It makes me think of Savannah and howIwant that with her. The house and the babies and the comfort of going home to her. But what the guys have I will never have. Sebastian might very well murder mehimself if he ever finds out. And if by some miracle I don’t end up in a hole in the ground, I know I’ll lose the only friends I’ve ever known, the only family. And I don’t know how to survive that.
When you grew up with nothing, fighting in a sea where you couldn’t find the bottom and you weren’t sure if the next wave would kill you only to be given a tether, a lifeline, you cling to it.
You wrap it around yourself because it’s what saved you.
But even with all of that, knowing that what I am doing is putting that at risk I can’t stop going back. She’s healed parts of me I didn’t think would ever be fixed. How am I meant to stop when she’s become the air in my lungs and the ground beneath my feet?
I think a part of me has been in love with Savannah since she came home from college but now? She has my heart in the palm of her hand and for all I care, she can keep it. Hold it tight, keep it warm. She’s the reason it’s beating anyway.
She never did reply to my message and it’s been a few hours now. I hurt her and I fear I will keep hurting her while our secret remains hidden.
I say goodbye to the guys after a drink, lying about some errands I need to run and head straight back to my girl, pulling up in front of her house only to see her car is not in the driveway.
Me: Where are you?I shoot off a text and head up to the door, sliding the spare key I keep hold of into the lock. Immediately the alarm system starts to beeploudly, alerting of an entrance and I head to the panel. I text her again, requesting the pin but she reads it off, just like the apology and the request for her location.
Fine. I can handle her anger. I’m not going to run from it.
Knowing the system Dean installed, I know I have ten minutes before an alert is sent to the police and three attempts at the pin. I try her birthday first, but it throws an error message, so I then try Sebastian’s birthday. When that still doesn’t work, I pause. My last attempt to disable the system.
1229.
My birthday.
The system unlocks.
Releasing a breath, my eyes close as my heart thuds painfully in my chest.
Savannah had never been any good at hiding her yearning for me, though she liked to believe she was, but I saw it. I felt it. The way she would hold me for longer than anyone else, how she would search for me first whenever she’d enter a party later than the rest of us. I looked forward to those moments. No one else saw it but I always noticed.
The house is silent without her here, lonely but the solitude gives me an opportunity to finally get started on the work I’ve wanted to do for her since she moved in. Heading to the closet, I grab the cans of paint I’d picked up and stored here for this moment and then grab the supplies I need before I move to thedance studio.
It still smells like cut wood and glue in here, the mirrors across one wall reflecting the low light from the windows opposite. There’s one bare wall directly across from me.
My steps echo on the wooden flooring as I make my way toward it and begin to lay the sheet down to protect the floor and then uncap the base paint.
And then I get to work. If she hates it, I’ll paint over it, but a part of me knows she won’t.
It’s been a while since I painted something other than her and as my hand moves, creating shapes and blending colors, all the tension leaves me.
Art has always been my release. Less physical than the need to work out but soothing in a way that quietens the voices inside my head. The sound of the brush moving across the wall is loud in the otherwise silent room and across from me, my reflection mimics my move. The strokes of paint blend seamlessly, creating curves and streaks across the wall and slowly, the image starts to come together.
Paint splatters against my hands and my face, spotting against the dark material of my suit but I don’t give a shit. Every stroke of paint, I see Savannah. I see her smile, the color of her hair, the grace and beauty of her body when she dances. I hear her moans and her laugh, feel her skin under my palms and the silky strands of her hair.
She is a masterpiece that’s just out of reach.
For hours I lose myself to the mural, adding small details and shadows to give the work life but I know I won’t be finished today. I don’t know how to keep her out of here until it is finished but I’ll find a way. This is my gift.
I can’t show her how much I belong to her in front of the world, but here? In the sanctuary we have claimed, in this peace of ours, I will show her. I will break up the world like it’s a puzzle and present it to her, and when the time comes that she gets fed up with living in secret, this piece of art will still be hers. A slice of the world I’d gift her over and over.
The door opening and closing alerts me of her presence long after the sun has gone down. I drop the paint brush and quickly make my way out of the studio, finding her placing her purse down on the kitchen counter.
“How did you get in?” She swallows as I close the door behind me, eyes flicking over the paint on my hands, face and clothes before they narrow, “What are you doing?”
“Trust me?” I start to slowly walk toward her.
She doesn’t answer me.
“I’m sorry I hurt you this morning,” I stop in front of her, lifting a hand to cup her cheek.
