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Like maybe he had yet to earn a face.
“Oh my gosh.” It was a heaving wheeze, her own awe breezing out as she picked it up so she could gaze at the image. Her brow pinched when she looked back at me. “Is it…me?”
“Yeah, Lena. No question, it’s you.” I could barely get the words out around the thickness in my throat. An orb of barbed wire rolling up and down the length as I fought with telling her that I would recognize her anywhere.
Even if she was carved into the nothingness. Written in every veiled shape.
She turned back to it, wonder in her aura.
“It’s…”
“Beautiful.” It was a stony grunt.
She looked back again, teeth roughing up that plump bottom lip. “Do you think so?”
“Yeah, Elena. The most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”
I could chalk it up to only referring to the painting itself, but I thought she might know better.
Thought that maybe she could read right through me as the air shifted.
Something dense and heavy cleaved through the room. A quiet yet explosive energy that thudded against the walls.
Rebounding and compounding with each pass.
It was that same connection that had grown and morphed through the years.
Now, it glowed so bright it was blinding, while in it, it became its own darkness.
Because even my thinking it was vile.
Wrong on so many levels.
I was nothing but a monster that wanted to tear into all that sweet flesh.
Mark myself on all that she was.
Insert myself into that painting.
She swallowed hard, then all of a sudden scrambled onto her bed.
Boots and all.
She held the canvas up over the headboard. “I think I’ll put it right here. What do you think?”
That barbed ball in my throat doubled in size.
Looking at her up on that bed against the plush black linens on her bed.
“I think it’s perfect.”
“Would you mind grabbing me a nail, hook, and hammer from the kitchen drawer so I don’t lose the spot?”
“Glad to.”
I turned so fast it was a wonder I didn’t trip over my own damned feet. Running from the room like it’d caught fire.
I needed fresh air. A second to clear my head.
