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“I like to draw as well,” I admit.
It provokes no response.
My eyes go to the sketchpad resting on her lap. It feels wrong to want to look at it, especially when I’ve always been so careful about who I showed mine to, but I want to see what she’s been drawing.
I almost reach for it before I shake my head and get to my feet. Her sketchpad might be the only place she can fully express herself. I won’t violate that.
“I’ll leave,” I say. “Sorry for interrupting you.”
I’m turning away when a soft thump makes me stop. I look back.
The pad is on the ground beside spotless white tennis shoes that make me wonder if she ever goes outside.
I pick up the sketchpad and move to return it to her lap when she turns away from me, folding her hands right where I’d planned on putting it. “I’ll leave it on your bed,” I say.
I turn to do just that when a cold hand grips my wrist and I leap a foot off the ground.
Olive Deane isn’t staring out the window anymore.
She’s staring at me.
I don’t move, holding my breath as she peels her hand off my wrist and trails one slender finger down my jaw lovingly. “Ever. My Everleigh. This dream feels more real than the others.” She angles her head a little to the right, brushing a finger down the slope of my nose. “I got your nose wrong.”
Her voice is low and a little raspy, but she’s speaking.
To me.
Rune said she didn’t speak. Had the clinic staff lied?
My throat closes, and excitement churns in my chest. “I’m not—”
She releases me and turns back to the window, staring out as if she’s forgotten I’m here. “I’ll have to remember about the nose,” she murmurs under her breath.
“I’m not a dream,” I finish weakly.
My eyes return to the sketchpad still in my hands. I should put it down, walk out, and leave her alone. She thinks I’m a dream and I… I just feel like I’m intruding.
But her words hold me immobile.
What did she mean she got my nose wrong?
Knowing it’s wrong, I can’t stop myself from gripping the front cover of her sketchpad and peeling it open.
The first picture is of one long, curvy line, but it’s immediately clear what it is.
A pregnant belly. A baby bump.
I glance up at the woman still staring out across the garden, lost in the past. Maybe reliving memories of when she had me. Is it a place she’s as trapped in as I was in my life with Lawrence?
My gaze returns to the pad in my hands.
It feels wrong to dig through it when she doesn’t know me. I almost put the pad aside, tell myself to leave this woman alone and not wreck her peace of mind with my presence.
But the need to know more, the need toseemore eats at me. My ability to draw, my love for art came from somewhere. Did it come from her?
I have to know.
So I turn another page.
