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DAPHNE
Emerson brings breakfast. A new, perfect scrambled egg. Two pieces of toast. A clementine, divided into its pieces and spread out like a fan around the curve of the plate. He puts it on my bedside table and leaves without a word while I pretend to be bored. While I pretend I’m not on fire.
I eat all of it.
Not because I don’t want him to do what he said, but because I do.
I’ll tie you to a frame on my wall and fuck your throat until you beg for food.
Jesus. It’s not right, wanting something like that. My body didn’t get the memo. I felt a jolt like lightning when he said it. Pure heat, straight to the core. A thousand small fragments snapped into my mind. His hands circling my wrists. The rope. The frame. It would be hard, wouldn’t it? It would be suffocating.
And I want it.
What Emerson said is an obvious challenge. Refusing him means giving in. Accepting this sick, wrong game we play. Giving myself to it and to him.
A shiver works down my spine. If I give in to Emerson like that, I might not resurface. I might not see my family again. I might get past this wild knot of grief and stop caring.
I pace the room and try to determine what, exactly, is wrong with me. It doesn’t seem possible to be this angry and this wanting at the same time.
Insult to injury, Emerson is not wrong. I do want to paint.
I can’t say when art became more than a hobby. I don’t want to call it a compulsion or an obsession. Those are just the words that come to mind when I think of it. If I go too long without painting I get a headache. I get sad. My emotions bottle up and stick in my throat. Honesty, I’m not sure if I would have grown as an artist without hundreds of hours of practice. My first pieces were nothing special. A natural-born creative probably would have made something stunning, first try.
Anyway.
I spend all day in my room, which is really more of a suite. It seems ridiculous to visit other parts of Emerson’s house like this is anything but a kidnapping. My plan to gather more information fails. My chest pounds in a stubborn ache.
Emerson gives me space, like he knows this morning was a shock. An afternoon’s worth of space. An evening. A night. He brings food, leaves it on the table, and goes.
I just—I can’t believe his brother. I can’t believe there is a person on earth worse than Emerson. I should have seen that coming, honestly, and that’s what’s so shameful. As if my brothers aren’t just as dangerous. Just as bad.
But this bad?
I didn’t believe Leo when he told the cops he kidnapped Haley. I know for a fact it was more complicated than that. I know how much she loves him.
Ugh. This is painful, all these thoughts, all these words. I flatten my palms on the comforter and try to stretch the urge out of my fingers. It helps for a second, but then it comes back.
The paint is right there. Right through the doorway. And the brushes. And the canvas. Emerson’s bedroom has been dark for more than an hour. He didn’t close his doors, but there’s no movement through them. No sound. I’m pretty sure he’s sleeping.
Thirty minutes. An hour. I could paint for an hour without waking him up.
My head throbs.
I get out of bed and tiptoe to the threshold. The moon casts a pale glow on the stool, the easel, the canvas. It’s not quite enough light to judge the colors.
Ten more seconds to be sure he’s asleep.
Then—
I dart across the space to the row of switches on the wall and nudge the one for the weird spotlight. A faint kiss of light. It feels less like a spotlight and more like a pool of sunlight in the middle of the dark.
There. Enough to get the feel for the colors. My mind will fill in the rest.
The shelves on the side walls are arranged with more precision than my favorite art supply store. Emerson hasn’t spared any expense. Drawer upon drawer of paints. A stock of charcoal pencils, for initial sketches. Palates. More brushes than I could hold in two hands. I’ve had real, honest-to-god dreams before about owning this much paint.
So of course, even in this dream-reality, I go back to the same standbys. Ultramarine and black. Titanium white. A stormy gray. My fingers hover over a shade of green I would use to paint Emerson’s blue-green eyes.
I’m not painting his eyes. This won’t be a portrait. It also won’t be a commission.
