Page 120 of Paint the Town, Dove
Ryden waved a hand. “Scarlett’s fault. She’s obsessed with me.”
“That’s one way to put it,” Emory teased.
“O-kay, I will be leaving the premise to get more food, thank you, and goodbye.”
I shut the door but didn’t move, pressing one ear against it to hear what they were saying.
“You doing okay?” Emory.
“It’s always okay, never great.” Ryden.
“How ‘bout a song?”
I could feel Ryden’s smile. “Let’s look something up.”
A few months ago, I discovered Emory was actually good at singing. When she wasn’t smoking or popping acid with her weird contact, she was still that same ball of life I gravitated towards years ago.
Day by day, I could see the effects of her choices – the protrusions of her hip bones, the sulkiness of her cheeks, the hollowness of her eyes – it was a thorn in my heart every time I saw her.
I tried, for the life of me I tried to pull her away from this ‘contact,’ but she wouldn’t tell me who it was or how she got roped into it. All I knew was when I looked at her, I started to see Sinead and Flack. You hide it well in the beginning, but your body isn’t that clever.
I saw it everywhere.
But then she’d shower her beautiful curls, tightline her big eyes and gloss up her lips. She’d sing with Ryden when he was low, pep me up when she was high, and dance in the dark when no one was watching.
Sometimes, I’d dance with her.
Sometimes, Ryden would sing.
And his voice began to hum through the seams of the door. Something by The Fray, who they recently showed me. Both their voices, her high pitch, his low base, a perfect symphony I could listen to for hours.
And I did.
My back against the wood, my ears open with desire… I always hid myself away from emotion.
But hearing my world singing together cracked me open with light.
And sewed me together with music.
I felt everything.
And for once…
Everythingfelt good.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Scarlett
“Fire can’t be contained”
Ipicked at my nails, badgering myself about the last time I held a proper conversation with Ryden.
The taste of his lips against mine was a hazy memory compared to everything that had happened since.
His mom, from what Tav told me, completely vanished into thin air.
“It’s better this way,” he’d said last week. “It’s better that Ryden forgets.”
