Chapter 4: ALWAYS, ACTUALLY
1238 Words
Chapter 4: Always, Actually
Emilia stood barefoot on the living room floor, paintbrush in hand, her T-shirt covered in blotches of green and gold. Music hummed from the record player—an old jazz track Theo had fallen in love with during his Berlin residency. He insisted it made their apartment feel like a movie.
Their dog, Biscuit (rescued impulsively on a rainy Tuesday), snored softly on the rug.
Across from her, Theo examined her latest mural sketch with a brow furrowed and a pretzel stick between his lips.
“I still think the clouds look like angry shrimp,” he said.
“Maybe you’re the angry shrimp,” Emilia muttered.
“I’m not the one threatening the sky with doom swirls,” he said, gesturing with his brush like a wand.
“You just don’t understand abstract metaphor,” she teased.
“I understand you’re procrastinating,” he said, gently walking over and wrapping his arms around her waist. “You’ve got a gallery pitch in three days.”
She sighed into him. “I’m scared.”
“I know.” He kissed her forehead. “But scared is where the magic starts.”
“Stop sounding like a Pinterest quote.”
He grinned. “You married me anyway.”
She smirked. “You tricked me with tuna rolls and emotional vulnerability.”
He laughed, and the sound still lit up her chest like warm light through a window. “Guilty.”
That evening, they hosted a few friends—other artists, neighbors, and Theo’s sister Lena who had just published her second poetry book.
Between glasses of wine and wild toasts, someone asked, “What’s the best fight you two ever had?”
Theo and Emilia exchanged a look and both said, at the same time:
“The Berlin fight.”
Everyone leaned in.
Emilia rolled her eyes, smiling. “He had booked a show without telling me.”
“It was one of the biggest offers I’d ever gotten!” Theo defended.
“And I found out from a flyer on Instagram.”
“Oops.”
“I didn’t speak to him for two days.”
“Which is forever in artist-couple time,” he added.
“But then,” she continued, “he showed up at my place with a six-foot canvas he’d painted entirely in apology metaphors.”
Theo shrugged. “Actions. Paint louder than words.”
They all laughed.
Later that night, with the apartment quiet again, Emilia curled up beside Theo on the couch, resting her head on his chest.
“Do you ever think,” she whispered, “about how much we hated each other?”
“I didn’t hate you,” he said softly. “I was obsessed with you. Hiding behind sarcasm.”
She looked up at him. “Really?”
“I thought you were terrifying and brilliant and had the best resting scowl I’d ever seen.”
She giggled.
He kissed her temple. “And now you’re mine.”
“Always?”
He looked her dead in the eyes.
“Always.”
Theo’s studio got funding for a city-wide youth mural project. He was traveling between boroughs, mentoring, painting, and fundraising.
Emilia landed a prestigious design contract with a fashion startup. It meant long hours, tight deadlines, and for the first time… separate worlds.
They made it work.
At least, until the night Emilia came home to an empty apartment at 1:00 a.m., exhausted and emotionally fried, and saw a note on the counter:
“Gone to Harlem wall preview — sorry, lost track of time. Don’t wait up. Love you. — T”
She read it three times.
Then sat on the floor and cried.
It wasn’t a huge fight. Not like Berlin.
But it was distance. Quiet. A gap forming not from anger, but exhaustion.
The next morning, Theo found her asleep on the couch, note still in hand.
He didn’t say anything.
He just sat beside her and held her until she woke up.
She blinked at him, eyes tired. “I miss us.”
He nodded. “Me too.”
So they took a weekend.
Just them. No art shows. No work calls.
They went to a tiny Airbnb near the water. They danced barefoot on the porch. They painted shells. They argued over marshmallows.
They remembered each other.
And promised, silently, not to forget again.
Two years later, they bought a place.
A real one.
It wasn’t big. It wasn’t sleek. But it had a rooftop and a wall Theo immediately declared as his. Emilia painted a mosaic backsplash in the kitchen. Biscuit had a bed in every room.
They made a home.
Not perfect. But beautifully theirs.
Every Sunday, they walked to Café Tiamo, which was now under new management but still had Theo’s mural in the back hallway.
They always ordered the same drinks.
She still scolded him for blocking the door.
He still handed her notes.
One Sunday, as they sat outside sipping coffee, Theo handed her a folded napkin.
She unfolded it.
“Let’s have a kid.”
Emilia choked on her latte. “You’re kidding.”
Theo just looked at her, smiling nervously.
“Wait. Are you serious?”
He nodded.
She stared at him. “You want to parent a human?”
“I want to parent our human.”
Her eyes welled up.
She whispered, “Yes.”
The pregnancy was chaotic. Cravings. Anxiety. Laughter. So many drawings of baby onesies on post-its. Theo painted a mural on the nursery wall of Biscuit flying a spaceship made of books.
The baby came in the middle of a rainstorm, two weeks early, fast and terrifying.
Theo cried more than the baby.
They named her June.
She had Emilia’s nose, Theo’s eyes, and the grumpiest little expression that made everyone fall in love instantly.
One night, Emilia walked into the nursery to find Theo asleep in the rocking chair, June on his chest, one of Lena’s poems open on the floor.
She took a photo.
Framed it.
It hung beside the door forever.
Years passed.
June grew up with paint in her hair and sass in her voice.
They fought over bedtime and broccoli.
They cried during preschool graduation.
They took her to the same rooftop where Theo had first kissed Emilia.
They told her, “This is where everything started.”
June asked, “Did you like Daddy right away?”
Emilia and Theo looked at each other and said, in unison:
“No.”
On their tenth anniversary, Emilia woke up to the smell of paint and coffee.
She found Theo on the rooftop, barefoot, holding a cup with “Latte Girl” written in Sharpie.
Behind him was a new mural on the wall—his most recent piece. It showed their silhouettes over the years: arguing, sketching, dancing, holding June, growing old together.
At the bottom, it said:
“I probably loved you from the very beginning.”
Then underneath, in bold red:
“Always.”
She walked over to him, took the cup, and leaned against his shoulder.
“You’re still annoying, you know.”
“You still scowl.”
They smiled.
Then kissed like nothing had ever changed.
And in the grand chaos of city life, deadlines, toddler tantrums, and subway delays—they remained the constant.
Two messy, stubborn, passionate artists who found their rhythm.
Enemies once.
Lovers always.
- Writer
