend anymore? What happened to-“ I was cut off.

“That went void the day I walked away from you.”

“I thought… I explained to you. You weren’t like this until now.”

Anna rubbed her face, sighing loudly. “This isn’t happening.” She sidestepped me to make for the door but I blocked her way. “Let me out.” She poked my chest. I defiantly shook my head. She sent me a threatening glare. I didn’t budge. Instead, I cupped her face and crushed my lips to hers. She resisted, pushing me away but I held her tight in my arms. Gradually, she melted against me, moving her lips back against mine. Kissing her once again was the most satisfying thing in a long time. I had missed her lips, her curves against me and her arms around me.

Slowly, we pulled apart, breathing heavily from the magnitude of our kiss. Her cheeks were flushed. She punched my chest with an “I hate you.” But I quickly silenced her with another kiss. This led to another and soon, we were rushing out from the venue to drive over to her place to finish what I had started.

I cracked my eyes open, half of my face mushed on the white pillow. I felt a warm body against mine, arms and legs wrapped around me like a koala. I snuggled in the body, recognising her delicate skin and musky scent as Anna. Her head was nestled deeply under my chin. My heart swelled at the closeness we had shared. I laid here, revelling in the peaceful moment until the shrill ring of my phone blared from the bedside table. I groaned, untangling myself from Anna to reach for it.

“Yello?” I lazily groaned.

“Where the fuck are you? We’re supposed to leave in an hour to New Jersey.” Matt replied. I cursed, slamming my hand to my head.

“I’m coming, I’m coming. Gimme a half hour.” I quickly muttered in the speaker before ending the call. I threw my phone down next to me on the mattress. Arms slid around me as Anna kissed in between my shoulder blades. I moaned in the sensation before gently pulling her arms away from me.

“Matt?” she questioned knowingly. I nodded, getting up to drag on my clothes from last night. I leant in to kiss her one more time.

“I promise I’ll come back to see you someday. I’ll write down my number somewhere.” I duly vowed.

“Promise?”

“Pinkie promise.” I linked our pinkies together, smiling. She giggled before pulling in for another kiss.

“I love you.” I reminded her. We already had said it to each other in feverish passion the night before.

“I love you too.” She echoed. With a last glace at her glowing form on the bed, I exited the bedroom. I took the chance to look around her apartment since I was too busy with her last night. She lived above an old bookstore. The apartment was small and cluttered but bright and cosy. There were heaps of paintings, on the floor, on easels and on the walls. The bright morning light illuminated the bright colours on the canvas. I gaped at them. She was pretty damn good. All of them were very detailed and colourful.

“Like them?” Anna said from the doorframe of her bedroom, catching me off guard.

“Yeah... they’re fucking amazing.” I dragged my gaze from the paintings to her. She wasn’t shy or abashed, but cocky and confident. I liked that she knew she was good.

“Thanks.” She had a small smile playing on her lips. ‘I thought you got a tour bus to catch?”

A profanity fell from my lips. I almost had forgotten about my job after looking at those beautiful paintings. I quickly scribbled my number on a piece of paper, gave Anna a lingering hug and left her place.

We continued to see each other, by visiting over to each other’s places. I mostly came over to hers, either during on tour or by flights. I sometimes brought my son over to see her. She loved James. She would dote on him and bid to his every command. I wished so badly that I had a family with her, but Michelle was still important to me and she was James’ mother. I refused to leave Michelle because the last thing I wanted for my son was a broken home.

”Hey! I think I remember her! She used to give me a huge pencil case of every kind of pens and pencils and I would show off my drawings to her.” James piped up, contorting his face trying to remember that fuzzy piece of memory. The older man chuckled and nodded, remembering it too.

James also had a vague vision of assorted paintings on a white wall. But for the life of him, he couldn’t recall what they consisted of. But he could remember the vibrancy of the shapes and colours. To come to think of it, the style was a lot similar to the painting hanging in his room. He had no idea how he never made that connection. He peered up to his dad expectantly, beseeching him to carry on. He glanced up to the clock on James’ wall. It was already late, but he decided to continue anyway.

But one day, everything went terribly wrong. Terribly, horribly wrong. It was on a day when I flew over to see her once again after months of missing her small pretty face. I eagerly scrambled up the stairs to her front door, my backpack bumping on my back from me juggling around in sheer excitement. I jingled out the keys that Anna had given me and it took me a few attempts to slide it in the keyhole and unlock me to my love.

I burst the door open to be met with silence. I frowned in confusion. Normally, she was waiting and she always noisily attached herself to me the very second she laid her eyes on me. There was nobody in the combined living space, kitchen and studio. I dropped my backpack on the floor with a thump and I made for the bedroom. I opened the door to find Anna sitting on the bed, her back facing me. She was smoking a cigarette; the room was laden with smoke.

“Anna?” I called out to her, concerned. I never had seen her like this before.

“We hardly ever see each other much anymore.” She finally muttered in between bursts of cigarette smoke.

“I know, baby. I try to see you as much as I could. I really do try…” I climbed on the bed, reaching the rear of Anna’s form. I stroked her back as I nuzzled into her neck, inhaling her heavenly perfume. I planted a singular kiss on her neck before pulling her in my embrace.

“Seven months is a long time.” She sighed, sniffling.

“I know. I’m sorry.” I hugged her tighter. She put out her cigarette on the silver ashtray on her bedside table and delved deeper into me. She glanced up to me after a moment. I saw that she had tear tracks down her cheeks and her eyelashes sticky with tears. Her eyes were dull and morose. My heart ached. I hated seeing her in distress.

“Don’t cry.” I murmured, gently scrubbing away her tears.

“Leave her and stay with me please.” She muttered, her voice so quiet but I could catch her words.

“Darling, you know I can’t do that.” I groaned regretfully.

“I want you to come home to me when you finish tour. I want to be the woman you come home to.”

“Anna…”

“I can’t take it anymore. I get so lonely that it really hurts and I really, really loathe knowing that you have a family the other side of the country. I hate waiting for you for so long.”

“I’m sorry…” I trailed off. She suddenly turned around and straddled me, squishing our bodies closer as she laid kisses all over my neck, earlobes and lips.

“Come live with me…” She said breathily in between kisses. “You can even take… James with you… Please come home to me.” The way she was grinding against me really turned me on, but I had to push her away. She had to understand that I also had James’ wellbeing in mind too. She looked hurt when I gently nudged her away.

“Do you even want me?” I never had seen her esteem this low ever. I set myself at her level.

“Of course I do want you!”

“Then you could-“ I cut her off with a blistering kiss.

“Anna, I told you. I can’t let my son deal with divorce.” I tried reasoning with her.

“So? James will still see both of you.” She scrunched up her face fiercely before continuing. “I don’t think he would ever want to see his parents never loving each other. I mean, what difference would it make? You hardly ever see him anyway.” Now, that hit a nerve within me. I shot up from the bed.

“I had enough!” I roared. “I have so much fucking commitments to make. First, to my son, then my job and you! I tried and worked so hard to divide my time between all of you! I’m so fucking sorry that I can’t devote all of my time to you! I at least hoped you would understand. Guess not.” My nose was flaring. I felt like I was torn apart, finding it difficult on what to choose and what to do. A migraine had begun to throb in my head. Anna was still sitting on the bed, staring at me, taken aback. Her lips opened and closed like a fish.

“Brian...” Her lips trembled.

“Anna, don’t. I need… I need to be myself for now.” I strode away from her and went outside. I pulled out my pack of Marlboros. I lit one, the cigarette only slightly making me feel better. My headache didn’t go away though. I stayed downstairs for ten minutes to cool off. I climbed back upstairs. But halfway climbing up, I had an awful feeling in my stomach. It was like a hunch, like something dreadful was going to happen. I rushed the rest of the way upstairs, scrambled through her studio to her bedroom.

I saw her body lying on the bed. She wasn’t moving. A lump settled in my throat as I rushed to her side. I shook her body but she refused to respond. Her chest wasn’t moving.

“Anna?” My voice went high with fear as I frantically flogged her, silently begging her to wake up. I checked her pulse through her wrist. No pulse. I pushed up the sleeves of my black dress shirt and pumped her chest a couple of times, checking for any sign of life in between compressions. I carried on doing it for what seemed like hours. But dread and shocking realisation hit me like a freight train. She was dead. Disappeared to meet her master. Deceased. Bereft of life. Gone.

I stumbled down on the floor, tears daring to fall down my cheeks. A hole formed inside of me, sucking out any hope and intensified the despair and sorrow. It was like part of me was gone, like I was incomplete. My heart wrenched and twisted painfully at my loss. I only ever found the courage to leave the cold corpse of my true love to call the ambulance. I remembered the wailing sirens of the ambulance and the flurry of personnel attending to Anna. I was barely there anymore, too anguished to even think or move.

It was concluded that Anna died from Broken Heart Syndrome. It happens when the heart was put under too much emotional stress and went under cardiac arrest. To be put in short, she had a heart attack after our distressful argument. A funeral had been arranged by the Sullivan family. They decided to bury her back at home, at Huntington Beach.

When I stood next to the casket which was about to be lowered, I was horrified to know that the very body of the woman I love was about to be put six foot under forever. That piece of earth would keep us apart. Jimmy and his family were definitely extremely distraught. I felt the same pain, maybe somewhat different. But like them, we felt incomplete without the intelligent and talented woman that we all had grown to love.

Michelle had confessed to me that she knew of my affair with Anna but she never did anything about it because she understood my fear of messing up our son’s world if we split. But we did anyway, with James’s blessing. We had sat him down and explained to him why Michelle and I weren’t exactly working anymore. He, as a mature ten-year-old, accepted it.

I had worked up the resolve to return to Anna’s house, for a way of saying goodbye. Jimmy had come with me, but he left me alone once we went inside. As I walked through the once familiar room, bad recollections shot through my mind. Echoes of that siren wail and the sheet covered gurney being pushed in the ambulance flashed before my eyes. I blinked the memories away. The studio was empty. It looked so cold and forlorn without her various canvases and scattered paint tubes and brushes. I turned into the bedroom and I saw it.

The painting of her. Her heart shaped face boldly situated, her pointy nose up high and a small smirk on her lips. Her eyes had the exact twinkle I saw when I first met her. Bright colours surrounded her powerfully, reflecting her bold personality. Every line painted, I knew, was made with love. Tears brimmed at my eyes upon taking sight of this stunning painting.

“She painted it after she found out that you got Michelle pregnant. I remember that she was pretty upset. She loved you, you know.” Jimmy spoke from behind me. “It’s for you.” I nodded in response, wasn’t able to speak. We stood there, admiring the painting in silence.

”I took it and hung it up in your room. That is the story behind the painting.” The father ended with a melancholy sigh. He glanced to his son, who had his head bowed. The man looked at the clock once more. It was at three in the morning. His eyes widened at the amount of time spent.

“James, it’s time for bed.”

“Alright.” James agreed. Just now, he felt the fatigue weighing down on him. He was too enthralled in his father’s story to actually notice that he was tired. He could still feel the ebbs of the emotional tale, the heavy depression and fiery passion all mixed together. He had never expected to hear a story like that from his father, but he was glad to hear of it. It was as if the weight of him never knowing what the painting that always hung in this room had disappeared and in a matter of hours, he and his father had grown even closer.

He crawled inside his bed and fell asleep with a smile on his face as he dreamt of the woman in the painting.