Part 1The Masterpiece Painted In My Blood

“Say it! What color is this?"

My mother’s palm cracked across my cheek, leaving a stinging heat in its wake. I stared at the palette in front of me—a blurred, muddy mess of grays and shadows—and my lips trembled. I couldn’t find the words because I couldn't find the light.

"Your father is a world-class painter," she hissed, her voice trembling with a jagged edge of hysteria. "How could his child be colorblind? I’ve taught you this a thousand times. Why can’t you see it?"

She gripped my upper arm, her fingers digging into my skin like talons. She was unraveling right in front of me.

"If you don't find red today, you aren't my daughter anymore!"

The heavy oak door of the studio slammed shut, the deadbolt clicking into place.

I knelt there on the hardwood floor, paralyzed. My eyes drifted from the sketch of roses on the easel—waiting for a life they would never receive—to the X-Acto knife resting on the side table.

My mother had told me once that the color of life, the color of human blood, was red.

I didn't hesitate. I picked up the blade and drew it across my wrist.

As the warmth sprayed across my face and splattered onto the canvas, a strange, floaty sense of relief washed over me. I finally smiled.

Look, Mom... I found the red.

* * *

The phantom heat of the slap still lingered on my skin. The bite of the blade was sharper, colder, a new kind of agony that bloomed across my wrist. But the physical pain was nothing compared to the frantic humming of my heart.

I have to find it. I have to find the red.

I stared at the little squares of pigment. In my world, color didn't exist in hues; it existed in gradients of gray and silver. I couldn't tell where the fire ended and the forest began.

When the hot blood hit my face, I didn't stop to wonder why there was so much of it. Instead, I reached out, dipping my fingers into the wetness, comparing it to the paints.

"You useless girl. How many times do I have to show you?"

My mother’s voice echoed in the cramped space, a ghost of a thousand previous lessons. I could see her throwing the color swatches at me, her face contorted.

"Willa, do you want the whole world to know? Do you want them to know you aren't your father's child?"

That truth was an arrow that had pierced my heart years ago, the shaft broken off, leaving the tip to fester in my chest until it became part of my DNA. I was the fruit of a nightmare. On their wedding night, amidst the drunken chaos of the reception, my father—Thomas—had been locked out of the bridal suite by a group of "pranksters." In the dark, someone else had slipped in.

My mother, Lydia, had spent her life pretending I was a miracle, rather than a mistake.

Whenever we went out, people would lean over my stroller and coo. "Who does she look like? Not much of her dad, I think. She's all you, Lydia."

My mother’s smile would always freeze, a porcelain mask cracking at the edges. She lived every day on a razor's edge, waiting for the world to see the lie. And then, I had painted a rose green.

"You're supposed to love art," she would mutter, pacing the studio, her steps quickening with her heartbeat. "Thomas says you have his hands. He says you're going to be a master. How can you be colorblind? He doesn't carry that gene! Speak to me, Willa! Why can't you see it? Do you want to destroy this family? Do you want to destroy me?"

Her screams vibrated in my ears, a symphony of resentment. I ignored the growing pool of dark liquid beneath me. I was running out of time. If I didn't find the red, they would leave me behind.

In my panic, I knocked over the palette. The paints ran together, merging into a dull, soulless gray. Just like my life.

Acting on a dark, primal impulse, I smeared the blood from my wrist onto the canvas.

Lydia always said blood was red. I remembered the time she’d slapped me so hard my lip split. She’d pressed her thumb into the wound, her eyes burning with a terrifying intensity. "Do you see? This is red. Do you understand now?"

I picked up the knife again and carved deeper, following the line I’d already made.

The world began to blur. The edges of the room softened, turning into a hazy, silver mist. The pain felt far away now, like a sound heard underwater. I looked at the rose on the canvas, now drenched in my own essence.

A twisted sense of satisfaction filled the hollow spaces of my soul.

I did it, Mom. I’m not a failure. I’m an artist. I’m his daughter. Can you forgive me now?