of my charcoal usage over this semester. I plucked it like a string on a viola, deep and haunting. I paid no attention to what colors, or lack thereof, I was grabbing. There was some part down in the depths of my soul that took over when I worked. I never had any idea what I was creating until it was over.
I longed for the taste of dark roast coffee. I set my headphones down, feeling I had taken my work as far as I could for now. It was never done, even when it was. I made a cup of coffee, leaning over it and breathing in the steam. It danced in my nostrils almost as well as the scent of Cole did. I turned back to my painting to see not one cell of a past dream or moment in it. It was my first original piece of work since meeting Cole. My dreams seemed to continuously pour out of me onto my canvases.
This piece was dark and sad, and yet there I was; at least it resembled me. Me…there in the center of this giant canvas with a wingspan all my own. Beautiful wings stretched out as the canvas attempted to confine them. An intense, bright glow was bursting from my chest with such explosion; it must have been the reason for the pain across my face. Shadows of those I could only assume were the people in my life shielded their eyes from me, or my demise. It was amazing. If only I was in fact that strong and glorious.
I finished my coffee with a sense of hope for the first time today. It was short-lived, though, when my brain kicked back on and into overdrive. I opened my laptop on the table where Cole and I had been writing our final papers. Max gave it to me when I told him I was going to start taking classes; such a fatherly thing for him to do. I loved him for it.
I opened the extremely slow Internet and opened Google Maps. I entered 143 Anathema St. I stared long enough to see how to get to it, noticing there were no other functioning businesses nearby and there were wooded areas set both in front of and behind it. I closed the laptop. A part of me was insisting this was a trap implanted into my mind in my sleeping state to lure me into the darkness alone. Against any better judgment, I grabbed my keys, covered up my painting, and wrote a note.
“I swear I rested. I finished my Art Medium project. No peeking! Checking this place out. Wanted to let you know in case I don’t beat you home.”
I paused and stared at the word “home.” It warmed me deep through my bones to think of this as our home.
“I’ll be back soon. The address is 143 Anathema, just so you know where I am.”
Love,
Alice
I laid it on the computer and headed out the door. Two things dawned on me after I had already left. First, I hadn’t written a note since I ran away from Jill and Robert, signed “Jane.” That made my stomach flip into a frenzy of guilt and concern that maybe I wouldn’t return. Second, I signed it “Love.” Shit. I tried brushing it off; this may have worked if I wasn’t imagining his breathtaking smile as he read the word. I pressed the pedal of my car to the floor. Maybe I’ll beat him home . My heart skipped a beat.
CHAPTER 7
I parked in the street in front of the store. I shut my door and heard the echo of it extend out for what sounded like miles. This was it, a place I swore I had never really been to, looking exactly as it did in my daydreams and my nightmares. I walked toward the field ahead. The familiarity of it caused shivers to travel throughout me. The entire space felt so ominous. At least the daylight was on my side for now. No matter how strong the sun may have been, it looked as if not one single ray was penetrating the eerie woods ahead of me. I continued scanning the space, looking for similarities and differences from my dreams. The colors around me were not as intense as they were in my dreams and I was honestly a little disappointed. It was more like a sepia toned photograph, which was not helping my nerves in any way. I reached the edge of the woods, skimming my foot against the obvious
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