Her Painting

TW: Implied abuse and implied flashbacks.

The painting in Eleanor’s house is old and torn.

Dust from decades lay atop it as it sat next to the boxes in the basement, where it was buried away from any light that threatened to reveal the harsh edges and missing pieces. Hidden from eyes quick to judge.

Most people looked at the web-like cracks on the glass with disgust. The sharp swirls and jagged edges made them shift and squirm.

Yet, Eleanor couldn’t bear to throw it away.

For in the cracks and colors– she saw something more.

The swishes and whirls turned to dancing feet. The broken and blemished surface turned to smiling and bright faces. She sat at that painting for hours, perfecting the stories and commiting those to her mind.

She couldn’t throw it out.

It was passed down to her from her parents, and from their parents to them.

It was the only one she had.

Only one she could ever have.

She can’t go back and prevent the messy strokes, or the disproportionate objects.

Can’t go back and take away the paint that entranced the artist to create the image with no rhyme or reason.

She could only hold it in her basement– A place where she could feel its presence, yet no one else could see.

A place where it was hers alone to know and bare.

A place where she could make sense out of the mayhem, because to her, the beauty was in the fear. She just had to search.

There was a time when the painting wasn’t locked away– when Eleanor had shown it with pride.

A time when she opened her door with a smile and showed others what she held in her home.

A time where she trusted others not to judge– not to taint her familiar glow with their staining views.

A time where she let the one she cared for in and showed her the painting that had made her home.

“You should get rid of that,” Eliza had said with a snarl to her tone. “The lines are awful, the colors are too harsh… Do you think anyone would come over with that ugly thing in the house?”

Eleanor’s eagerness faded.

“It’s not harsh,” Eleanor argued against Eliza’s sharp glare.

“Sure is– Why do you even keep this thing around?”

She didn’t respond.

How could she?

Eliza won’t understand.

Won’t understand how Eleanor could turn the colors into something warm. Won’t understand how she can turn the picture into something more– Something lovely– for it that love was there– she knew it was– she just had to look.

She hated to see it judged.

Hated to see the wonderful image in her mind picked apart– torn down.

It was easier when she could see the image in her mind. Easier to live with the painting when it wasn’t broken– when it was something beautiful and blooming.

She couldn’t take that being stripped from her.

She won’t.

So, she buried the painting in her basement. Where no one else could see it. Where no one else could judge it.

She didn’t dare take it out for a long time.

Didn’t dare bring it up again.

Not even when Eliza left her with scars too familiar.

Now in the strokes, she sees something new– Eliza’s face smiling and laughing along with her at the view. A gleam in her eyes as she shared Eleanor’s thoughts on the painting with shattered glass and harsh strokes.

Eventually, she moved to get further away from that place.

Away from the home where darkness had crept in from letting trust out.

The painting stuck with her everywhere, though, always following her around like her shadow on a hot day.

There was a time where she didn’t know how to cope with the new area, but she found herself making do.

Making friends with people who shared a lot of her views, who enjoyed the same artist and liked the same songs.

She found herself looking at their paintings. Their paintings often had one thing that caught her eye– One action, whether big or small, that changed the course of the image from then on.

Eventually, she found herself brave enough to partake in the sharing.

It was a night like any other– and she had found herself in conversation with one of her friends about the arts, and she was quick to show.

Show the painting that she had long since hidden. Show with smiles how it swirled and zigzagged.

“Why does it look like that?” Josh asked as he shifted from one foot to the other.

Eleanor’s smile slowly faded.

“Look like what?” She asked. Confusion seeping into her tone.

“Well, like–” he hesitated to explain. His eyes flicked to the floor. “It’s nothing– forget it.”

Somehow, that only made things worse.

Because it wasn’t nothing– It was her painting. Hers–

Why did he have to look at it with such disgust? Such shame?

What about it warranted such treatment?

What about what was hers deserved to be turned away from? Ignored?

Nothing.

She rolled her eyes with a scoff. “Whatever– it’s fine.”

It wasn’t. She knew it wasn’t.

She knew it wasn’t nothing.

She knew it was hers.

But she found no will to argue or fight, lest she bring out the cutting words that awakened for her.

She quietly turned around and placed the painting back in its usual spot, making sure to add more covers to it.

She didn’t miss the way Josh seemed to ease.

The next time she looked at the painting– she saw Josh’s face in it. Easy and, light, and no longer burdened with the knowledge of what is stored in her home.

Of what she keeps behind closed doors.

What stayed hidden even as the years went by– As friend groups bickered, fought, healed, and broke apart.

What she never mentioned– not once– even as Josh started to pull away.

She didn’t know if it was because of the painting– but she had her suspicions.

The new group was walking in the art gallery when she saw it.

A painter working on something new– an image with blue sputters and wounded frames.

An eye sore against the rest of them– who were made from even strokes and care.

A public display of the artist’s rushed and frustrated pace against the creation they made.

It made her stomach coil and her blood run hot with rage.

She wanted to scream. Wanted to stop them.

How dare they make such a broken sight? How dare they treat the blank canvas they brought here with such disrespect and grief?

Is this what they give to the world around them? What do they give for their families to see?

The thoughts rushed through her mind until her ears started to ring. The world seemed to slow and speed around her at the same time– leaving her lost in a cycle of trying to catch up and slow down.

“Are you alright?” the words went through her skull yet had no meaning.

She was vaguely aware of her hand shaking, her eyes welling.

People were talking, despite her not being there– despite her being back with her painting.

Where those same jagged edges somehow felt safe.

Where those uneven strokes were formed by someone who had the same tense posture, the same impatience for something they held the sway in making.

She didn’t know how long she was like that– the next thing she knew was that she was sitting down on a bench, a bottle of water in her hands.

Her friends looked at her with concern oozing from their faces. Questions were pelted at her frail, dizzied form as she tried to make sense of the world she had found herself in– A world that was so much like her own, but wrong in every way.

With her thoughts drifting back to the painter and their rough brush– she found questions of her own continuing to form– questions circling back to why.

Why would they do that to their canvas– why stain the white surface with colors that argue and bleed?

Why jab the paint brush until it’s nothing more than dozens of tiny, skewed hairs?

Why be careful with strokes of paint in one section, yet lack care in others?

Why give one area too much, and others too little?

And who was she to judge them for that?

For her painting was made the same. The same uneven strokes. The same broken hair.

Yet to her– it was beautiful. The best thing she could ask for– the only thing she could ask for.

So why– against all the lovely, cared for paintings in that gallery– did the creation of one that resembled her shake her to the core?

The next few days were a blur.

She couldn’t sleep as her head ran– and constantly, she found herself in the basement.

Staring at her painting with tired eyes and weighted shoulders, she tried to figure out the difference between hers and the one being made.

Tried to figure out what made this one beautiful in her eyes, and the other so terrifying to watch.

It wasn’t colors, for they both followed the same non-reasoning in the colors they chose– just with different kinds.

It wasn’t the paint, as the type of liquid seemed to infect both.

So, what was the difference?

There had to be a difference, right?

There had to be.

For the other opinion– the one where there was none, the one where her painting was truly bred from that same cruelty and disgust– Was far more terrifying than anything that brush could make.

It meant that she was blind to the horror that lurked in her own home.

To the darkness that everyone else could see.

And that left her with more questions.

Questions she didn’t want to answer.

Like why did her parents lend her this? Why did they give her a painting so horrid and torn?

Was she only worth that much?

Or was it the only thing they could give?

Did giving the painting to her relieve them from the burden of holding on to it?

Maybe that was the difference between her own and the painting made in the gallery.

The one in the gallery didn’t come with questions.

For years she didn’t show it to others.

For years she refused to acknowledge the painting she once saw warmth in, because now she couldn’t look past her naivety. Now she knew what she was looking at.

Now she couldn’t lie.

Yet it could never stay buried for long.

It could never go away.

Not the weight that was left on her.

Not the emotions that she could now feel.

Someone saw her have another reaction, a reaction to a scene that created a crack in a painting that resembled hers, and she was forced to show the painting that made her like this in her most broken and bruised state.

Racheal was the next to see. The one who bore witness to the ugliness that it all left behind before knowing what the painting was.

She was there for both, honestly, the first, when Eleanor’s world came crumbling down, and the second, which she now realizes could never be her last. Now she was standing in front of the painting that made her– and Eleanor felt her stomach coil and her chest tighten.

She knew what to expect.

She knew what her painting was.

Knowing that someone will leave makes it easier to prepare.

But she doesn’t know if the heartbreak will ever stop hurting.

So, she waited for Racheal’s reaction. For shame or rage. For the disgust or chill.

But… That wasn’t what she got.

What she got was new– something she hadn’t been able to see before.

What she got was unfamiliar in a way that was worse than all the rest:

Softness.

Racheal’s eyes softened as she looked at the painting.

Her tense shoulders slumped as she looked at the image shoved in her face when she had been opened raw, begging for her to look at it. Look at it and see the twisted thing that Eleanor still dared to house.

There were no shouts.

No shame.

She just looked.

And Eleanor was left trembling and confused.

Where were the added strokes?

Where was the rough brush?

Where were all the things that her painting deserved? The hatred that it has earned?

“It’s from my parents,” she explained with haste. “I haven’t been able to get rid of it– I can’t– I know it’s ugly– and wrong– and I should–”

“It’s yours,” Racheal stated, leaving Eleanor sputtering for a moment.

“Sorry?”

“It’s yours, yeah?” The girl with brown hair looked at her now, the same softness for the painting etched into her gaze for Eleanor.

“Why would I hate what’s yours?”

The world tilted around Eleanor.

The reaction made her knees weak.

Because why won’t Rachael hate it? Why won’t she look at the torn edges and splintered frame and see it’s wrong?

Gently, Racheal set the painting down.

Not back in the hidden corner it once was.

No.

Up against the wall. Fully on display for them both to see.

And Racheal still looked at her with those caring eyes.

“I hate that you have it,” she said with a steady voice. “I hate that this is what you own.”

Her hand landed on Eleanor’s face.

Despite Eleanor’s flinch, though, the hand was soft.

Warm.

Comforting.

She leaned into it. Soaking in the feeling that she had stopped searching for.

“You deserve better. I want to give you better.” Eleanor wanted to look away from Racheal as she spoke– wanted to turn and hide, but something drew her into the other girl’s deep emerald eyes.

“But I will never hate what you have been given. What it’s yours– for it is you in a way, and therefore, it is mine.”

In Rachel’s face, Eleanor could see that of others.

Could see the images of her friends' worried expressions when she broke.

Could see the places where she laughed.

Could see the images filled with warming colors, even strokes, and gentle brushes.

Could hold the pictures that she searched for in harsh contrasts right in her hands as Racheal brought her in close and rested Eleanor’s head on her chest.

Eleanor returned the hold as ink welled in her eyes and spilled. Staining her cheeks and falling on to the floor, dancing in lines as a new image was formed.

Creating filling with warm colors that flowed easily along the page.

Warmth that she did have to search for in lava, where she was burned and seared.

And as the ink and tension spilled from her form, in the arms of someone who loved her like she wished the artist would’ve loved the canvas they had, she felt the inspiration spark before her like the lighting of a candle.

Maybe she didn’t have to throw or hide her painting away.

Maybe she didn’t have to lie in search of the comfort that wasn’t there.

But maybe she didn’t have to settle for the false comfort anymore.

Maybe this time it can be her who holds the brush– her who holds her hand steady and paints strokes through the white canvas.

And when her hands shook and her eyes strained, when she had run out of paint in her palette, she could have others who would hold her still and steady. Who would refill her with the paint she needed. Who would take her away from the process for a minute when she felt to run down to keep going.

Maybe her painting was the only one she had.

But maybe it won’t always have to be like that.