In The End, The Villain Was Me

The Painter

She was really proud of her drawing. I could tell just by the way she looked at it with fond eyes. By the way she showed it off with a certain amount of pride and excitement. She worked on the painting for a few months, I remember. She always kept it hidden. Making sure no one else could see it before it was finished. Before she was ready.

She turned her expectant and nervous eyes towards me. I could feel the wave of admiration she held towards the piece. Perhaps it turned out exactly like she envisioned. After all, an artists ideal will never become the product that would be formed in the end. But even more than her admiration, I sensed a certain idea of hatred. Hatred towards the art, hatred towards herself. A certain type of self-criticism that would lead the individual down a road of no return.

I turned towards the painting. Encapsulated within the canvas was a young girl bound by chains. Her back was turned so one could only see the large expanse of pale skin contrasted with a bleeding rose tattooed onto it. Her dark hair cascading down her bare body as the chains dug deep into her skin. Cutting into the rose and her skin, letting the blood drip down into the abyss. The blood flowed freely and even if you could barely see the girl's face, you could tell her face was filled with desperation. Under the right ear, was an off coloured stain which to the naked eye one would mistake for a coffee stain. But it was a birthmark. The background was filled with a dark burgundy colour. Nothing inside the background. Just a dark colour expanding against the wall.

There was an air of self-loathing and despondency emanating from the painting. An air of something worse and something forgotten. A feeling locked deep within the heart but could never be reached. This was the girl in the painting and the emptiness in her heart.

Trapped and stuck in canvas. Broken to the point of no repair. Confined by the chains of the world.

"This," I muttered.

"Yes?"

"This girl in the painting."

"Isn't it perfect?"

I knew the girl in the painting. In fact, I was the closest to her in the moment. I turned to my left. She looked at me with clear eyes. She knew what she was doing and she knew that I figured it out. But she didn't say anything. She just continued to look at me with those expectant eyes.

I brought my hand up towards her dark hair, lifting it to reveal the off-coloured birthmark under her right ear.

"Why," I whispered, afraid to break the delicate air surrounding the painting.

She giggled, "isn't it perfect?"

She lost herself. She was delusional.

But we both knew we couldn't help her. No one could. Not me and not the others that she would show this painting to. She wanted me to lie. To let her live in her illusion so she didn't have to become even worse than the girl in the painting.

She was waiting.

"Yes."

*Won't you tell me you love me?*