Page 82 of Rivals

“Like what?” I ask, a little too slowly. He frowns and gently grabs my chin.

“Did you take something?” he asks. I shrug and take another sip of my coffee. His hand drops to my hip and squeezes. “Why, baby?”

I shrug again. It’s been a hard week. Well, every week is a hard week. I haven’t been taking as much as usual because I don’t always feel like I need to when I’m with Lachlan.

But I just did today, sue me.

He pats my thighs to stand and walks away, putting his cup in the sink. “Let’s give it a try then,” he says. I look at him curiously. I guess he won’t scold me for being high right now. Hopefully, it wears off by the end of the day, though. He won’t touch me if I’m blitzed.

“Now?” I ask him.

“No time like the present,” he says. He walks to his workspace and digs around in a cabinet that houses supplies. He pulls out two large blocks of wax and sets them on his little table to the side of his easel. He grabs a chair and tosses a couple of sculpting tools on the table.

I take that as my hint. I set my cup on the coffee table and sit on the floor with my wax in front of me. I don’t know what to do with it, so I stare at it. I wonder what Michelangelo was thinking when he looked at his marble. Was he like, ‘Oh, this is an angel. I just have to pull him out’, or did he tell the stone to tell him what it was? I stare at the wax longer, hoping it tells me what it wants to be because I don’t have the slightest clue.

“You’re going to hurt yourself staring at it like that.” I glance at Lachlan, who is already carving his large wax cube. I meet his eyes, and he shakes his head, but the corner of his mouth is curved in an almost smile. Then he smothers it like he shouldn’t be smiling at me.

I look at the wax he’s been working on. I’m not sure what he was going for, but it’s possibly the start of an arm with something sitting on the hand. I go back to staring at my block. Nothing has come to my mind still. Isn’t this stuff supposed to help inspire you? Maybe I’ve taken it too much. Maybe it’s lost its charm. I also noticed the voice has been very quiet lately. Oddly enough, I miss it. I don’t know what that says about me. Maybe I really am going crazy. I guess it’s possible that my mind has split, and I’ll lose all sense of myself and have to be committed. Maybe that won’t be a bad thing.

The dark cloud of frustration grows over my numbness, and I want to stab the carving tool into the block. Maybe this was a bad idea. It’s not like I can just pretend to carve the statue of David and call it good. It needs to be something impactful. Impressive.

I look at Lachlan. In many ways, he’s like my dark angel. He saved me from myself, yet part of me feels like I’m living with the devil. I try using the carving knife like Lachlan showed me and slowly work the wax into the shape that I have in my head. I cut wrong and curse. Lachlan glances at me and keeps his mouth shut. Smart man.

We go at this for hours, and I swear Lachlan is almost done. I’ve carved what looks like a fat marshmallow man. “Screw it, we’re not doing this.”

“Oh, come on, Revna. Cut yourself some slack. You don’t normally do sculpting.”

“I don’t care. We’re not doing this in Italy.”

His expression drops, and he purses his lips. “We have no reason to discount anything right now. I—“

“No, Lachlan, I can’t…I’m obviously not good with this. I don’t want to be the one to make us lose, so I’m going to make the decision. We aren’t doing it.” I huff.

“Oh, I’m sorry. Are you the one making decisions for the team? I was under the impression that those decisions were made together, Revna. As far as I’m concerned, this is not off the table. It could work if you were patient enough to—“

“Do you really want to finish that sentence, Lachlan? Do you?” My heart rate increases, and the fog clears a bit.

He drops his carving knife and strides over to me. “Yeah, Revna, I do because youaren’tpatient. You want it all to come easy. We need something that will set us apart, and I think this will do that. So start practicing.”

“That’s not true, and you know it. My answer is still no,” I snap back.

He grabs my chin and gets close to my face. “Yes, it is. You know I’m right.”

“Why are we even making this choice right now? Why can’t we wait?” I ask.

“I like to be prepared,” he says.

“Fine, then that means we should try painting, too.”

“Ok, fine. Then let’s try painting,” he growls. Lachlan walks over to the many canvases stacked against the wall and finds a large one half-painted from an unfinished project. I watch him take a tube of white paint and squirt it all over the painted section. He smears it all over with his hand until it’s roughly covered.

“There you go, Revna. Let’s paint,” he yells, spreading his arms wide. He grabs a rag and wipes his hands off, filling a jar with water for the paint brushes. I go over to my side of the bed and pull out another pill. “If you toss more poison down your throat, I will shove my fingers down it and make you puke them up. For once in your damn life, Revna, stay sober for more than eight hours!”

I pause, holding the little purple pill of bliss and numbness, and open my mouth slowly, lifting my hand to my tongue. Lachlan runs over to me, and I slip it in my mouth before he has a chance to grab it out of my hand.

He grabs my cheeks and squeezes hard. “Spit it out, Revna! Now!” he yells. He’s squeezing my cheeks too tight. I can’t get my tongue to toss it back, making it slowly dissolve on my tongue. “Revna!” he yells, his voice breaks a little. I refuse to cooperate, and he’s holding my cheeks so hard it’s starting to hurt. But if I open my mouth, the pill will come out. He reaches around and pinches my butt equally as hard. I don’t think I just yelp in pain and accidentally spit the pill out. He grabs the dissolving tablet, runs over to the sink, and throws it down the drain.

“What is your problem? Who do you think you are?!” I yell.