The soft lighting of the bar cast shadows that seemed to match the murkiness of Mark’s feelings. Across from him in the booth sat Rudy’s sister, Wendy, who was searching Laura’s on-again, off-again boyfriend’s face as if trying to read a complex novel in one glance.
“I think I’m falling in love with her,” Mark confessed.
Wendy sighed, setting down her cocktail. “Mark, you know that’s not going to end up anywhere good, not as long as Rudy’s still in the picture. They’re like fire and gasoline, except neither knows who’s who, and neither of them cares who gets caught in the backdraft.”
Mark nodded, his fingers tracing the rim of his whiskey glass. His thoughts drifted to an unfinished painting sitting in his small art studio at home—a surreptitious passion he had kept hidden even from Wendy. Inspired by Laura’s fearlessness, he started to paint again. She had brought color and vibrance into his otherwise monochrome existence, but at what cost?
“And yet,” he said, hesitating, “There’s something magnetic about her complexity, something that makes me feel more alive than I’ve ever been.”
“You’re attracted to what you can’t have. Now, I’m not saying this to be mean, but she’ll never be yours, never be what you need her to be, never be what you deserve, and trust me, you deserve better.”
“But she makes me better!”
Wendy’s eyes narrowed. “You don’t get it, Mark. You don’t make her better. Laura thrives on chaos, and as much as I love my brother, he’s an absolute train wreck waiting to happen. When they get together, it’s like watching two stars collide—beautiful but devastating.”
Mark considered this, sipping his whiskey. “I can be a train wreck; I can collide.”
Wendy looked at Mark, her eyes softening. “What you are is a beautiful dreamer, Mark. Don’t let Laura turn your dreams into nightmares. As for Rudy, I plan on telling Carol about this whole affair. I think it’s time for everyone involved to make a clean sweep of things. If Rudy and Laura want to be together and ruin each other’s lives, maybe I can help minimize the collateral damage.”
***
Laura’s studio had become more than just a space lined with canvases and dotted with paint; it had evolved into a sanctuary, a realm of endless possibility, where the lines between past and future blurred. Over the years, this room witnessed their laughter, arguments, and unspoken tensions, and today was no exception.
Laura turned away from her latest work—a distorted portrait of Rudy that seemed to catch his essence better than any photograph ever could. Especially the eyes. Her brushstrokes locked onto the complexities deep within him.
“I kill you in my dreams, you know,” Laura said out of nowhere.
“I think that’s my cue to leave,” Rudy replied, yet made no actual movement toward the door.
“You don’t understand. I had to. You have this nasty habit of invading my dreams, and every time your hands are like knives, they slice into me. You keep peeling me like an onion, cutting away what you call the ‘Levels of Laura,’ and I know what you really want is to get at my core, to put an end to me so that you can finally be free.”
“What if you’ve got it all wrong? What if I don’t want to be free? What if I’m looking for a way to understand you better, to understand us better, so we can finally be together like we both know we’re meant to be?” Rudy questioned.
“But why knives, Rudy?”
“It’s your dream; ask yourself, ‘Why knives?’ I’ve never laid a hand on you in anger; it’s never even crossed my mind,” Rudy paused momentarily. “Was it easy for you to kill me? How many times did you do it?”
“It’s not about it being easy; it’s about protecting myself,” Laura snapped defensively.
“I wasn’t being accusatory. I guess I wanted to know how easy it is in your mind to get rid of me.”
“Easy? You think this is easy? You’re on my mind so much you invade my dreams! Take a look around you; you appear in everything I paint! ‘Levels of Laura’? More like ‘Levels of Rudy’! Why won’t you get out of my head and leave me alone?” Laura screamed.
After a long moment of uncomfortable silence, Rudy stood from the time-worn stool and said, “I guess this is it, then? Until the next time we meet.”
“No, please don’t go,” Laura said softly. There was a vulnerability that tugged at Rudy’s heartstrings. “We’re not at that point yet. We still have time before we need to part ways again.”
“I was being honest when I said I never thought about hurting you,” Rudy said with a resigned realization, a reflection of their recurring pattern that seemed to drive them back to each other and then apart, over and over.
“I know,” Laura said, taking him by the hand and leading him to the bed.
***
When Rudy arrived home, the sky turned an inkier blue as dusk settled. The front door closed with a soft click behind him, but the sound that greeted him inside was electric, a thick tension that seemed to buzz in the air. He found Carol on the couch, her posture rigid, her eyes tinged with red but blazing defiantly.
“Who’s Laura?” she demanded, thrusting Rudy’s open laptop toward him. An email was displayed on the screen—innocuous at a glance but deadly in its implications. The message read, “Today was enlightening.”
Carol had been marinating in a stew of suspicions and unasked questions for years. Today, the dam had burst. Her demand was more than an inquiry; it was a war cry, her moment of reclaiming the life she had put on hold for the illusion of their relationship. As she stared into Rudy’s eyes, searching for an answer, she also found herself confronting her past—a younger, more ambitious version of herself who had willingly traded a promising career for emotional security, only to discover she had ended up with neither.
Rudy felt the walls close in on him, a suffocating enclosure of his own making. He had navigated close calls in the past, his life a tightrope walk between what he desired and what he could lose. But this moment felt different. The gravity of the situation crystallized as Carol’s eyes met his, a swirling cocktail of hurt, suspicion, and a scintilla of hope.
“Do you love her?” she finally asked. Her voice was no louder than a whisper, but it ricocheted around the room, filling the vacant spaces that had gradually wedged themselves between them over the years.
He opened his mouth to speak, but words failed him. It was as if the room had been vacuumed of air, leaving him struggling for breath. His eyes met Carol’s, and in that instant, they both realized the severity of the crossroads they had reached. There was no turning back now.
For the first time, Rudy felt he was standing on the precipice of losing something genuinely irreplaceable, something he had taken for granted until now—his home, his partner, his sanctuary from the chaos that Laura often drew him into. As he looked into Carol’s eyes, he realized she was standing on the edge of a cliff, one she had not chosen but was forced upon her by his actions.
The air between them thickened, heavy with the weight of their collective years, choices, regrets, and unspoken words. At that moment, Rudy knew that his next words could either salvage the remains of their relationship or destroy it forever.
***
The studio door creaked open, and Laura looked up, expecting Rudy to have returned. But instead, Wendy stood there, her eyes locking onto Laura’s with a blend of desperation and determination.
“Wendy, this is a surprise,” Laura said, feigning nonchalance, though her mind raced with thoughts of how much Wendy might know.
“We need to talk,” Wendy replied, stepping into the studio. Her eyes darted briefly to a painting of Rudy, then back to Laura.
“About?”
“Rudy and you, of course. What else could bring me to your sanctum uninvited?”
Laura paused, contemplating the audacity. “Alright, you’ve got my attention. What’s so important that you couldn’t wait for an invitation?”
Wendy sighed. “I think it’s time you two stopped this, whatever this is. My brother is on the verge of ruining his life over you. Again.”
Laura narrowed her eyes. “And what makes you think you have any say in this?”
“Because, unlike you two, I don’t enjoy watching the world burn,” Wendy retorted. “Look, I get it, the passion, the connection—”
“Do you? Do you really get it?” Laura interrupted. “I doubt it.”
“Maybe not,” Wendy admitted. “But what I do know is that Rudy has a good thing going with Carol, and if he throws that away for another one of your rendezvous, he may lose something he’ll never find again.”
Laura stared at Wendy, contemplating her words. For a split second, she considered the possibility that Wendy might be right. But then her natural defiance kicked in.
“And what about me? What do I lose or gain in all of this?”
Wendy hesitated for a moment before continuing, “You also have Mark. Despite everything, he seems like he genuinely cares about you. Would you really sacrifice a good relationship with him for a destructive one with Rudy?”
Laura laughed a bit too loudly. “A mature choice? Who’s to say what’s mature and what’s not? Life is made up of moments, Wendy. Moments of passion, of recklessness, even moments of regret. But they’re ours to make.”
“But not yours to hoard,” Wendy shot back. “Rudy’s choices affect more lives than just yours and his. And if he continues down this path with you, he’s going to cause a lot of people a lot of pain.”
The room grew quiet, tension thrumming like a plucked guitar string. Laura considered Wendy’s words, but her rebellious spirit rebelled at the idea of anyone dictating her choices, even if that person had Rudy’s and Mark’s best interests at heart.
“I won’t make any promises,” Laura finally said. “But I will think about it.”
“Thinking’s a start,” Wendy replied. “But sometimes we have to act against our nature for the greater good. Just consider whether all this is worth the destruction it will inevitably bring.” With that, Wendy turned and walked out of the studio, leaving Laura alone among her paintings and sculptures, a queen in her realm yet suddenly unsure of her dominion.
Not. The. End.
MADD FICTIONAL 