Total pages in book: 98
Estimated words: 90778 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 454(@200wpm)___ 363(@250wpm)___ 303(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 90778 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 454(@200wpm)___ 363(@250wpm)___ 303(@300wpm)
Then she sinks back into the pillows, her eyes closing. All in all, her words make me smile, and they make me feel proud. She falls asleep quickly, her breathing steady and even. I stay for a while, making sure she’s deeply asleep before slipping out of the room.
I make my way to the music room and stand in front of the portrait I commissioned, the one I’d intended to use as a weapon, a way to humiliate her. I see how she must have seen it and it makes my body convulse with shame. Only a truly ugly person could have thought to do such a thing. I have become ugly. So ugly I don’t look much in the mirror anymore. Even I can’t bear the sight of me.
But this painting is not her. And it’s not me. It is an aberration. A season of hate did that.
I rush to the painting, rip it down from the wall, and break the frame with my bare hands until it is a heap of gilded wood and crumpled canvas. There are chips everywhere. But even throwing it away isn’t enough. I need to destroy it, to burn away the anger and bitterness that have poisoned everything between us.
I take the broken heap to the backyard and chuck it near the fire pit. The match flares to life in my hand. I hold it to the edge of the canvas. The flames catch quickly, consuming the image of her with an almost beautiful ferocity. I watch it burn, the heat warming my face as the last remnants of my resentment turn to ash.
I feel lighter. The anger is gone, replaced by something raw and fragile but undeniably real. It’s time to start over, to build something new from the ruins of what I’ve destroyed.
This time, I won’t let anything come between us.
CHAPTER 43
RAVEN
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qLfqA2igdUI
-sweet dreams are made of this-
I wake up suddenly from the edges of a restless sleep. My eyes flutter open, and I immediately notice the dim glow of flickering light painting the walls of my bedroom. My heart quickens with panic. Something’s wrong. I feel it in my chest. Even the room seems colder. I sit up and clutching a blanket tightly around me, I move toward the window, the source of the light.
Pressing my palm to the icy glass, I squint into the darkness. The yard is bathed in the orange hue of flames. My breath catches when I see Earl—tall, motionless, his face lit by the fire consuming broken bits of wood and a canvas.
The sight sends a shiver down my spine, not from the cold or the raw intensity of his stance, but because I know exactly what he is burning.
The blanket falls away from my shoulders and my knees nearly buckle. “The painting?” I whisper, trying to make sense of it.
Why is he doing this? What does it really mean?
Suddenly, he turns his head and looks up at me. He looks at me as if he’s seeing a ghost. His expression is agonized. For a long moment, we stare at each other.
Then I retreat to the bed and sit on the edge, my hands clasped tightly together. My chest feels tight, my breaths come in shallow gasps. Earl, what are you letting go of?
Then the door opens, and I glance up sharply. Earl steps inside, his eyes look at me as if nothing else in the world matters to him. The faint scent of smoke clings to him, mingling with the cooler air of the room.
I don’t speak. I can’t. The warmth of him feels like a balm against the raw ache inside me. He moves, the light from the hallway framing him like a halo.
He walks to the fallen blanket, picks it up and approaches me. When he stops in front of me, I can feel the heat radiating from his body. Gently, he places the blanket around my shoulders. The tension is thick, almost overpowering, but I don’t pull away. My fingers clutch the soft wool tightly as if bracing for something I dare not name. Dare not hope for.
“Are you alright?,” he asks, his voice soft but laced with something deeper, something that stirs the air between us like a tangible thing.
I nod, my throat too tight to form words. Instead, I reach up my hand, my fingers brushing lightly against his chest. His breath hitches, and for a moment, we’re both frozen, caught in the wonder of each other.
Then I rise to my feet, the blanket slipping from my shoulders to pool at my feet. The cold air brushes against my skin, but I don’t care. All I can focus on is him—on the way his eyes darken as they roam over me, on the way his chest rises and falls with each unsteady breath.