Page 42 of Noah

There was only one person she confided in about her love of art. How did Noah arrange it without her noticing? It was, in a word, sweet. He didn’t have to get her anything she liked to make her feel comfortable, yet he did.

Yeah. It was sweet of him.

He would always be lethal; she didn’t make the mistake of thinking he wasn’t lethal. A combination of thoughtfulness and lethality.

As Adrienne touched the blank canvas with her fingertips, she closed her eyes. She could feel it calling to her already. Her mind filled with an image. Her fingers flexed with the need to pick up a brush. It drew her in.

She could already see the splash of vibrant colours, the long strokes of hues in red and brow, the way the canvas would look in various stages and completed. Like snapshots in her mind taken with a camera, she could picture precisely what it would look like, and she twitched towards the brushes.

She needed to be realistic and start applying for university courses she wanted to take and looking for jobs around those courses. The time had come for her to get her life in order, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t play for a while.

She adjusted the easel and moved it until the light was just right. A sigh of contentment escaped her as she arranged the pieces on the dresser and brought them closer to her.

After a bit of wiggling, Adrienne got it within easy reach, and everything was perfect now.

“Ren?” he asked.

Oh damn. That’s right, he’d have heard her move the furniture. She rubbed her forehead and replied quickly, “Yeah. I was just moving something. Everything’s fine now.”

“Do you need help?”

“No,” she replied. It came out too quickly, though she had no idea why. With a soft voice, she added, “No, thank you.”

He grunted. She heard his footsteps move away from the door.

With the image still in mind, she turned on soothing music and gazed out into the forest as she set the canvas up.

The soft lines and sharp angles fit together like a jigsaw puzzle. She pencilled the image lightly onto the canvas, a rough outline of the final picture. Making it fit what she saw in her mind.

The body began to take shape. Taking care to guide the image into what she wanted, she carefully shaped it. Seeing the last pencil stroke, she stepped back and blinked.

Something was wrong. It wasn’t right, it was missing something. Her thumb rubbed over a stubborn arch on the canvas.

It was the colour that was missing. Colour was crucial to the creation of this piece. Trying to balance the darkness of the past with the light of the future colour played a delicate role.

Until she was finished, the piece would look jumbled, so she took one last look at what she had done before adding something to the bottom of the canvas on impulse.

Although the idea was sentimental and silly, she grew to like it more and more. The whole piece was about escapism, loss, life, and most of all redemption.

Chapter 7

Noah

Adrienne spent the entire week in her room, staying quiet.

During that time, he explored and got to know his people.

Since he didn’t like leaving her alone in the home, he wondered if there was something to the deception, like his lie had gotten into his head.

The moment he left the house, he glared back, worried, and frustrated, as he fisted his hands.

Instead of being frustrated with her, he was frustrated with himself and his inability to leave her. It had become another cage, and he found himself choked by the abrasive walls of emotion.

He felt too much to be able to separate the threads apart to decide what he was feeling.

There was no difficulty understanding his thoughts. There was one thought that stood out above all others. Adrienne.

Whenever she left her room, there were paint smears on her clothes, and she had dazed eyes like she was in a different world.

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