Sometimes it snows in April

The painter and the lover

I was pretty young, perhaps 20. All my years with him are blurry. Half of the things he has done to me I cannot remember. My mind destroyed the middle, it was a waste of time. From the perfect start to the last line. The first time I met him was romantic, he was romantic, he was beautiful and most of all he was kind. 

Several years ago 

The art gallery is showing one of my favourite paintings so I decide to go to the gallery. When I arrive I'm in awe. All the paintings have venuine beauty and a feeling they carry. I'm Looking at a pre Raphaelite painting and sketching it when someone comes up to me and looks at what I'm drawing. I turn up the volume on my headphones to ignore him. After some time I look up, a beautiful man in standing beside me. His eyes are greenish blue, he's not very tall but not short, he has short white blonde hair that makes him look like and angel. And he's wearing a suit. I ask myself when I realize he isn't looking at my drawing but at me. I take off my headphones. "Hi, do I know you?" He shakes his head and sits down beside me. "Nope, I'm a stranger. Beautiful sketch." He answers. "Thank you" I answer. "Art is mesmerising isn't it?" I nod "sometimes people are like art, their faces look sculpted and their hair drawn to perfection, every single hair different. Their eyes look like their own paintings." He says. "I've never seen people like that. Or at least I didn't look at then like that, but that's quite beautiful." I say. "You have the energy of an ancient painting. You look like you know what happened in all those ages on earth. You look like a god to be completely honest. You don't look human, you're too perfect." I chuckle and put away my pencil. "Thank you I think. I'm Theodore." "Nice to meet you, I'm Lachlan." I nod. "It's nice to meet you indeed." He hands me a card. "I'd like to paint you Theo, of course only if you're comfortable with that." I smile. "I'd think I'd quite like that."

So not more than a week later I pose for a painting. When it's done it's beautiful and it's the first one ever that receives praise. Everyone things that the model isn't real, they think it's a fantasy character. And the thing is Lachlan tells them it's someone who appeared in his dream. But I got it and I wouldn't want to ruin his first ever fame. We had lunches together and started to hang out with his friends, he began to hang out with mine. We slowly began to develop a genuine friendship, a genuine love for eachother. Not much later he asked me for the first real date. We went to the art gallery where we met and to my surprise he managed to get one of his works in there. I was so proud of him. Our friendship blossomed into an intamate relationship and soon we found ourselves living together and doing everything we can together. We were the couple people wished they could be, we were the power couple, the couple who was genuinly in love, the two boys who have fond the life they always wanted. But all of that was far from the truth not long after we moved in together he started getting violent and started to degrade me and insult me. I remember the time I should've known he isn't someone you would like to marry.

We were talking about new paintings he was going to make. He told me the idea of one portrait with my back turned on the audience with my visible scars.

Lachlan seemed so extremely exited about it. "Lachlan, I'm so sorry. But I'm not comfortable with my scars and I really don't want them on a painting. The only reason you know i've got scars is because I trust you darling." I answer. "But my love, no one will know it's you. You're still anonymous in my art. No one will know it's you." I get tense. "I don't want it Lachlan and that's my final answer, I'm sorry but I need to go now. I need to teach." I remember having a weird feeling in my stomach the entire day.

When I came home I saw he was painting a portrait, of me with my back turned. I was furious but didn't want to discredit the art so we spoke about it and decided he was allowed to make it but he wouldn't release it to the public.

I have had several depressions, one when I was with lachlan, it wasn't one of my worst ones but it was still pretty severe altough I just went to my job and did everything necesarry in my life. Before that he had already started hitting me but it wouldn't leave a mark untill then. He seemed to hate me because I was so extremely down. He didn't want to hug me when I was feeling touchy, made comments about me cleaning not cleaning up while I still had a full-time job (he did not) and would demand love and affection when he needed it. Even when I was exhausted. So the first bad accident happened in that time.

I came home early, oxford had a short day because it was almost holiday season. I came home, tired and looking for someone to hear me out about my day. Which had been quite awful. The hall is weirdly silent, so I yell "I'm home", no answer. That's weird for Lachlan, he mostly welcomes me home with a kiss. I walk to our room, the door is closed, what's kinda weird. I open the door. Tears fill my eyes "You fucking son of a bitch!" I scream and storm down the stairs. Lachlan follows me, zipping up his fly and with an open shirt. I stop in the hall and turn around. "Who is that?" "It's no one darling, don't worry." "fuck you lachlan! it's no one? you were fucking with him? if that's no one, who am I? Nobody?" "Don't be so fucking dramatic and understand me for once. You're 'depressed', messy and you're even beginning to look fat. Does that sound like fun Theo?" my eyes fill with tears. "Get out of my house." he looks me dead in the eye and before I know whats happening I feel a punch in my ribs. Later I'd find out they were broken. I've never felt more hurt before, in my heart and physically.

A year or so later we are having an argument when I'm finished with his bullshit. He punches the wall beside me but I ignore it, grab my coat from the rack and want to go outside when I feel him grabbing my arm. I look at him "Please let go." but instead of letting go he turns my arm when I hear a numbing snap and my whole arm starts to burn.

when I'm at the doctors it turns out it's broken, which I suspected to be honest. The doctor looks at me with a seriou gaze. "Mister Cavendish, Are you in a relationship." I nod. "Why doctor?" "You've been to the doctor or the hospital for injuries twelve times in 4 months, this is not clumsiness. I'm thinking you are being abused." I laugh out loud. "Have a good day doctor."

that night I have a dinner with two of my best friends. I tell them what the doctor said. "Had he ever hit you Theo?" ask billy, one of my best friends since college. I scoff "Of course but a bit fighting is normal in every relationship." "theo, how did you break your arm." Lisa asks. I scoff before I realise. "Shit, I'm just like my mom."

I put a letter in the mailbox that night and go to a hotel to sleep. The letter says. "I will not be thrown around in my own house anymore Lachlan. You have to be out of there by the end of the week. It's okay to get your stuff later if you prefer that but you need to be living somewhere else. regards, you 'love'"