I need something to give. Everything is about to fall apart in front of my eyes and just out of reach. But how do I change any of it? What I truly need is mercy from a heartless man dead set on revenge.
“There you are,” I hear Addison before I see her and my heart attempts to leap up my throat, beating chaotically as if caught in an unspeakable act.
“Hey,” I breathe out and my voice wavers. The wine in my glass swishes from being jostled and to steady it, I hold the stem with both hands.
“This kind of feels like a blind date, doesn’t it?” Addison jokes with a genuine smile. Her mood is greatly improved from yesterday. She almost seems like a different person from what I’ve seen before.
Carefree and excited. There’s a sweetness about her and the air around her as she walks into the room. Without hesitation, she picks up a glass and fills it.
“It kind of does,” I agree with a dry laugh and a half-smile and the awkwardness wanes. My hands are clammy as she lifts up her glass for a cheers and I do the same.
“To new friends.” She tilts her head with the same smile on her lips, but it’s softer as the glass clinks.
Sighing, she settles into the sofa, making herself comfortable. “I’ve only been in this room the one time,” Addison starts talking although she’s not looking at me at all. She tucks her legs up under her as she sets the glass down on the end table and stares at a black and white photograph framed just to the right of the mantel. “Carter wanted to show me he’d hung my pictures,” she says softly and then glances at me. “I think he just wanted to make me smile and feel welcomed, you know?”
My brow raises in surprise. “These are yours?” I ask her, finding the conversation a wonderful distraction for the well of emotion that constantly pulls me into the tide of depression I’ve been feeling. The idea of Carter doing anything for her just to make her happy has questions drifting in the forefront of my mind, but I swat them away. No thoughts of Carter or anything else. I’ve proven to myself I’m incapable of processing it all.
Every few minutes, my mood has changed today. Whether I think of Nikolai and his impending execution, my father and what he did to Carter and the Cross brothers, the fact that he hasn’t come for me, or Carter himself and the cruel things he says and the murders he has planned.
Yet the prospect of falling into his arms for him to soothe all the painful twists and turns this week has given me, somehow clouds my judgment and that’s where I want to stay. Accepting a comfort and turning my back on reality.
Maybe that’s why I’m growing to hate myself. Yes, I truly think I’m going insane. And I’d blame Carter if only I could remember what he’s done and what he plans to do when he kisses me and takes all the pain away.
“All of them but those two,” she says and points out two abstract watercolor paintings behind us that straddle the entrance to the den. Tugging my skirt down, I clear my throat and smile. The kind of smile I’ve given others before when I know that’s what they expect to see.
Sometimes that smile turns into a genuine one, and that’s what I hope this turns into. I pray that’s what it will be.
“You’re very talented.” I have to admire her work yet again. It’s not the first time I’ve noticed them. “They’re stunning.”
Her fair features blush and her shoulders dip a little as she waves me away and jokingly says, “Aw shucks,” causing me to let out a gentle laugh. “That’s kind of you.”
“I love art,” I tell her and for some reason the generic statement makes me scrunch up my nose. “I love the ones that make you feel.” My hands gesture in the air toward my chest to make my point. “Like with yours.” My words fail me, and I have to close my eyes, shaking my head for a moment, so I can put the right words in order to get out exactly what I mean. “It seems so simple, even with the black and white taking away even more of what we’d see normally. But in the simplicity, there’s so much more there that speaks to a raw side of your soul like you can feel what the photographer feels, or any artist by focusing on an object that would have such little meaning if you saw it in passing. In the art, it begs to tell you a story and you can already feel what the story is about.”
“I knew you were a girl of my own heart,” Addison says and offers me a kind smile. “I have to admit,” she leans forward, hushing her voice, “I’ve seen your drawings and I could say the same right back to you.”