Page 20 of Neat
“I know what you thought,” he said, slamming his pen down. He stood, finally meeting my gaze, and when he did, I wished he hadn’t.
His warm, hazel eyes were gone, replaced by a cool steel that I felt piercing me to my bones.
“You thought you knew everything. You thought my training plan was stupid, and that there was nothing I could teach you that you didn’t already know. You thought I took my job too seriously, and that you were too good to be here.”
My heart sank at my words being thrown back at me. “I didn’t mean—”
“You know, all this time I thought you were this intriguing girl,” he said, rolling his lips together before he continued. “I thought Mallory Scooter was an enigma. You were always this fascinating creature to me, because you were unlike anyone else in this town. I thought you were different, elevated, just… I don’t know. I couldn’t ever put my finger on it, but you were something I’d never experienced.”
Something happened then, a flip of my stomach, a flood of something warm and dizzying settling deep in my chest.
“Really?” I whispered.
“Really,” he said. His eyes searched mine, like he’d lost his train of thought, but in the next exhale, he flattened his lips and shook his head. “But after today, I know I was wrong. You’re just like everyone else. You have no regard for the people around you, you only think about Mallory and what servesher. So, thank you. Thank you for shattering the illusion I had of the mysterious Mallory Scooter. The veil has been lifted, along with the spell, and now I see you for exactly who you are.”
That sting I felt earlier tripled, and my eyes glossed over — not enough to leak actual tears, but enough for me to feel a cool rush of wind all the way down to my toes.
I swallowed, trying to hold my head high as Logan waited for me to respond.
But I didn’t.
What could I possibly say to that?
“Like I said, I think we’re done for the day,” he echoed, sitting back down and snatching his pen off the desk.
He started writing again, and I stood there — numb, ashamed — like a little kid put in her place. I wanted to apologize, but saying I was sorry felt just as foolish as my shirt did now. I’d gotten him in trouble, and he was pissed — he deserved to be. I wanted to make it right, but I didn’t even know where to start.
So, I left, tucking my tail between my legs like the dog I was, without another word.
There were too many emotions flooding through me as I made my way out of that distillery like a zombie. I barely remembered the drive home — only that I could barely breathe, could barely think, could barely remember why I’d been so set on leading that damn tour in the first place.
I needed to calm down, to go to the place where I could be alone, where I could work through what had happened and get a lasso around what the hell was happening to my emotions.
I needed a pencil and a blank sketch pad.
I needed a camera and a sunset in the mountains.
I needed a canvas and a palette of paint.
And I needed to find a way to make it up to Logan Becker — and prove to him I wasn’t the girl he thought I was.
Nothing cleared my mind and brought me peace as much as sketching did.
My left hand was covered in gray dust, fingers guiding the pencil over the page in my sketch pad as I kicked back in the corner of my very messy, soon-to-be art studio. More and more boxes of supplies I’d ordered had started to arrive, but I hadn’t found the time or energy to go through anything yet.
My dream was in mountains all around me, and yet something was stopping me from unboxing it.
I couldn’t think about that, though — not when my thoughts were consumed with Logan Becker and the hellish day I’d had at the distillery. And to escapethosethoughts, I’d picked up a fresh new pencil, a blank sketch pad that I’d plucked from one of the boxes, and I’d turned my worries loose.
Sometimes my mind wandered while I sketched, but most of the time, it was just me and whatever I was creating — that image I was bringing to life. I’d lose myself in the comforting sounds of pencil against paper, of my hand skating across the page with each dark line or light shading. I had a soft indie playlist playing in the background, and the setting sun streaming in through the Main Street windows as my light.
A rush of cool wind blew my hair back off my shoulders, and it brought me out of my daze. I blinked, looking up at the front door, the first time my eyes had left the page since I’d sat down.
And then I sighed.
My parents were just inside the studio, looking around at the mess — Dad with his hands in the pockets of his dark jeans, Mom with her hands folded over her purse hanging off her shoulder.
Dad wore a cream cowboy hat over his white hair, his skin somehow tan even in the middle of winter. Wrinkles lined his long face, revealing more about the life he’d lived than any words could. He was tall and lean, a picturesque cowboy from an old western film. I half expected the sound of spurs clinking on his boots when he started making his way toward me, scanning the piles of boxes and yet-to-be-built furniture and supplies before his gaze found me.
