The Half That You See by Rebecca Rowland (best summer reads .TXT) 📕

of your phone as you focused on the blood on my frame. How it seemed to shine against the gold. Dripping onto the canvas and mixing into the paint of my hair.

That spark in your eyes twinkled once again as you scrambled to your colored pencils—every shade of red you could find—and began to draw. The grip on your pencil was so tight that I believed you’d break your fragile fingers. But determined as you were to recreate an image in your mind, it was a certain color you set to recreate, and a painting that needed to be realized.

You sketched and sketched the same broken face of a woman that began as your friend Amanda but shifted with each sketch into someone else, someone you didn’t know but someone whose broken face you needed to perfect. You settled on a woman, broken glass decorating her cheeks and face while her hair danced across the sketch. Despite the blood and pain, she had a calm expression with a tiny smile that made the viewer wonder what she could be smiling about. It was a secret only you understood.

Satisfied with the reference, the real work began.

You selected a canvas, the largest one you had, and sketched and tried to paint, but all the shades of red you had just weren’t dark enough. Not red enough. There was red on your face, red on the frame, red in my hair, and red everywhere, but you couldn’t replicate the one in your mind. Everything was too dark or too light. No matter how much paint you mixed, it just didn’t look right.

You looked at the blood on the frame: dried, crusty, and deep, dark red. You laid out the different shades that you wanted to use. You smashed the small mirror on your desk and selected the largest and sharpest piece. You pierced it into your skin, making a large cut in your hand.

Blood poured onto the paints in sloppy precision. You squeezed your hand for more.

I was intrigued by the way you swirled the paint and blood around, picking up the brush and beginning to paint.

Light red, a darker red, so much red into this one painting, but it still wasn’t good enough for you. Each cut into your hand, then into your arms, was harsh and cruel while the painting strokes danced across the canvas, light and delicate with all the love you could muster.

Your face scrunched in fury as you attempted to finish the masterpiece. You looked to me when the pain was too much, melting any rage you had, and gave me a soft smile before returning to work.

I don’t know how long you stood there. I watched as your pale figure continued to grow whiter. You ignored everything for this work of art: the calls from concerned family, the pounding at the door, the threats from your landlord, and your own weak body.

Your arms bled out on the floor and your hand grew shaky as you placed the final perfect touches. Did your feet begin to ache? Did your vision begin to blur? Did you feel anything as you slid to the floor?

You stared up at your finished piece, a monochromatic painting of a smiling woman crafted in your blood, sweat, and tears. If only you had saved enough energy to truly admire it. It was our final masterpiece.

You crawled to me, smiling the weakest smile I had ever seen. Your hand was outstretched as if I could have reached back for you. To caress your face, tell you how wonderful you were, and kiss your wounds. Even if I could have touched you, I never would. That didn’t stop you imagining it before your eyes rolled into your skull and you collapsed on the floor.

The portrait is beautiful—really it is— and that adds to the mystery of your madness. I will say you captured my face perfectly well, though I can’t be sure if you knew that. I couldn’t help but admire your best work and wished I could have taken a closer look. I imagined myself stepping over your corpse and taking the painting, giving it to an art gallery, and walking away. Hands clean from your obsession and free to finally move on. But for the next few days, long and slow moving as they were, I sat there watching your corpse wither away.

Outside I can hear the sirens and the sounds of someone pounding on the door. I find myself a little surprised it took so long for someone to get here.

The police knock down the door and gaze at the mess you left behind. Some investigate and examine, while others cover your body. One officer looks at me and audibly gags. He requests that I be covered up and I am cast in shadows. Amongst the voices I hear someone compliment us, how strangely beautiful “the blood painting” is and musing about who “the girl” might be. Others voice their disgust, chastising people for staring like they’re in a museum. To clean up the mess you made.

They are moving us now. Your body will go to the morgue, where they will search for an explanation of your death. A funeral will probably happen months later, where your family will cry and your father will regret letting you go. Your friends, who you isolated, won’t go and probably will say good riddance! But maybe they will go. I can’t say for certain. All I can do is speculate.

But what of your labor of love? Will they store it away or sell it off in an auction? Maybe they will be smart and bury it in the trash. If I had a choice, I would burn it and pour the ashes down the drain.

And as I am placed in a cold storage unit labeled Evidence, I will wish that they had burned me and let me fade into your mysterious death, a death that will be speculated on and questioned for centuries to come with