Total pages in book: 168
Estimated words: 162369 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 812(@200wpm)___ 649(@250wpm)___ 541(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 162369 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 812(@200wpm)___ 649(@250wpm)___ 541(@300wpm)
As I gently lift her off the bench, she grabs on to my shoulders, and leans her face toward mine until our noses almost touch. When I pull back, she smiles impishly and crinkles her nose.
The gesture is like a Taser to my heart, zapping me with a flash of grief and longing so strong I almost drop her. Her fingers tighten around my shoulders. Ten tiny clear nails cling desperately to the fabric of my flannel shirt like a stray kitten.
My heart thumps, then pauses as if it’s forgotten to keep beating. A low hum—like that time in the kitchen when I was looking at Penny’s drawing—channels and crackles through my limbs, prickling my skin. The sudden racing of my heart dizzies me. An eerie sensation, a mix of joy and fear, swirls through my chest.
I’ve felt this way before, a long, long time ago.
I quickly set Penny down on her feet, and the odd feeling disappears just as abruptly as it started. Wiping my shaking hands on my jeans, I take a step back from her, almost tripping over the bucket she left on the floor.
“I just felt buzzy,” she says, flexing her fingers in the air between us. “Like a bee. Did you?”
“No.”
Yes.
Her eyebrows slant together in a tiny V as she peers up at me. “How come you lie to me?”
“I don’t.”
“Really, Alex?”
“Really, Penny.”
She pins me with a look that’s half disappointment, half amusement. “You’re gonna have to stop doing that,” she says.
“Doing what?”
Her head shakes with exasperation. “Can I see the elephant now?”
Still feeling marginally disoriented, I tilt my chin toward the storage room. “C’mon.”
Her little boots thump on the floor behind me as I cross the room and insert the old key into the lock of the oversized door. She waits just outside until I flick the light on, then she slowly steps inside.
This windowless room now has the air of a morgue—desolate, cold, and haunting, harboring ghosts with nowhere to go. Years ago, it was full of sculptures shining under spotlights, waiting to be displayed and sold. My work took a major turn right before the accident. An A-list actress commissioned me to build a six-foot unicorn made solely of her own objects and fabric—glass, chrome, mirrors, silk, lace, glitter, and old jewelry. It was one of the coolest things I’ve ever made. The actress loved it so much she insisted on paying me twenty-five grand for it—five times the amount I initially quoted her. She displayed the piece in the foyer of her mansion, and a picture of her posing next to it ended up in a popular magazine a month later. Within days, I had six new large commissions. Not long after, several art galleries contacted me offering exhibits.
It was my ultimate dream come true.
My art—appreciated and respected.
Brianna—so proud of me.
Her parents—stunned.
I started to think maybe life was going to be really good. Then tragedy barreled through like a tornado, destroying everything in its path.
Art has been my therapy since I was a little kid. For years, it was all I had. It saved me from loneliness and insanity more times than I can count.
But not this time.
After the accident, a door in my brain slammed shut, blocking me from all creativity and happiness. A lock slid firmly in place, leaving me trapped in the worst kind of silence. The kind where I was alone with my thoughts. That was a place I’d been hiding from for a long time.
It took a year of grieving and drinking myself stupid before I tried to crawl out of the hole and get back to work. I needed money. I needed a distraction. I needed my soul and my mind to be soothed. Without Brianna, all I had left was my art. But the minute I stepped foot in the studio, I crashed straight into that invisible door in my head. All my artistic visions seeped under that door—out of sight and reach.
It wasn’t the welcome I was expecting.
For months, I sat in my studio, waiting for inspiration and motivation to come. The sun rose, the sun set. I didn’t move. I stared at piles of junk that once inspired sculptures I’d get paid thousands for. But they remained someone else’s tossed shit. Every day, I leafed through Brianna’s notebook, staring at her sketches of my rambling ideas. I’d gently run my fingertips over the textured pages, smudging the charcoal, desperately hoping the images would jump off the page and spring to life in my head again.
That didn’t happen.
I returned all the deposits for my commissioned projects.
Once again, I was lost and broke, which was probably always my destiny. My time with Bri was just a detour. It felt like forever ago when she taught me to dream. To believe. For a while, I did. I dared to love, to feel safe.