Chapter 21 #2
My first vibrant swatch of color since I’d painted the angel that was still held captive in my old home. I stared at it, brush in hand, and wondered what it felt like. How the acrylic used to feel against my skin when I’d accidentally paint my finger instead of the canvas.
Was it cold, like my heart?
I stared even longer, willing my brain to conjure up something useful. When nothing came to mind except for a hundred thousand different memories I didn’t want to remember, I put my hand to the canvas, letting the brush guide me.
Like a magnetic bait bobbing in the ocean, picking up random scraps of trash and metal, I let whatever was left of my passion come out with muscle memory.
Though when I stood back to evaluate what I’d done, I realized exactly how much I’d lost. Nothing but streaks of pink splattered across it, looking like a finger painting I’d once done in kindergarten.
“Fuck,” I whispered. There was no one around to hear it except for the walls watching me in stunned silence. Fuck.
Had I truly lost it? The ability to turn the world into something unique. My way of hugging Mother Nature to thank her for existing.
I set the brush down on the tray Crescent had brought into the room for me.
Right next to the brand-new acrylic paints; most of them were left unopened.
I walked out of the bedroom with shame trailing my footsteps, the floor beneath me soaking with it all.
I almost felt bad for it, having to handle being stepped on by someone like me.
I walked solemnly down the hallway and into the living room. Crescent was on his phone, his brows furrowed in concentration. The TV was on in front of him, but he didn’t seem to be paying attention to it.
He noticed me after only a few seconds, turning my way. “Hey, everything okay?”
I shook my head, willing my voice to work. Nothing came out, as if my vocal cords were blocked by something completely solid.
“Come here, Sunshine.” Crescent moved back a little, pocketing his phone and opening his arms for me.
I slid into them with ease. They wrapped around me tight, the warmth that was Crescent Miller enveloping me whole. We didn’t say a word, simply letting time pass us by. There wasn’t any sense of urgency or the need to fill the air between us with anything more than we could manage.
Being in his arms—being around him in general—felt like coming home. It felt like belonging. It felt right. Even when nothing else made sense, he was the one thing that could hold me together.
We parted just enough for him to look into my eyes. His hands cupped my face on either side, his palms holding my head up. “It’s okay, Sunshine. No matter what, it’ll always be okay.”
My voice came out as a squeak. “How?”
“Because I’ve got you.” I watched his eyes and how they focused on me, never straying.
The way Crescent looked at me now was nothing like when we were kids or teenagers.
Every glance spoke of time we’d missed. Time we’d lost, yet made up for in an unspoken, shared emotion neither of us had yet to name.
Was it safety, or was it friendship? Maybe even devotion.
“I’m never letting you go, Sunshine. You know that, right?
No matter what, I’m never gonna let go.”
I know.
The thought caught me off guard because of the conviction and truth in it. It made my eyes sparkle with tears I hadn’t known I could shed. Ones not laced with deep, horrific sadness.
The spot between my shoulder blades vibrated with need. The need to show him. The need to unveil the truth. My wings begged for an appearance where they no longer existed, just so he could touch them.
A stray drop of my soul ran down my cheek.
It didn’t go very far, immediately being wiped away by Crescent’s thumb.
I couldn’t look away from his gaze, switching between each pupil, finding something new in them each time.
A new memory, or a new emotion. A new swirl of golden brown I’d not noticed before.
Sincerity so deep, it tugged on the tie between us, begging us to come closer.
“Are you okay?” he whispered, his face so close to mine I felt his breath against my cheek.
I gravitated toward him, the wings I thought I’d forever lost trying to take flight, trying to lead me in him. “I don’t want you to let me go, Cres.”
“You know I won’t.”
“Do you promise?”
“Of course I do.”
“Okay.”
The tip of his nose brushed against mine. “Okay?”
My response was as easy as breathing out. At the end of my exhale, the word forced its way through. “Okay.”
This time, it had nothing to do with imaginary wings on my back.
I moved forward, closing the distance, brushing past his nose, and swallowing the air he breathed.
My eyes fell shut as our lips came together, neither of us moving as waves of colors flashed behind my eyelids.
Us, and the world around us. A ray of sunshine and a crescent moon.
The stars meeting the sky in a luscious, deep blue meant for a blank canvas.
And when our lips moved in sync, deepening a kiss I’d never imagined having, all the pieces started to come together. There was never anything else I was supposed to paint. There were no ideas, past or future, that could’ve encapsulated something this big.
Our lives, our souls, our lips were always meant to meet.
A boy whose name meant sun, and the freedom he’d been begging for, bound together as one.