Page 20 of Tanner

The lyrics start about it being “one of those days” and how everybody sucks. Tanner raises the volume.

My heart starts to race.

He raises the audio until it’s deafening. The ground feels like it’s thumping through the soles of my feet.

This is hate music in the best way possible, and every part of me—from my toes and up my spine, straight to my brain—starts to zing with excitement.

Looking back at the sheet, I kick my shoes off. I squeeze the brush handle, dipping it in the can before holding it back up, letting the paint drip down my hand.

Fuck him.

The last few years of my life replay in my mind as the paint trickles onto my arm. Aaron smiling at me as he asked if he could buy me a drink that first night we met. His laugh as we spent our first lazy Saturday in bed. That happy twinkle in his eye when I said we should move in together—into my apartment.

Those images are overshadowed by the look of calmness when I walked into my apartment to surprise him by coming home from my parents’ house early and seeing Nicole making breakfast in my kitchen while wearing my robe. He was wearing the Knicks T-shirt I’d bought him for his birthday.

I don’t know why I remember what the two of them were wearing so vividly. It’s probably my heart’s way of protecting itself from the things I don’t want to remember—the clothes strewed across the living room floor, the tangled sheets on the bed, or the fact that Aaron wasn’t wearing any fucking pants.

This is how you say fuck you.

When my arm flies through the air, splattering paint all over the cloth in front of me, I scream in elation.

Fuck you, Aaron, and your tears when I barged out the door and ran down the hallway.

Fuck you, Nicole, for your cries of how it’s not as bad as it looks.

Hatred for him, hatred for everyone I called my friends, and hatred for myself for not seeing it. The paint flies off the brush with a violent thrust.

Fuck you to our so-called friends who knew they were screwing behind my back.

“I thought you knew,” they said. “It’s none of our business,” they said. “We didn’t want to get involved. You know how these things work out.”

Fuck.

You!

I’ve been pushing this emotion down because I didn’t know how to handle it. I hate being mad. I despise wallowing in my own bullshit. But this? This feels amazing.

My mind goes completely blank, and I’m lost in the moment of music, mess, and a floating sensation that brings me higher than I’ve ever been.

The song pulsates through the speakers, talking about giving me something to break.

With every drop that lands on me, my anger fades away. With every swipe against my face to wipe it away, I feel it smear like I’m trying to erase the pain from my mind.

And it’s working.

I turn to dip my brush and notice Tanner has changed the paint can. Instead of red, he gave me purple.

When I glance up at him, the serious look of awe he’s giving me sends chills to all the right places.

I coat the brush in the paint and pause as I look back to the red massacre in front of me. It’s raw. It’s ripe. It’s the death of my past.

“Are you ready to rewrite your story?” he whispers in my ear. He’s given me purple, so I can paint my new world over the one I thought had killed me all those days ago.

But it didn’t. I’ve survived, and I know now, without a doubt, that my new life starts today.

P!nk’s song “F**kin' Perfect” plays as he walks behind me, taking my hand in his. My eyes instantly close as I step forward and place the bristles directly onto the sheet. I glide a thick purple line across the center of the canvas.

When I flung paint before, it was in anger, hurt, and frustration. Now, with every swipe of the brush, I feel reborn and more alive than I’ve ever been before.