Waiting...
But he just stands there with a puckered brow, peering out through wide eyes that look like crystals. Just stands there with outstretched arms and empty hands.
He doesn’t step off the painting like part of me had hoped he would. He doesn’t blink or breathe or smile.
He doesn’t tell me why I can’t let him go.
But how could he? I gave him rocks for eyes. Rocks for his ears and his mouth and his hands.
I pieced him together with mortar.
Not real.
A weight lands in my stomach, so heavy I stumble back.
My vision of him blurs and I blink at the haze, feeling a wetness slide down my cheeks. The sensation releases a plug pitted deep inside my heart, and suddenly my lungs are heaving, breath coming in hard, fast gasps.
My back collides with the wall, spine grating down stone until I’m sitting on the ground, knees caught against my ribs.
I look up into his eyes, map the freckles on his face, examine the painting like the open wound it is ... and I let myself unravel. Let my unbridled emotions dismantle me in a way that feels hopelessly insignificant. Because he’s in pieces.
I’m not.
And all the while he stares ... and stares ... and stares.
Unblinking. Unseeing. Yet I’ve never felt soseen.
I sit for what feels like hours, leaking my own self-hatred while I rock back and forth, wishing someone would wrap me in their arms and cuddle me.
The back of my neck tingles.
My chest stops heaving, face smoothing, as if somebody bunged the spill of my emotions.
I sense an overwhelming presence, like there’s suddenly less air for me to breathe. Less space for me to move.
So acutely aware of the blackness that seems to push against my side, I glide my gaze to the right and peer into the void ...
I’m not alone.
Someone ... somethingis watching from the shadows. I can feel their keen attention sliding over my skin like the sharp tip of a blade.
“Wh-who is it?” I rasp, only confirming my suspicions when rather than bounce back at me like my words usually do down here, they’reabsorbed. As if something devoured them before they had the chance to echo.
I swallow, feeling every sense sharpen as I lower my hands to the floor and roll forward, perched on all fours while I reach for my bag.
Something rumbles—the sound deep and heavy, like a mountain’s growl—and I freeze, unable to breathe or speak or blink, every muscle knotting with a wild fear I’ve never felt before.
All I want to do ismove. To scream and run and leave my bag and never look back.
But my instincts have other ideas.
They want me to keep my chin high, stare pinned to the dark. They want me to back away, showing as little fear as possible.
Although it makes no sense to me, for once in my life, I listen.
Slowly—so damn slowly—I begin to move again, keeping my eyes speared into the body of darkness while I grab my bag. Another sawing rumble rolls through the gloom, threatening to maul my composure into messy ribbons.
I snatch the torch and leap to my feet, lifting my chin and walking backward down the hall—every blind, unhurried step feeling like a feat in its own.
