Page 31

Kael

I ’ve been in hell for nine days.

My life, which was once about art and beauty, seems now to revolve around irony and hard lessons.

No one has ever asked me to give them space before.

I’ve never taken the most secret, intimate parts of myself and painted them into being for anyone else to see.

Dravin’s ask wasn’t a rejection. I’m not the only one hurting.

I’m not the only one with a heart I’m just learning, a past I have to make peace with, and a present that I can barely fathom.

It’s still so hard not to be near him, but it’s given me time to sort out what’s real in my head and what’s not.

Do I think of him as a savior and a hero?

Not really. Those aren’t the words that I’d use.

Is it just my body and my hormones driving me to feel a certain way? Attraction is a powerful force. I’m a very visceral person as an artist, but I don’t want to go skin deep with Dravin.

Is it his edgy, mysterious past that draws me in? Is he a puzzle I just want to try and solve?

That’s not it at all.

Is there a part of me that only wants to be near him because he’s the last living link I know of to my brother?

While I wish that Dravin could share more about his and Marcus’ past, their friendship, and their experiences so that I could try and understand that side of a brother I loved with all my heart up until I was fourteen, and then vanished out of our lives in any tangible way.

Returning years later as a completely different person, but who never ceased to provide for us and love us how he could.

I get that it’s not a place Dravin can go now. Maybe not ever.

Marcus willed us together. He couldn’t protect me, provide for me, and love me from a distance any longer, and so he gave me Dravin.

Understanding that in that exact way has given me so much context to the vow Dravin gave my brother, and has helped me understand why he’s struggling now with the idea of changing that promise.

Marcus didn’t put restrictions on it, but there’s Dravin’s own honor.

I get what he meant. Feelings, emotions, and closeness are a risk. Love can heal, but it can also wound, scar, and break.

Dravin didn’t ask for space in order to punish me.

I know that he’s close by. I know that he’s watching me, and that’s comforting instead of being annoying. I’ve never felt more alone in my life, so I’ve done what I didn’t think I could do here. I’ve reached out.

I let Lark take me for coffee one morning with her daughter, who is absolutely adorable.

I took Ella up on her offer of a tour of the local college where she teaches.

It’s summer, so the place was virtually deserted.

I liked the vibe, and she was so passionate about everything.

She told me how she left her degree when she came to Hart and had to finish it.

I didn’t tell her that I’d been ripped from the middle of my own Masters, but she probably picked up on my vibes, both nostalgic and eager to be there with her, talking history, art, and life.

I was shocked to find out more about her and Raiden’s story, and a little bit about the club, how her and Gray’s dad came back to try and harm them, how she wanted to please him because she thought she loved him and all he did was use her.

He tried to hurt her too, but she’s moved on.

She’s so strong that she can forgive. She can look up and find the light and celebrate it.

I went to Willa’s antique store. Her space was incredible.

I stayed for a few hours, since it took all that time to see everything, and Atlas got there just as I was leaving.

He’s a really nice guy. Total golden retriever energy, and Willa is so obviously in love with him.

They were so cute together, it was like eating a tub of ice cream and getting a stomachache after, except my ache wasn’t from watching them together. It was from wanting what they have.

Yesterday, I went to Tarynn’s salon for an hour and let her give me a trim. I wanted to ask her to dye it and do something wild with a cut, like getting the artsy mullet of my dreams, but I know that Dravin wants me to blend in.

I know it won’t be forever.

At least, I hope it won’t.

Kind of like I hope that our separation won’t be forever either.

It would have been nice to take time to be friends before I skipped that step completely, but at the same time, I hope he doesn’t stick me straight into the friendzone.

I know I couldn’t handle that. Not after touching him and seeing him.

I can’t settle when I know there’s something so much more there.

At least I’ve been able to paint while I’ve half been losing my mind. The four finished canvases have doubled.

There are now eight in just a few weeks when I couldn’t paint anything but red bullshit for over twelve months.

Currently, I have paints strewn across the living room—canvases propped up on the couch again, others positioned against the coffee table and chairs, all in various states of creation. Some have backgrounds painted, some just a face, or a set of hands, some are mere sketches on top of the red.

I’m one of those odd people who prefer to paint on a flat surface rather than an easel. I’ve been at it for a few hours, lost in the art, in my head, in the creation, and crafting.

I set my brush down and shake out my hand. I always know it’s time to quit when my fingers, wrists, and arms start cramping. Now that the pain hits, it rolls in like fog, sitting heavy on my shoulders and neck.

I blink into the bright light in the kitchen. I started painting at seven, right after I got up. I meant to make a cup of coffee, but my supplies were already laid out on the table from last night, and the half-finished canvas called to me.

It’s probably two or three in the afternoon now. My empty mug is still sitting on the counter next to the bag of grounds I was about to scoop into the maker.

After being focused on the canvas for so long, my eyes are grainy. My stomach is past the point of growling. It’s somewhere near fire and churning by now. My lips are dry and my throat is pretty much paste.

After washing up, I make a cup of green tea, cut up an apple and put a bagel into the toaster.

I eat, staring out the back window at nothing at all, just the peace and sunny beauty of the backyard.

The hollyhocks are still blooming all along the back fence, even prettier than they were when I thought Dravin was going to mow them down.

They wouldn’t have had a chance to become this beautiful if he had.

If we hadn’t had that conversation, would I ever have had a chance to find his true beauty either?

After eating, I feel more human and less like I’m going to fall over. My eyes aren’t so sore, but I could still use some eyedrops. I had a shower first thing this morning, so at least I accomplished one small thing.

Staring at the flowers in the backyard immediately reminds me that I was going to water the plants on the porch first thing this morning, before it got too hot.

They’re probably half fried by now.

I left the little watering can out there.

All I can think about as I race to the front door, is that I better not have killed those hanging baskets. It would be the ultimate insult to my friends. And yes, I do think of Ella, Hayley, Lynette, Willa, Tarynn, and Lark as that. They’re not just acquaintances anymore.

As soon as I step outside onto the porch, I freeze.

The man on the sidewalk does too.

Dravin .

My heart immediately picks up, thundering so hard that I can hear the beat in my ears.

It’s been less than two weeks, not an eternity, since I saw him last, but he’s even more beautiful than I remember.

I swear he looks thinner, like he hasn’t eaten enough, but his shoulders are just as broad and powerful, his body as commanding and muscular.

He draws my eyes like he has a magnetic field around him.

I rake them over the striated veins in his corded forearms, up to the massive biceps and across his chest, down to his lean waist, until I can eat up the way those jeans sit on his hips like they were made for temptation and sin.

I nearly fall back against the house I’m so stunned to see him here.

My mouth works to call out his name, but he turns, his heavy black boots taking him striding down the sidewalk, away from the house.

He walks past the large tree looming over the road and I lose him in its shadows and the hedges that start at the neighbor’s property.

If my heart wasn’t hammering so brutally, I would have thought that I stood here and hallucinated this whole thing. Conjured him or something. It’s almost creepy.

“What the fuck?” I mumble under my breath, the fact that he turned and just left so damn strange that it warrants talking to myself.

I get it. I think.

He was here and he didn’t want me to see him. He’s bailing. His presence still makes the hair on the backs of my arms stand on end. I grab the watering can, talking myself down out the urge to race after him. If he wanted to talk to me, he would have come to the house.

Had he been standing there for a while? Or did I just pick the exact right time to step outside in some crazy random act of synchronicity?

Instead of slipping back into the house, I stand there clutching the watering can, watching the sidewalk. If I conjured him once, maybe I can bring him back.

As his form ghosts around the hedge, bleeding out of the shadows, lush and powerful, dark and decadent, I nearly leap out of my skin.

Whoa .