Total pages in book: 74
Estimated words: 71044 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 355(@200wpm)___ 284(@250wpm)___ 237(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 71044 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 355(@200wpm)___ 284(@250wpm)___ 237(@300wpm)
And if you aren’t paying attention, you’ll miss the fact that you can see stars through the body of one of the men on the beach. He isn’t really there. He’s a ghost. Or some distant memory. Or a dream. The men are holding hands.
My heart stirs with emotion the longer I look at the painting. I finally dare myself to glance at the title card.
The painting is called Goodbye.
“Well, fuck me, there goes my eyeliner,” says my mom in a shaky voice as she wipes a tear out of her eye.
I stare at her. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a tear fall from her dry-as-sand eyes before. “You crying?”
“It’s beautiful, okay? Obviously he’s mourning a dead or long-lost lover or something. Ugh, hits way too close to home. I need to find Chuck before I lose my nerve. Thanks for being a good son.” She unhooks her arm from mine at once and saunters off, still dabbing at her tears.
I only now notice that despite the lovely dress she put on, she’s wearing her clunky beach flip-flops on her feet, not heels.
At least she made half an effort.
I move beyond that painting to the next one. Quin has a series of six paintings, apparently. The next one is also of the beach at night, but there is a faint, deep blue in the sky, suggesting the sun is coming up within the hour, and up to his waist in the water stands a man you could miss if you don’t look closely. His hands reach up for the sky, and he looks elated for a reason I can’t say. The title card reads Free. As I move on to the next painting and the next, I realize they progress through time, starting in the dead of night with Goodbye, going through early morning with the one called Free, then late morning, bright high noon, early evening, and finally ending with sunset.
Each of the remaining five paintings features one man.
Me. Definitely me.
For the late morning one, I realize it’s the pose I did of myself on the table with my junk on a plate, except Quin has moved me to a rock formation by the water, and there is an inconspicuous arrangement of stones right in front of my junk. The way he painted this, however, all of the focus is on my face—where I appear to be cracking up with laughter at something, nearly falling off the rocks.
He called this one Tacos.
The unexpected title makes me crack a smile. I have a few immediate guesses where the inspiration behind that title came from. But the best part is knowing I’m likely the only person in the room who knows.
Still smiling, I move on to the next painting. It’s definitely set right in the middle of the day. The sunlight is so bright, it turns the sand pale white. My back is turned partway in the painting, and I’m squinting up at the sun. My hand looks slightly lowered, like I just decided to stop shielding my eyes from it. The title card reads Blinded.
The name of the painting is so obvious, I wonder if it means something else.
Does he think I’m blinded by something?
Or someone …?
When I reach the early evening painting, I smile again. It’s me sitting on the banister of a pier, and I’m in a white robe—but the strong wind is causing it to flap upwards, showing off a peak of my ass. The man in the painting is carefree. He may or may not be aware that he’s mooning the other unseen occupants of the pier, but I somehow doubt anything fazes him.
And yet the title card reads Shy.
Finally, the sunset painting has the man staring up into the sky where a spray of fireworks glow in so many colors, I can’t begin to decide where to put my eyes. Some of the colors are swallowed in the smoke of the fireworks. Others shine vibrantly. In this painting, the man looks the smallest, yet still the scene seems to pull your focus right to him, like you’re seeing the fireworks through his eyes somehow, the splendor of them. The title card reads First.
Yeah, we had a lot of firsts that night. Our first time together in a romantic sense. Our first embrace in public.
Our first kiss.
Am I in love with Quintin Ruiz …?
The paintings are displayed on a very large circular pillar. So once you reach the final painting, you circle back around to the Goodbye one with the two men on the beach late at night. It only now strikes me that Goodbye is the only painting with two men—and I’m suddenly not sure if either of them are me at all. The circular order also makes me wonder where the series actually begins. Did I start at the end by accident?