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I rush back inside the studio to lock it up. Jamila is upset over something she has no need to be upset over. I’m not seeing anyone else. Not flirting with anyone. Bree, the woman she saw me talking to, is a fellow artist, telling me about her recent exhibition and I suppose Jamila got the wrong idea. I understand she’s had issues in the past, and there’s no doubt in my mind that it’s what has caused this reaction out of her, but I told her what kind of man I was. The truth of the matter is, though, I cannot make her trust me. That’s something internal she has to handle within herself. But I will do my part to defend myself and my position.
I hop in my car and a few minutes later I’m pulling up to her place. I knock on the door. I know she’s here. I’ve seen her car, but she doesn’t answer. I dial her number. She doesn’t answer, not that I expected her to, so I knock again.
Frustration settles within me. There’s nothing more aggravating than being accused of something you know you didn’t do. And to add insult to injury, I’m not getting the opportunity to explain myself – to correct what she thinks I’ve done with the truth.
I ring the doorbell again. She finally snatches the door open and says, “What do you want?”
“I want to explain—”
“You don’t have to explain anything to me.”
“Jamila, I know a lot of female artists. Your friend Nia is one of them, remember? If you saw me laughing and talking to her, would you get jealous? I’ll answer that for you—no, you wouldn’t, so give me the benefit of the doubt. I know you had a bad experience with a relationship in the past, but I’m not that man.”
“I have to go.”
“Jamila—”
“Goodbye, Morgan,” she says closing the door.
My body tenses. I want to scream but all I can do at the moment is walk away and give her space to come around.
A week later, we still haven’t talked. Time makes you fall back into a routine because life doesn’t stop when things don’t go as planned. It just keeps going and you have to deal with it.
That’s another great thing about being a painter – it’s also therapeutic. It allows me to relieve stress – to empty my cares, my frustration, my love onto the canvas. That’s what I do when I finish the portrait that Jamila and I started together. I enhance the color by painting strokes of accents, giving it further definition and after I achieve that effect, I paint in a background – the landscape and sky.
When it dries, I’m going to deliver it to her, along with the handwritten poem I started. She’s already read parts of it, but now she’ll get the entire thing. This might be my only chance to get her to talk to me.
I know she’s at work right now, so I drive over to her place and leave the picture and the note in front of her door. Then I drive back to the studio and get started on a new project.