Page 145

She moved around my side and back to the bed, while I tried to keep my cool where I stood near the doorway, roughing a flustered hand through my hair.

Something about today was so close to sending me over the edge. Her soft sweetness and fierce stubbornness a fucking blade being sawed in little notches over my Achilles heel.

Still, I swiveled that way.

This girl a fucking magnet.

Of course, I did it just in time to catch her as she leaned over so she could swipe the tip of the scissors over the long line of tape.

That skirt rode up high enough to show off the upper portion of her slim, creamy thighs.

My teeth grated.

“Voila!” she sang as she freed the lip of the box. She picked up the bottom portion and tipped it upside down, shaking it a little so the picture would slide out.

It was fitted with cardboard support pieces around the frame and was concealed by bubble wrap.

Elena squealed as she tossed the box to the side and jumped in to cut the wrap away. “It’s like Christmas morning, Trevan. Like the one where I had that giant box under the tree when I was eight? It was there for two weeks, and I had no clue what was in it, but I knew it was going to be good. It was a big dollhouse. Do you remember that?”

Memories of her at that age fumbled around in my brain. Her joy before all our lives had gone to shit.

“How could I forget when you were so excited?”

It was all she talked about for weeks.

“Best present ever.” She gushed it with her face tipped toward the ceiling. Pure joy, though there was still something wistful about it.

That thing that clung to her from beneath the surface.

The traumas that had been whittled, yet she still continued to soar above them.

She peeled back the bubble wrap to expose the painting.

It was a white canvas held in what looked like an antique wooden frame.

A soft gasp puffed from Elena’s lips.

It was painted vertically, and the image was done in ambiguous black brushstrokes. A veiled picture, though I could almost see it plain as day.

It was a rendering of Elena.

The defined angles of her face and the soft swells and curves of her body.

Black, billowing hair.

Mystical.

Ethereal.

Awestriking.

Was pretty sure she was nude in it, though I couldn’t be certain. You could only make out the gentle sweeps of the underside of her breasts and a vague V between her thighs.

In the distance behind her was another figure.

This one more obscure.

Cryptic.