Chapter Forty Seven #2
The eyes have returned, punching through the medium rather than being carefully crafted by it.
Stark cobalt cuts through hues of gray and green, the sheer life seeping from the glinting irises startling.
They’re my eyes, I decide. My reflection looks back at me from within layers of rage and relief.
At some point, Liz drifts back over to my side and her low whistle cuts through my headphones. I pop them out to grin at her.
“Now that’s what we want to see. Great work today, Meg.
” I grin back at her as she lifts my canvas from the easel, appraising it before she brings it down in a blur of movement, cracking the frame across her knee.
Wood splinters through the canvas, my eyes flying wide and mouth dropping open.
Liz’s smile doesn’t falter as she bends the canvas in half, concealing the smeared paint inside as she tosses it in the trash can.
“The next one will be even better. I’m excited to see it. ”
For a second, I don’t move. I just stand there, brush still in my hand, fingers slowly tightening around it as if I can rewind the last ten seconds through sheer will.
If there was ever a time to develop a superpower, this is it.
Alas, my gaze drifts to the trash can, to the bent, broken frame half-hidden amongst the scrunched newspaper.
There’s a strange, hollow quiet in my chest. That was the first time I felt like I’d accomplished something, and I didn’t even get to take a photo of it.
“She tore up twelve of my pieces before she felt that I’d found my creative rhythm,” a voice cuts through my internal spiral. I stiffen before I turn to see Reid sitting in my stool. “It is for the best, trust me.” Despite my shocked state, I let out a short, incredulous laugh.
“Trust you?” My brows lift, disbelief written all over my face. The brush cracks in my hand, alerting me to the iron-clad grip I had on it. I toss the two pieces into the trash alongside my recent masterpiece.
“You’ve barely looked at me all week, and now what, you’re going to drop in with some encouragement?
” I shake my head, a humorless huff slipping out as I grab my bag.
“Give me a break. Whatever this is,” I wave my hand in front of his face, noticing a smudge of blue paint on the outside of my finger.
Without thinking, I twist my hand and smear that paint along Reid’s cheek. “I’m not interested.”
For a second, he just stares at me like he can’t quite compute what just happened.
The streak of blue stands out stark against his pale skin, cutting across the line of his cheekbone.
Surprise flickers in his expression, edged with something darker, but I don’t stick around long enough to figure out what it is.
I shoulder my bag and turn on my heel, pushing my way out of the studio before I do anything else to antagonize him.
The door begins to swing shut behind me, until someone else shoulders it open and lets it slam shut.
The bang cracks through my being, the sound echoing down the hallway.
I flinch violently, clutching my chest and stumbling into the nearest wall.
There’s a flash of Reid’s white hair as he also leaves, luckily not spotting me in the throes of panic and heading in the opposite direction.
Good, he can stay as far away from me as possible.
I can’t stand the hot and cold act, not knowing what he wants from me, not being able to get a read on him. It’s frustrating as hell.
Eventually, when my legs are stable enough to carry me, I make it down the stairs and across the quad, ducking past clusters of students who blur together into background noise.
My body is on autopilot, my feet carrying me along familiar paths while my brain lags somewhere behind, still stuck on splintered wood and all-seeing eyes that have just started to reveal an unspoken truth before they were destroyed in front of me.
In fact, I barely register where I am until I’m halfway up the path toward my dorm, the building looming ahead like a prison block.
My pace slows to a stop, the breath sawing out of me as I stare up at the windows.
Yeah. No thanks. The thought of going back there, of sitting alone in that room and waiting for the walls to start vibrating with Reid’s music, makes my chest clench.
Pulling out my phone, I check the time and blow out a quiet curse when I realize Thiago’s still stuck in class for another hour.
Of course the one person who would actually distract me isn’t available. Although…maybe there’s an alternative.
Remaining there for another beat, weighing options I don’t really have, I huff out a breath and turn on my heel again. Fine. Let’s see if Everest is in class like a good boy or if he’s taking a break from following orders.
The walk to Everest’s is quieter, given that it’s tucked away enough from the main campus.
His red Lexus is sitting in the driveway, and when I will myself up his porch steps, I find the front door is unlocked.
I slip inside, falling into a strange, detached calm.
The only times I’ve been here before are when bodies are crammed in from wall to wall, music thumping and drinks being passed around.
Stepping into the entrance hall now is almost eerie, the house seeming so much more spacious than I realized. There’s a faint smell of cologne and timber from the wall paneling, my hand gliding over the railing as I climb the stairs.
“Hello?” I call out, more out of courtesy than anything else, my voice bouncing around the open space.
There’s no answer. Climbing higher, I search for a hint of personality in the décor and find none.
Nothing to signify who lives here, if you don’t already know the reputation the house is shrouded in.
At the end of the upper hallway, Everest’s office door is ajar.
I nudge it open with my shoulder, stepping inside and releasing a small sigh. It’s empty.
I don’t know what I was expecting, don’t even know what I’m doing here except asking for trouble.
I suppose I figured Everest and I have found some new kind of friendship.
Maybe he’d listen to my rant about Liz and Reid and how it’ll probably take days to get the paint out from beneath my nails, then tell me I’m being oversensitive.
We’d have a whole argument about it and I’d stomp out, feeling both validated and liberated of my stress.
That’s the general plan in my head, but it looks like I’ll have to liberate myself another way.
Abandoning plan A, I walk down the hallway until there’s a shuffle of footsteps on the porch. By the sounds of it, the front door is swung open, Everest’s voice growling a second later.
“What the hell are you doing here?!” I freeze mid-step, a tremor rolling through my spine.
I’ve never heard him speak like that before.
For a second, I worry he’s shouting at me, but then someone grunts for Everest to back the fuck off.
I don’t catch who before the sound of a physical scuffle comes.
“Me, back the fuck off? You pulled me out of class for no good fucking reason. You know we can’t be seen together.
Are you trying to ruin everything, or does it just come naturally? ”
My pulse picks up, ears straining as the argument escalates below.
Scuffles follow accompanied by grunts, which ends with a crash against the wall.
The reverberation of it can be felt through the board beneath my feet.
My entire body has gone still, alarm bells ring in my head.
I should not have come here. Glancing down the hallway, then back into the office, indecision claws at me before instinct wins out.
I back into the nearest room, discovering it to be some sort of lounge area with a pool table.
In my haste to hide away, my bag nudges into the pool table and slips from my shoulder.
It hits the floor with a thud that cuts through the house with the same aftereffects of a bomb.
The shouting cuts off abruptly, the silence that follows causing my pulse to spike.
“Get out of here,” Everest growls. No sooner has the front door slammed, do footsteps hit the stairs.
My heart slams against my chest as I stagger back, dropping onto a sofa.
A few doors are thrown open before Everest finds the right one, and even though I expected it, I still scream when he barges in, his face the image of rage.
There’s a tic beneath his left eye, his jaw slackening before his curated control takes back over.
Stepping inside, Everest folds his arms over his chest.
“Oh, Meg,” he says evenly. “What did you hear?”