Chapter 4
Chapter Four
H arper
The present
Two days after the break up, I spread my calendar out on the bed in front of me and stare down at the empty squares that are the next twelve days.
Okay, I was wrong. Two weeks is a long time.
I’ve spent the last two days hiding away in my bedroom pretending to be researching and applying for jobs in NYC – turns out that bunker was a myth. Hiding away in my bedroom is not a reasonable long-term plan though. It will drive me insane. And sooner or later Pack Stanton are bound to drop by. I’ve already overheard my mom on the phone inviting them around for dinner.
Yep, these two weeks are going to feel infinite. Especially when I’m trying to avoid the men who have broken my heart. Whose hearts I have probably broken in return.
Although, the more I think about it, I’m not so certain I have. Sure, Owen had gotten down on his knees and begged me to stay. But Wyatt? He’d just stood there and said nothing, like it wasn’t a big deal at all that I was ending our relationship. And as for Daxton? He just seemed slightly put out – like I’d annoyed him. Something I always seem to do.
Then there’ve been the dates.
Pack Stanton have not hung about. They’re back out there dating again already. Yeah, hardly at home licking their wounds and tending their bruised hearts. Just goes to show that I never meant that much to them.
How do I know about the dating?
Unfortunately, I live with a woman obsessed with my step-brother’s love life and she has been giving me really helpful updates. Ones I have to listen to with a smile on my face and pretend I’m happy about.
I should never have caved to my mom. I should have boarded that damn flight.
I pick up my pen, smooth the calendar flat and fill in the three days I’ve agreed to spend with Molly. That leaves nine more days. I twizzle my pen in my fingers, waiting for inspiration to strike.
Nothing.
How did I occupy my time when I lived back in Rockview as a kid? Most of the time I was studying. Or taking part in after-school activities that would look good on my college application.
I could go to the gym again but there’s a chance Owen will be there. Baking is out of the question because I like to pick out the ingredients myself and Wyatt may be lurking in one of the store aisles. There’s the beach but Pack Stanton are beach bums when they’re not working. It’s too risky. Even the hospital is out of bounds.
That leaves the library. Or my room.
There must be something I can do in here which isn’t weeping into my pillow or reliving unhelpful memories that only break my heart further. Unfortunately I’ve already cleared out and rearranged my wardrobe to death.
I stroll over to my old desk – somewhere I spent so many hours of my adolescent life. All that studying seemed so important back then. Get good grades, get into a good college, get a good job, live a good life. How are you meant to do that, though, if you have no one to share that life with?
I swallow down the lump in my throat and open my desk drawer. The very bottom one. Inside are all my old sketchbooks, my sketching pencils, old bits of charcoal, crayons and dried-up paint pots.
I haven’t drawn or painted for years and years. That was partly Laurent’s fault – I was once brave enough to show him a sketch and he called it amateurish. It was also my own fault. Why did I care what he thought? It was something I loved to do – that’s all that should have mattered.
I wonder if I’d still love it.
I wonder if a bit of heartbreak – a lot of heartbreak – would prove inspirational. Don’t all artists have to suffer for their work?
I rifle through the pads and find one that’s unused. Next I sharpen some of the pencils, and, with my arms full, head out into the garden, finding a secluded spot, resting my back against the trunk of a young cherry tree and opening the sketch pad.
I consider sketching one of the flowers growing in the bed, or the branches of the tree above me. What I end up drawing is the outline for something abstract. It’s definitely amateurish. It’s also raw and painful to look at. Like I’ve drawn my insides.
I keep going, the act is cathartic.
Who needs alphas and their knots when you have a piece of paper and a pencil.