12 Chapter 12

I crossed the foyer and rushed up the stairs. Gran’s room was the only one not crowding the upper part of the Lady. She’d claimed she chose sleeping on its “belly”—meaning the ground floor—to keep a comfortable temperature in the room, because heat and humidity was something she simply couldn’t cope with. It was especially bad during summer when the roof soaked up the bright sunlight and squeezed it out into the house, transforming it into our own personal oven. She’d even wanted to migrate to the Lady’s feet—meaning the basement—and shape it into her own cool heaven, but the stairs were a pain in the ass and fixing them meant time and hassle.

She had thick skin, and a cold and fresh milieu to sleep in was her delight—German genes, I guessed.

I reached the end of the hall, pushed open the door of my room and stepped inside. Why she couldn’t use air conditioner to create that cool heaven of hers wherever she wanted, I didn’t know. A European thing, too, I guessed. I remembered the time we went to visit Gran’s hometown and decided to take a tour around Europe. Three of the five countries we’d seen—Spain, France and Italy—apparently rejected the whole notion of using an air cooling system while travelling in a car. Having the windows rolled down with natural air sliding past their faces was the standard thing to do, even if natural meant hot-choking air.

But being as caring as always, Gran had thought of her granddaughter's survival during hot summer days and had installed air conditioner units in our rooms. They’d been really helpful last summer. But since it was spring, the weather was still cool enough to avoid them—cooler than normal actually, but it wasn’t too much of a surprise. The weather here was bipolar. One day could be hot enough to cook an egg on the pavement, whereas the next day could be cold enough to lose one’s hand from frostbite. Lovely, really.

I flipped the light on and closed the door. The drawer of my dresser—the one I’d painted with multicolored curlicues, stars and random forms—was half open already. I plucked out the first flannel pants and Cami my hands found, peeled off my clothes, and pulled the others on to sleep. It was a blue-and-gray plaid pant and a white Cami, and I thought it was not too bad of a combination, until I stopped in front of the standing mirror and saw my reflection. I tossed the dirty clothes into the yellow “Toxic Fabric” hamper in the corner and meditated on whether putting on a bra again, or showing my two friends here to anyone who clasped eyes on me. Because the see-through cami wouldn’t hide them from the firefighters if the Lady suddenly decided to get angry and burst into flames, or if a tornado suddenly decided to show up to say hi and, God help me, leave my friends exposed to the whole neighborhood. One never knew what might happen. The world was, indeed, full of crazy possibilities.

After a moment of deep consideration, I opted to stay braless because the probabilities of a fire or tornado were, after all, pretty low. And there was nothing better than sleeping loose and comfortable.

I turned on the lamp on the nightstand and flipped the light off, veiling all the mini paintings in the four walls under a shadowy light. Some people said my room looked like a giant, four-dimensional doodle, and I just told them it was the result of lacking canvas. But truth to be told, I loved painting in walls. There was something definite about stamping my soul into a strong, permanent material, as if that peep of creativity could never disappear—a mark of one’s passing. The wall could be repainted over the years, but the painting would always remain there, hidden under layers and layers of colors. A canvas, however, was more breakable, weaker. It was a loose ground for the depiction of one’s mind, while a wall was steadier.

But that didn’t mean I didn’t like using canvas—or paper. I had several sketchpads piled up in boxes with drawings dating back even six years. My commitment to art had begun at an early stage. Times when I was supposed to play with Barbies and dolls had been spent with color pencils and crayons over loose pieces of paper. They’d been aimless shapes at first, but they’d soon transformed into beautiful, well-structured images. And when Mom had realized this, she’d decided to take it to the next level and bought me sketchpads. They’d been my diversion since then—and a source of liberation.

Yes, I did have a way to deal with the heavy oppression of sadness. Buffy had her books, and I had my sketchpads.

I bent forward and pulled it out from under the bed. In case someone busted into my room, the sketchpad wasn’t in plain sight, at least. Some sketches felt intimate in a way. They were glimpses of my soul, of my true-self (the one hiding inside those icy walls from the world), and the pencil seemed to be the gulp of air, the revitalizing blow that my core needed sometimes. Along with the short escapades, the sketchpad was the only palpable connection of the real Dafne to this reality. Without them, she would be lost, buried deep into the tangled blackness of my insides, with no imminent light to show her the way out, and I didn’t want that to happen.

One needed to be tough to stomach all the darkness and sadness and greediness in the world, but not for the high price of losing oneself. If being down in the dumps for opening my heart while drawing my thoughts onto paper was the price I had to pay to not do it, then I would definitely endure it. More now than ever when my essence seemed to evaporate a bit more each day.

I eased into bed and settled the sketchpad on my knees. I pushed out my hand to reach the glass of water on the middle of the nightstand and grasped…air? I turned to look. The glass wasn’t there. I sighed. I forgot to take it. Then my eyes narrowed. Because of stupid, chauvinistic Ian.

Usually, I never forgot to pour me down one for the night. It was almost an automatic thing, an essential, like brushing my teeth before sliding inside the-glow-in-the-dark starred comforter. Mom had made it a routine. She used to bring us up every night a glass of water to our rooms—a Bugs Bunny glass for me and a Tweety one for Buffy, which she’d decided to ditch after getting her first bra. I still used mine, though. Midnight water just didn’t taste the same without that smiley bunny on the other side of the glass.

With the chipped bowl and all, I guess I had a thing for tableware.

With Ian, however, the only thing I had was a colossal desire to punch him in the face, straight into his perfect nose and intense gem-like eyes—a shade of reddish purple under them would’ve brought out that maddening emerald. Maybe chop some of his annoying silky hair with Gran’s garden shears, too. And try that highly corrosive drain cleaner hidden in the storage room on his pianist hands to see its full effects would’ve been sweet as hell.

The guy needed some humbling. He was infuriating.

With a groan, I got to my feet and tiptoed down the stairs, careful enough to dodge the floorboards’ complaint. The toes in my naked feet curled up once they touched the cold foyer, recoiling in disapproval. My arms pebbled with tight goose bumps. It was freaking Antarctica down here!