It took a lot of begging to get Walker to agree to paint something for me. I offered to help him fix the car. I offered to paint the whole house. He wouldn’t bite. In the end, my offer to sleep in the same bed as him was the clincher, but only if he was allowed to paint my portrait.
I’m not going to tell him that I’m the one getting the sweet deal. I’ll just let him keep on believing I made an enormous compromise.
As I sit on the plaid blanket on the grass in the backyard, Walker and his wooden easel stand about fifteen feet away. He’s facing west, hoping to get a good composition of me relaxing with the sun setting over the tree line behind me. I feel like sitting in this position makes me look fat, but I don’t tell him that. Then, I might have to tell him how I got this loose skin and these stretch marks on my belly.
Now that I think of it, if I spend the night with Walker in his upstairs bedroom tonight, he might find out what I remembered earlier today.
I’ve lost three babies.
I don’t know what it means, but it likely means I’ve probably been in a relationship where we were trying to conceive. I try not to think about the possibility I might still be in a relationship. I wasn’t wearing a wedding ring when I woke up after the crash. It’s more likely I’m divorced or single.
Either way, it doesn’t change the fact that my family is probably worried sick about me. And I can’t shake this feeling I was trying to get lost when I crashed my car. But what was I running from?
All these thoughts race through my addled mind as I try to remain as still as possible for Walker. He’s an abstract painter, so I don’t think I have to stay perfectly still. Besides, concentrating on not moving my body gives me something to focus on other than these new memories.
But the peaceful stillness doesn’t last long.
“Tilt your seat back,” Walker calls out to me.
“What did you say?” I shout back.
He shouts louder this time. “Tilt your head back, please!”
I swallow hard, my mouth pooling with saliva as I’m hit with a sudden wave of nausea.
“Can you hear me?” he calls out, even louder this time.
Ignoring his request, I lie back and close my eyes as I’m bombarded with memories.
A college party. A dark backyard. Feeling lit up from the inside out.
An empty apartment. Looking out the window to the city below.
The bloody toilet in the teacher’s lounge. Pressing the lever to flush it away.
Tilting my car seat back and wondering how someone could feel so full and so empty at once.
“Are you okay?” Walker’s voice sounds a bit frightened.
I open my eyes and find myself clutching my abdomen as I lie in the fetal position. The grass pokes the side of my face as I push myself up until I’m sitting again. My mind keeps flashing back to the inside of a car. The words tilt your seat back echoing endlessly.
What does it mean? Does it have to do with how I ended up driving out here to the middle of nowhere?
“Cass? Are you okay?”
My eyes shoot up to meet Walker’s. “What did you call me?”
He looks confused, possibly even frightened, by the intense look in my eyes. “Cassidy. That’s…your name, isn’t it?”
I shake my head. “No, you called me Cass. Why did you call me that?”
He narrows his eyes at me as if he’s sizing me up. “Are you sure you’re okay? You seem…different.”
I get to my feet and stare into Walker’s blue eyes for what feels like an eternity. I know there’s something to be gleaned there. Finally, he looks down at the grass, and I shake my head in dismay. Something is not right.
I turn around and glance in the direction of the meadow, where I heard the laughter of a small girl. My stomach is in knots as I attempt to piece it all together.
“He called me Cass,” I whisper to myself. “Cass. Cass. Cass. Cass.”
I repeat the name over and over again, trying to figure out why it feels so familiar. Carter calls me Rabbit. Lina calls me Cassidy. My mother calls me sweetheart. But there’s someone else. Someone else who calls me Cass.
I turn around and stare at Walker again. “Did you call me Cass, or did I imagine that?”
He shrugs. “I don’t think so. But I can’t be too sure.”
The way he seems to shrink under my scrutiny makes me feel like a total jerk. But I know what I heard.
Suddenly, I have an unexplainable urge to race toward the easel to see what he painted. As I run across the grass, Walker follows closely behind me. Despite my injured foot, I make it there first. But when I see the canvas, I’m even more confused.
It’s not a painting of me. It’s another painting of The Last Supper.