Erik

The small shop was nearly empty, its air dense with the faint scent of varnish and paper, a peculiar blend that always struck Erik as both familiar and foreign, as if it belonged to some life he might have lived but hadn't. Erik stood before the display of brushes, his hands moving almost without thought, testing the firmness of the bristles with the precision of a craftsman who feared he might break the thing he loved if he moved too quickly. There was a particular solace in these moments, though he would not have called it that. Solace suggested an ease of the soul, and Erik had long abandoned the hope for such simplicity. The new sketchbook he'd chosen rested lightly under his arm, a promise he had not made but one that pressed upon him nonetheless. The walk home unfolded as if by rote. His boots struck the pavement in a rhythm that neither hurried nor delayed him, and the city around him seemed to dissolve into a haze of colorless sound. When he reached his apartment, the door closed behind him with a heavy finality, and the world became smaller, quieter. *Another sketchbook, another start, another thing I'll ruin before it's finished.* Sitting at the small, worn table by the window, he placed the sketchbook before him and stared at it as one might a stranger whose name they had forgotten but could not ask. His hands moved to open it, hesitated, then fell still. *Just start. It's a line. Just draw the line. No one will ever see it.* The blankness of the page seemed to accuse him of something he could not name, and his breath came slow, hesitant, as if to outlast the moment. The night was heavy with the muted roar of voices that filtered through the bar's back door, now propped open behind him. Erik leaned against the rough brick of the alley wall, his hand flexing in the faint glow of a streetlamp. The skin of his knuckles was split, the edges raw and inflamed, and a faint crust of dried blood had begun to form where the deeper cuts lingered. *It's not the blood. It's what it means. It means I didn't stop in time. Again.* He let his head fall back against the wall, closing his eyes against the coolness of the night air. The violence, so sudden and brief, already felt distant, a memory he could only half inhabit. He had not wanted it, though he had not resisted it, either. He never did. *I'm just a bouncer doing his job. That's what I tell myself. That's what they see—a man who steps in, keeps the peace, cleans up the mess. But when I look at these hands, raw and bloodied, when I feel the weight of what I've done pressing into my chest, all I can see is my father. His anger, his fists, the way he'd break anything that made him feel small. I see him, and I can't tell where he ends and I begin.* The quiet in the alley seemed different from the quiet inside the bar as if it carried with it a judgment he could not escape. He glanced at his reflection in the dark window across the way, catching sight of his broad shoulders and heavy frame, the sharp line of his jaw set in a way that felt foreign to him. *Maybe I am just like him.* The thought came unbidden, sharp, and sour on the back of his tongue. The room was dim, the faint glow of a lamp casting shadows that shifted with the movement of his hand. Erik sat hunched at the desk, the surface scattered with jars of pigment and the tangle of brushes he had not yet cleaned. Before him, on the easel, was the painting he had started weeks ago and had returned to tonight, though not with the purpose he had hoped. The watercolors had bled into one another, soft and uncontrolled, like a memory slipping through the fingers of his mind. It was her face—Marisol's, though it was not her face exactly, but the shape of her laughter, the weightlessness of a child's joy caught between moments. *Maybe I'll never get it right.* His hand stilled. *Maybe I can't because I never really knew it—what happiness looked like on her, what it felt like to see her safe and untouched by the things I couldn't protect her from.* The light in her eyes was wrong. It always was. He had painted it again and again, each time coming closer but never close enough. There was a failure in his brush, a limitation he could not overcome, and it sat heavily in his chest. *Maybe I'm chasing a memory that isn't real, trying to paint a version of her that only existed in the spaces I wasn't there to ruin.* He set the brush down with care, the bristles wet and shining, and leaned back in his chair. The air in the room was stale, tinged with the bitterness of cigarette smoke, and he reached for the pack on the edge of the desk. The lighter clicked, and the flame flared briefly before settling into embers. *And maybe that's all she ever was to me—something I failed to save, something I'll fail to capture.* The painting remained where it was, half—realized and staring back at him, though he no longer had the will to meet its gaze. The clang of metal against metal rang through the air, sharp and rhythmic, a sound that settled into the background like a second heartbeat. Erik stood before the barbell, his hands gripping the rough metal as he inhaled deeply, feeling the weight of it in his shoulders before he lifted it free of the rack. His movements were precise, deliberate. The strain in his arms and back was not unpleasant, though it reminded him of the limits he sought to escape. He focused on the sensation, the press of the bar against his palms, the taut pull of his muscles as they worked against gravity. *If I push hard enough, maybe I'll feel something other than this. Or maybe I'll just get through the day.* Between sets, he sat on the bench, leaning forward with his forearms braced on his thighs. Sweat rolled down his temple, and he wiped it away absently, his eyes fixed on the reflection in the mirror. The man staring back was too large, too sharp, too much of everything he did not want to be. And yet, he had chosen this—chosen the weight, the pain, the discipline—because it gave him something he could control. *I didn't build this to be strong. I built it to keep the wolf from tearing through my skin.* Lifting again, he focused on the act itself, the precise mechanics of it, as if in this moment of exertion, he could shed the self he carried outside this space. When the barbell clanged against the rack, he stood, rolling his shoulders as he stepped toward the door. The evening air met him with a quiet that felt almost forgiving, though he did not let it linger. He tucked his hands into his pockets and moved down the street, his head low, his steps steady. *I'm more this, more than just muscles and sinew. Aren't I?*