Free Down Shift by K. Bromberg Page A

Her offer to stay in a house they had just bought to fix up and resell. On an island off Washington. Was that far enough? The bickering over her refusing to take rent. Her promise of secrecy to keep my whereabouts from everyone. Her admission she’d always hated my father.
    Driving off the ferry. Stepping foot onto the island. A breath of fresh air. Feeling hope for the first time in as long as I could remember.
    A deep breath. Yellow on the brush. A splash of color. A ray of light in this bleak storm. The sun trying to break through the darkness.
    I set the brush down, unsure if the picture is done but knowing I am for now, worn out from the gamut of emotions that sitting with Zander on the bench last night unexpectedly stirred up. I’ve been here for months. Yes, I’ve had a few moments of sadness and some nights where the tears didn’t stop, but at the same time I know I’m in a better place now. I can acknowledge that I’m slowly crawling out from under that veil of criticism that weighed so heavily I actually believed it.
    How weak of a person could I have been to put up with it? Year after year. Criticism after criticism. Apology after apology. To not have walked away? To still believe his words hold some merit?
    The tears slide silently down my cheeks. Fat odes to a past I’ll never go back to. To a place I’ll never allow my self-esteem to accept again. To a life of pretenses where people judge a book by its cover and believe a wife’s continued apologies and excuses for things that were never her fault to begin with.
    The music continues in my earbuds, a melancholy song about lost love, and a part of me wishes I could experience that grief. A deep sadness over leaving the person you knowis your soul mate, the other half to make you whole. Because I had none of that, felt none of that. I was nothing to Ethan but a voodoo doll to manipulate as he saw fit. I was nothing to my father but a pawn in his business maneuvers—a means to keep his acquisitions in good standing.
    Time has given me that clarity. Distance has allowed me to realize that the only love I lost was for myself.
    And yet it’s still a battle to move forward, to forget, and to find worth in myself.
    A movement out of the corner of my eye scares the shit out of me. When I startle, my knee hits the tray in front of me and causes supplies to fall to the ground with a clatter.
    â€œJesus!” I bark out as I rip the earbuds from my ears. My pulse spikes erratically and my heart pounds as if it’s been jump-started in my chest.
    Zander holds his hands up in an
I’m sorry
motion as he moves into the room. “I knocked,” he says, motioning to my earbuds and then back to the door, “but you didn’t answer.”
    â€œAnd you invited yourself in?” I move out of the alcove and into the bedroom. My voice comes out less than friendly, which I won’t apologize for, since he’s the one invading my personal space. My gaze instantly flickers to the myriad of things around the room that are mine and private: the prescription for sleeping pills on the nightstand, my bra hanging haphazardly over the back of the chair, a mess of clothes still inside out near the vicinity of the hamper, the stack of designer clothes the local consignment shop has listed on eBay to sell for me to help make ends meet, the canvases stacked one upon another leaning against the wall.
    Oh God. My paintings.
    Before the thought even really computes, Zander is moving toward them with the strangest look on his face.
    â€œNo,” I gasp. The thought of him seeing my work has paralyzed me. Caused panic to tickle the back of my neck and bring a tsunami of insecurities and fears of criticism.
    Silence settles as he moves from painting to painting. Then the rumble of thunder from outside. My mind willsmy feet to move, to protect my most intimate feelings that are splashed across a canvas, but I’m frozen. Ethan