Total pages in book: 90
Estimated words: 84533 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 423(@200wpm)___ 338(@250wpm)___ 282(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 84533 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 423(@200wpm)___ 338(@250wpm)___ 282(@300wpm)
“Come,” Crow told me after rinsing the dishes.
We went to the hooks by the door where we kept the winter gear, bundled up and tugged on boots, then went outside. Like always, the frosty air felt like it bit across any bare skin as we made our way to the shop.
“The plants are doing well,” I told Crow after he unlocked the door and we slipped inside. “I made sure to take care of those too.”
“I know,” he said without looking at me. “I trust you.”
My breath hitched when I realized he was leading me to the back, toward the locked room where he would disappear for hours at a time. My stomach was in knots. This had to be something good. I knew that because I knew Crow, but so many times in my life, things had gone wrong, and this felt so big, I worried there was no way it would all work out.
Crow unlocked the door, then slowly stepped aside. My feet must have moved, only I didn’t realize it. One moment I was outside the room, the next I was inside, and…it was me. Right in front of me. A large canvas rested on an easel, with the most beautiful painting I had ever seen.
I was asleep in Crow’s bed, lying on my stomach, with my head to the side. My face was relaxed, as if I’d never seen a bad day in my life. Every freckle on my face seemed to match the exact spot where I saw them in the mirror every day.
My lips were slightly parted, and if I listened closely, I could swear I heard my breath—not from the real me standing there, but from the one Crow had created.
My back bowed beautifully, an indent above my ass, another freckle on my right cheek. The hairs on my legs looked soft, like I could reach out and feel them brush against my skin. I was…beautiful. I had never seen myself as a beautiful man. I knew there must be something attractive about me because men wanted to fuck me, but when I looked at myself through Crow’s eyes, I saw it, the beauty of me.
My eyes went from one painting to another and another. One of me laughing, one of me in snow gear. On the snowmobile. Me kneeling, but Crow not there with me. Another of me in the shower, the first night I stayed here; another curled on his couch with ice on my ankle. There had to be thirty paintings, all of me.
I kept going, studying them all, feeling the love Crow had poured into each and every piece of art.
“I’ve been…obsessed with you from the start,” Crow said as I knelt in front of the one of me from when I’d sprained my ankle.
“This is what you do? When you come out here? Paint me?”
“I painted other things before I met you…nothing but you since.”
My heart… I couldn’t put into words what it did. The truth was, I didn’t have a heart anymore. Not one that belonged to me. I had given mine to Crow. It was his, in his possession, and always would be.
“Do I really look like this? Am I really this beautiful to you?”
I heard Crow move behind me, until he was right next to me. “I keep painting because they never turn out as beautiful as you are.”
I didn’t know what was happening to me. One moment I was fine, the next tears spilled down my cheeks, loud sobs pulling from my throat.
Crow sat beside me, pulled me into his arms, tugged me to his lap and held me, hands touching me everywhere, like he was trying to make sure I was okay.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you. I thought—”
“You didn’t hurt me. You…you’re healing me.”
I couldn’t wrap my head around it, how Crow could see all this beauty inside me, but I did believe he was the most beautiful person I’d ever known…so if he saw it there, I had no choice but to believe it.
He kissed my tears away, taking them on his tongue, making them a part of him.
I dropped my head on his shoulder—and noticed something against the wall on the far side of the room. Hidden between all the canvases of me was another one…something else.
Crow didn’t stop me as I climbed off his lap, but he didn’t move either, continued to stay there with his back to me as I made my way through the maze of art. I felt the heaviness in the air, the stillness that could only come from being in a room with Crow. When he wanted, he could be completely silent, not making a sound, just like the most vicious predators.
But Crow was no predator. He was more human than most people could hope to be.