Chapter Sixteen
I hesitate for exactly half a second before slipping inside and quietly closing the door behind me.
The room is dim, curtains half drawn against the dying light, the air cool and faintly scented with something sharp, like graphite or ink.
My irritation melts into a fizzing thrill, the kind that curls low in my stomach and makes me grin despite myself.
Snooping is a bad habit, but right now it feels earned. Call it curiosity, or perhaps karma.
Reid’s room is cleaner than I expected, although unmistakably one of an art major.
I drop my towel and clothes onto his unmade bed, the dark gray sheets crumpled in a central heap.
His overalls and paint-stained hoodies hang from hooks on the back of the door, stiff with dried acrylic.
A wide desk sits beneath the window, scarred with knife marks and pigment stains, notebooks stacked with care beside jars of brushes soaking in cloudy water.
I wander slowly, fingers grazing spines of books on art theory, anatomy, psychology.
Therapy worksheets peek out from beneath one pile, edges dog-eared and scribbled over, words circled, crossed out, rewritten.
I pause, the edge of my irritation dulling slightly.
Sometimes I fail to remember Reid was also in the rehab facility, and that must have been for a reason.
His words from my last therapy session ring out.
“You’re not special here, and you don’t get to dictate who is suffering more. ”
When I think about that, shame colors my cheeks. He’s completely right, but to throw his own logic back at him, he doesn’t get to decide how or why I should suffer. He doesn’t get to withhold sleep and hot water from me.
Moving through his room, that smells more and more like him as I venture deeper, I spot a sketchpad resting half tucked beneath the desk, smudges darkening the cover where it’s been handled too often with dirty hands.
My mouth curves, interest sparking. I crouch and pull it free, telling myself I’ll just look at one page.
Just one glimpse into his mind so I have something to use as leverage the next time he suggests I’m mentally unstable.
The first drawings are studies of hands in different positions.
I marvel at his craft, the attention to taut tendons and knuckles speaking of fine discipline.
Shoulders, collarbones, and spines are sketched from multiple angles, like he’s trying to understand how bodies fold and twist. Faces follow, expressive and raw, eyes rendered with unsettling precision.
They’re incredibly lifelike. Confident strokes of charcoal brush the thick paper like a caress.
It’s beautiful honestly, briefly removing me from where I am. Then, I flip the page.
The tone shifts immediately. Shapes become looser, figures become more emotional. Some pieces are abstract, forms colliding and bleeding into one another, colors layered until they’re almost muddy. Notes are scribbled in the margins. Isolated. Desperate. Broken.
Bodies bend, their ligaments strained and muscles pulled to the point of distortion. My chest tightens, but it’s the next page that makes my stomach dip.
A woman kneels, her shoulders hunched and her spine sharply protruding out of her back. Shadows carve around her, red pencil cutting across her skin in harsh slashes. I turn the pages quicker now, my pulse jumping as the figure is drawn repeatedly, each time becoming more deformed and grotesque.
I slam the sketchbook shut and shove it back beneath the desk, my pulse thudding too loud in my ears as I turn for the door.
This was a mistake. Every instinct I have is screaming at me to leave now, to pretend I never crossed this threshold.
But as my hand closes around the handle, my gaze catches on something half-hidden behind the door, and my body betrays me.
A stack of canvases leans against the wall, their edges nicked with dried paint, frames scuffed from being moved and remade too many times.
I freeze, a slow, creeping dread curling in my stomach.
I don’t want to look. I want to walk out and never know.
Instead, I reach out anyway, fingers brushing the top frame.
The first canvas steals the air from my lungs.
It’s her. Me. I’m her. Not a perfect likeness, but there’s no mistaking it now.
The posture is mine, her shoulders set with defiance in the sweatsuit they gave us at the rehab facility.
The entire piece is in shades of black and gray, except for the crystal blueness in her eyes.
In one painting, she’s sitting in the counsellor’s hall, her jaw riddled with tension.
In another, she’s standing tall in the patient cafeteria, chin lifted in quiet defiance, eyes sharp with a challenge that dares the world to try her.
In the final canvas, she’s folded inward in simply a towel, like the first day I bumped into him in the hallway.
I stare at this one the longest, resonating with the exhaustion etched into the curve of her spine, shadows hollowing her eyes as if sleep has been a stranger for far too long.
There’s six more that I quickly shift through, not allowing myself to procrastinate on a single one until I’m back in the privacy of my room.
Still, each version peels something fresh open within me.
The brushwork shifts from tight and deliberate to violent and raw, paint scraped back, layered over, smeared as if the artist couldn’t decide whether to protect her or expose her.
In some, the colors are muted and restrained, in others they scream, blue eyes clawing through wounds that refuse to stay hidden.
Carefully placing the canvases back where I found them, I grab my towel and clothes from the bed, and race out of the room.
My pulse is roaring in my ears as I close the door shut behind me, my feet tangling as I turn and collide with something solid.
The impact knocks the breath clean out of my lungs, strong hands catching my arms before I can stumble back.
I gasp, my heart detonating in my chest, and every nerve in my body screaming one name.
Reid. Yet, when my head snaps up and panic claws its way into my throat, the face staring back at me isn’t pale, inked and unreadable. Instead, it’s sharp-featured and furious, green eyes flaring with surprise as they rake over me. Everest.
“What the hell—” he starts, his eyes flicking to the door behind me, but I don’t let him finish.
“Shh,” I hiss, my hand flying up to clamp over his mouth without thinking, my body vibrating with urgency. His eyes darken instantly, more from the audacity than the contact, but he goes still as the sharp click of a lock echoes down the hallway behind us. My blood turns to ice.
Everest’s gaze flicks over my shoulder, then back to my face, clearly clocking the panic I’m failing to hide. He tries to pull my hand away, but I grab his wrist instead, fingers digging in as I lean close enough to whisper, “Don’t resist.”
I seize the front of his hoodie and drag him the few steps to my room, my muscles burning as I wrench my door open and shove him inside with more force than necessary.
Despite the adrenaline overriding my panic, I slow myself to close the door as quietly as possible, hoping to all hell that Reid didn’t catch sight of us.
For good measure, my hands fly to the lock, twisting it into place before I slump against it.
I wait there for a beat, willing my heaving chest to settle as the soft pad of feet on the thin carpet sounds.
The door beside mine is opened and closed, and within seconds, music is blared loud enough to shake the walls.
For once, I feel relief at the fact Reid hasn’t seemed to notice anything out of the ordinary.
Only then do I realize two things at once.
Firstly, I am shaking hard enough that my teeth start to chatter.
Secondly, Everest is standing in the middle of my bedroom.
The room feels suddenly smaller, charged in a way that has nothing to do with fear anymore.
I look up gradually, my back still to the door, and find Everest scowling like a predator dropped into unfamiliar territory.
His gaze sweeps the space once, taking in my discarded gym bag, my computer set up, the stack of journals and marker pens, and then lands on the flowers by my window.
Thankfully, he doesn’t comment on those, but I’m not completely off the hook.
“What,” he says carefully, each word clipped and controlled, “the fuck…was that?” I swallow, my throat dry, the image of those canvases still flashing behind my eyes.
“I don’t…I didn’t…,” I stutter, my nails biting into my palms as I force myself to breathe.
Finally, I force some confidence into my features, which I don’t feel at all.
“You saw nothing.” Everest’s jaw tightens, his eyes narrowing as he takes a slow step closer, the air between us tightening with every inch he closes.
“I’m fairly certain I’ve seen something. If this is your room, why were you next door?”
My mouth opens, then closes again, breath hitching as the images flash uninvited behind my eyes.
Canvases stacked like sordid secrets, limbs tangled, trauma exposed, versions of me I never consented to existing.
I shake my head once, a dismissive motion that does nothing to dislodge the tremor working its way through my body.
When I finally speak, my voice comes out brittle.
“It doesn’t matter. Forget what you saw,” I grit through my teeth. My jaw clenches as irritation replaces fear, heat licking up my spine. “What the hell are you even doing here?”