Miss Chatterley, Part II by Logan Belle

Author:Logan Belle
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pocket Star

Chapter Eight

The Monday morning sun is high and bright. I’m curled up on a lounge chair in the backyard, my sketch pad resting on my knees.

I had intended to draw one of the towering western dogwood trees, but instead find myself outlining a rugged male body—a very familiar male body, whose lines are deeply imprinted on my mind.

Yes, closing my eyes, I can see him perfectly. The curse of an artist’s visual memory.

I move my pencil across the page, feeling the familiar rough texture of the paper’s brush against the underside of my hand. Falling into the familiar rhythm of creation, I start to feel better.

A breeze blows across the lawn, and I think again about New York. It’s all I’ve been thinking about—aside from Mellors—since Cliff dropped me off at the house before disappearing into the black hole of the Chatterbox office. That was two days ago, and I’ve barely seen him since.

I know it’s too late to get my spot back at School of Visual Arts, but I could try for next semester. . . .

Either way, I want to go back. I could stay with Hillary for a while, until I found a job and got on my feet.

Nothing about California is working for us. Even Cliff admitted as much on Saturday, that whole apology and conversation about what the Evergreen guy had said to him before we’d moved.

Still, I know he wouldn’t see my move back to New York as anything other than giving up on us. And how could I explain that it would be a last-ditch attempt to save us? That argument wouldn’t make sense unless I admitted what had happened with Mellors.

“Here you are! I looked all over the house for you.”

I turn around to find Cliff heading toward me. I jump up, dropping my sketch pad and quickly closing it so he won’t see the drawing.

“What are you doing home?” I ask, checking my phone for the time. It’s barely noon on a Monday. Then I notice the bunch of Stargazer lilies in his hands—my favorite flower.

“Do you forgive me yet?” he says, obviously referring to Saturday.

I hadn’t handled it well. I cried on the car ride home. I couldn’t explain that I wasn’t crying because we were leaving the bed-and-breakfast, but because I was sure our relationship was over. In that moment, it had felt like there wasn’t much left.

“It’s not about forgiving you,” I say. “I just feel like things are really crappy right now.”

He sits on the edge of the chair, putting a hand on my leg. “So let me take you to lunch. You should get out of the house.”

He’s trying, and I’m touched.

“I’m not even dressed. We can eat here. I can make us sandwiches. I have that good French baguette from Mayfield.”

We walk back to the house, and he puts his arm around my shoulders, keeping me close to him.

In the kitchen, I put the flowers in a vase—one of my own that I’d brought from home—and set them on the square glass table that we use for breakfast.

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