Page 100 of Misery

The compound comes into view. Time to face what I've done.

Time for truth.

Even if it costs me everything.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Elfe

The canvas doesn't judge.

It doesn't lie.

It just takes what I give it—every violent stroke, every bleeding color, every moment of rage I can't voice.

My hands shake as I drag the palette knife through thick black paint, creating ridges that look like claw marks.

Or maybe they're screams.

The kind that get trapped in your throat when everything falls apart.

Red follows, arterial bright, mixing with the black until it looks like old blood.

Like the blood on my mother's face.

Like the blood in my father's truck.

I'm on the floor of my room, canvas propped against the wall because I couldn't be bothered with an easel.

Couldn't be bothered with anything proper or structured.

This isn't about creating art.

It's about working through what’s going on in my mind.

About putting the poison somewhere outside my body before it kills me from the inside.

The painting is abstract but anyone looking would know what it is—chaos, fear, guilt.

The colors swirl and clash, creating forms that might be faces or might be demons.

There's a section that looks like eyes.

Watching. Always watching.

Too many eyes.

Oskar's. Thiago's.

Everyone who claimed to protect me while keeping their own secrets.

My phone sits silent on the dresser.

I've been waiting for news about my father for three hours.

Three hours of nothing.

Three hours of imagining him hurt, bleeding, dying.