The Masterpiece Painted In My Blood

Say it! What color is this?

My mothers palm cracked across my cheek, leaving a stinging heat in its wake. I stared at the palette in front of mea blurred, muddy mess of grays and shadowsand my lips trembled. I couldnt 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? Ive taught you this a thousand times. Why cant 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 easelwaiting for a life they would never receiveto 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.

1.

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 mothers 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 fatherThomashad 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 mothers 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 shed slapped me so hard my lip split. Shed 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 Id 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. Im not a failure. Im an artist. Im his daughter. Can you forgive me now?

2.

My body felt impossibly light.

Suddenly, the gray veil lifted. It was as if someone had turned the saturation dial on the universe all the way up. Colors exploded everywhereviolent, beautiful, and overwhelming.

I saw my painting, a macabre masterpiece of crimson. I saw the girl on the floormy bodytangled in a pool of brilliant, terrifying scarlet.

My first thought wasn't horror. It was joy.

So, this is red.

I finally understood. I wanted to run out and tell her. I wanted to show her that I finally saw what she saw.

But then I saw Lydia. She was standing outside the studio, turning the key in the lock from the outside.

"Willa, you stay in there until you can tell the difference," she called out, her voice cold. "Im not letting you out until you learn."

It was a familiar routine. Whenever Thomas was away at a gallery opening or a teaching seminar, Lydia turned into a jailer. She would lay out the swatches and her voice would start soft, deceptive.

"Willa, honey, you aren't colorblind. You're just not trying. Let's look again."

She would coax me, and I would reach out, my heart hammering against my ribs. I would stare at the gray cards and try to read her face. If her lips tilted up, I was close. If her eyes narrowed, I was failing.

"Tell me. Which one is this?"

Her voice would flattenthe calm before the hurricane.

"I... I think..." I would reach for a different card, but she would grab my hand, her nails digging in.

"Don't you know?" shed whisper. "This is the color of that dress your father bought you. Your favorite dress. What color is it, Willa?"

I couldn't answer.

Before the tears could fall, her rage would erupt. "You useless, ungrateful brat! Ive spent years on you! Why can't you just be blind? If you were blind, it would be easier! I wish Id never had you!"

I learned to survive. I started making tiny, microscopic pinpricks on the back of the swatches to mark them. When her mood collapsed, I would find my mark and say the word "yellow" or "blue" with feigned confidence.

She would let out a sharp breath, her posture softening. She would pull me into a tight, suffocating hug. "I knew it. My Willa is a genius. Just like your father. Hes so proud of you. We cant let him down, okay?"

"Okay," I would whisper, the lie sticking in my throat.

But as the color palettes grew more complexmoving from twenty-four shades to forty-eight, then to professional pigmentsI couldn't keep up with the marks. I started failing again.

"If I come back and see one more mistake, youre done," she said today, walking away without a backward glance.

I followed heror rather, my spirit did. She was going to pick up Thomas.

His fame had skyrocketed over the last few years. He was the darling of the contemporary art scene, and today was the opening of his solo exhibition downtown.

When Lydia arrived, he was in the middle of an interview with a sleek woman in a power suit.

"Yes, I have a daughter," Thomas was saying, his smile warm and genuine. "Shes incredibly talented. She has my eyes for detail. Shes my greatest pride."

The sun caught his face, making him look like a hero from a storybook. Beside him, Lydia froze. She clutched the fabric of her skirt so hard her knuckles turned white. She was terrified.

Thomas finished the interview and walked toward her. "Lydia? Wheres Willa? Why didn't you bring her?"

Lydia blinked, her eyes wet with unshed tears. "Thomas... I think we should send her away. To that boarding school in Switzerland. For her art."

3.

Lydia looked like she was in physical pain. Her brow was furrowed with a grief so deep it looked like hatred.

Thomas looked confused. "What? Why so suddenly?"

"Im just... Im scared, Thomas. Scared she won't live up to your legacy here. Shes so shy, so stifled. She needs to see the world. She needs to grow." She forced a brittle smile. "And if shes away... we won't be so busy. Your mother is always saying we need a son. To carry on the name properly."

I felt a cold shiver pass through my soul. She was giving up on me. She wanted me gone so she could start overso she could give Thomas a child that was actually his.

"What are you talking about?" Thomas asked, rubbing her shoulders gently. "Willa is enough. Forget what my mother says. Our daughter is too young to be sent across the ocean. When shes older, if she wants to go, we can talk about it. But not now."

His voice was so kind, so full of love. And that was the problem. The better he was, the more we suffered under the weight of the lie.

"Youre a curse," Lydia used to scream at me in the middle of the night. "Why do you have to be colorblind? If you were normal, we could forget. You can't let him find out! He loves you too muchyou can't fail him!"

The guilt had been my constant companion, a heavy stone I carried in my pockets until I finally sank.

Lydia wanted to solve the problem by erasing me. And honestly? It seemed like a good plan. If I disappeared, the bomb would be defused. Everyone could be happy.

Why are you saying no, Dad? Im nothing like you. I cant even pick out a tube of paint. How can I be your pride?

Then it hit me. I was already dead. The bomb had already gone off.

I watched Thomas lead Lydia toward a bistro for an early dinner. I felt strangely light. I drifted between them, pretending for a moment that we were a normal family of three out for a walk.

"Ill have the waiter pack up some of those salted caramel cupcakes," Thomas said. "Willa loves those."

Lydias smile faltered. While Thomas was looking at the menu, she pulled out her phone and sent a text. My ghost watched the screen.

Your father is coming home soon. Is that painting finished? Send me a photo.

If you got the colors wrong again, Im done with you.

She was terrified of him seeing my mistakes. When I was younger, I used to love showing him my "abstract" work. Once, I showed him a landscape where Id accidentally used a bright crimson for the moon.

"Why is the moon red, Willa?" he had asked, curious.

My skin had crawled. I felt Lydias gaze on the back of my necksharp, predatory, freezing the marrow in my bones. Id lied instantly. "Because I ran out of yellow, Daddy."

He laughed it off. But that night, Lydia had dragged me to the kitchen. She forced a piece of bitter orange peel into my mouth.

"Remember this taste? This is yellow," she hissed, her face inches from mine. "Do I have to keep doing this? Are you ever going to learn?"

I remembered. I remembered the bitterness. I remembered the gray world and the way I had to memorize the position of the paints on the tray. I remembered never mentioning colors in front of my father again.

4.

After dinner, Thomas bought a small cake from a bakery on the corner.

"Next time, you have to bring her," he said, swinging Lydias hand. "She hasn't even seen the new gallery layout."

Lydia slowed down, her voice sounding like it was being squeezed out of her lungs. She checked her phone. No reply from me.

Still can't get it right? she typed. Fine. No more art. I don't have a daughter anymore.

The words were sharp, fueled by a decade of repressed panic.

"You keep saying shes talented," Lydia said, her voice trembling. "I don't see it. You see her coloring... its like she doesn't even think. She picks colors that make no sense"

They were walking through a quiet alleyway now, the shadows stretching long and blue against the brick.

"I should have waited to have kids," Lydia whispered. "I didn't know it would be... like this."

She was a string pulled too tight, finally snapping. Thomas usually played the peacemaker. "Honey, youre being a 'Tiger Mom.' Its okay if shes not perfect. Shes a kid."

He didn't know the shadow she carried. He didn't know she was drowning in a deep, dark well of her own making.

"Please," Lydia sobbed, stopping in her tracks. "Just send her away. I cant do it anymore. I cant teach her. Shes... shes broken."

Her voice was raw, desperate. She began listing my "faults" like a prosecutorhow I was moody, how I was lazy, how I couldn't communicate. She was trying to make me unlovable so that when she sent me away, it wouldn't feel like a crime.

"Im going crazy, Thomas! I can't be in the same house as her!"

I'm sorry, Mom. I'm so sorry.

I wanted to reach out and hold her. I wanted to tell her it was over. I was dead. The "stain" on her life had been bleached white. She could be clean now.

But Thomas moved first. He pulled her into his arms, crushing her against his chest.

"I know," he whispered. "Lydia, I know everything."

Lydia went rigid.

"I know Willa is colorblind. It doesn't matter. Shes my daughter. Ill help her."

The world seemed to stop spinning. Lydias eyes were wide, fixed on nothing. I stood there, a ghost in the wind, frozen.

He knew?

"Im sorry," Thomas said, his voice thick with tears. "I thought if I pretended not to know, it would make it easier for you. I thought if I played along with the 'genius' narrative, youd feel less pressure. It was my fault. I let you carry this alone."

He stroked her hair, ignoring her stunned silence.

"Whatever happened that night... I don't care. I love you. And I love our daughter. Lets just go home. Lets talk about this as a family."

Lydia was like a doll with its strings cut. He led her to the car, and she sat in the passenger seat, staring out the window at the passing streetlights.

Thomas looked at her through the rearview mirror, his face a mask of guilt and resolve. I sat in the back seat, watching them.

Its going to be okay, I thought. Theyre going to be okay. If I were still alive, we could have been a real family.

Thomas pulled into the driveway and helped Lydia out of the car.

"Shes probably in the studio," he said, grabbing the cake and the cupcakes. "Ill go give her these."

He walked toward the studio, his stride confident and lightuntil his shoe stepped into something wet and dark that was seeping out from under the door.