Page 30 of Artfully Wild
After a few pages, we get to one Sarah has highlighted frombeginning to end. “It made her think,” I continue reading, Avery’s soft snores are the only other sound aside from my voice and the slight shuffling from the other two on the floor, “that it was curious how much nicer a person looked when he smiled.”
Sarah crossed out the word ‘he’ and replaced it with ‘she’. A note is taped to the end of the page and is filled with her neat scrawl. I fall silent, keeping these words for myself.
I think you already know what I’m going to say here. Between you and Hudson, you’re competing on who gets to be grumpier. It makes me remember that one Halloween when you both had argued for months over who got to dress up as Grumpy from Snow White. While I happily ignored you both as I had my costume picked out the day after the previous Halloween—Mary from this book obviously. I so loved that little blue dress and hat. I wanted to wear that thing everywhere and Mom let me. (I do remember you teasing me about it, so the next time you go to Mom’s, ask about that hat. It might have something else waiting for you).
Even though you fought tooth and nail (and won), I loved seeing you so passionate about something, even if it was over something that seems silly now. But you were the happiest Grumpy I’d ever seen.
Your smile is radiant, Sky. I know you might not have much reason to smile now, but don’t forget there were so many more happy memories than therewere sad ones. I was sick for a few years. But we spent a lifetime filled with better memories, even if that lifetime was cut short.
Don’t forget to smile, Skylar. Find your reasons to smile.
Tears run down my cheeks as I close my eyes, letting her words sink in. I imagine them curling around my body, embracing me tightly until they melt into my skin, healing the part of me that has been broken since the day Sarah died.
My mind drifts to the hat she brought up and I smile until my cheeks hurt. What could she have possibly left me? And then I picture myself next to Ethan and the rest of my family next Halloween, wearing a little blue dress and that ridiculous hat.
Find your reasons to smile.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
SKYLAR
Sunlight streams in through the French window, wisps of dust dancing in the air. I disturb the particles with my fingers and watch the chaos they create, and think about Sarah and me. When we used to bathe in the sunlight that came into our window upstairs in the afternoons. We would sprawl out on the floor and poke at the dust while we talked. The last time we did it was right before she died.
“You okay?” My body jerks, startled from the voice now in the doorway. Jacob is leaning against it with his corduroy jacket wrapped around his body, hands shoved into his pockets, ankles crossed, looking the exact opposite of how I feel. Casual, calm, collected. Whereas I feel like if he took a peek inside my brain, it would resemble the dust particles after I disturbed them.
I shrug in answer to his question and he closes the distance between us in a few strides. I don’t even try to protest when he tugs me into his chest, I just burrow further and breathe him in, my own dust particles settling. “I was just thinking about one of the last times I talked to her.” My voice is muffled, but he shifts and responds with a kiss to the top of my head to let me know he is listening.
“We were in our childhood bedroom laying in the sun. We always liked to do that.”
“Lie in the sun?”
“We liked the warmth against our faces. It felt like happiness. Sarah would always tilt her head up when she went outside at the first sign of warmer weather. She’d close her eyes and get this little smile at the corner of her lips and she’d just pause there and breathe like nothing else in the world mattered except that moment.”
“You get that smile, yah know?” His voice is soothing and I want to bathe in it. I have an urge to look into his eyes, so I pull away to look at him to find he’s already looking at me. The soft pad of his thumb comes to the corner of my mouth tugging it upwards until it does it on its own.
“I do?”
“When you see things you love, you do.”
“You really pay attention, Mr. Sinclair,” I tease because I can’t help myself when I’m around him.
“Only to thingsIlove, little sparrow.” With his forefinger under my chin, he pulls my smile to him and presses it to his lips. It doesn’t take long for our kiss to go from a pace that is slow and steady to something that is more on the if-I-don’t-get-your-clothes-off-now-I’ll-die side of things.
We’re both breathing heavily as our bodies find a steady rhythm against each other. His hands are on my breasts, one moving down further ready to take my shirt off when we both still at the turn of a doorknob.
“Riley, I swear to fuck if you bite me one more time, I will actually drop you. I don’t care how cute and fluffy you are.”
Cold seeps into my skin where warm hands were moments before. We fix our clothes and make a pathetic attempt at catching our breaths just in time for a small pomeranian to trot into our space followed by a disgruntled Charlotte. She’s so busy trying to pluck the dog hair from herred sweater that she doesn’t notice mine and Jacob’s flushed skin.
“Ugh, I bought this sweater right before I moved from this really cute boutique and I didn’t want to wash it yet, but your heathen over there,” she jabs an accusatory finger in Riley’s direction who gives her an innocent head tilt. “He wouldn’t walk on the sidewalk because it’s wet and apparently he’s more high maintenance than I am, which means I had to pick him up and get fur embedded into my sweater that I now have to wash to get it out and it’ll never be this soft again.” She finishes her rant with more yanking at her sweater before she gives up and slumps against the wall.
“Are you okay?” Jacob draws out the question like he’s hesitant to ask. We’re used to seeing Charlotte put together. Hair in place, sweaters in perfect shape, chin up with the confident air that seems to create its own aura around her wherever she goes. But the way she is now? Leaning against the wall, eyes closed like all she wants to do is allow herself the freedom to slide down it until she hits the floor? Not usually her style.
Her chest rises with a deep inhale. “A long day, J. That’s all. And your demon dog over there didn’t really help.”
“Sorry. I should have warned you he wouldn’t have wanted to walk.”
“It’s okay. You can just owe me a sweater along with the boots you still owe me. Careful, soon, you’ll be owing me a new wardrobe.” Without another word, Charlotte leaves the room and we are alone again. Well, alone with Riley.
