Chapter 33

AJ

As Amora walks into my art room I feel like I'm making a colossal mistake. What is she going to say? She'll think I'm some creeper. I watch her face closely, looking for any indication at what she's thinking. I watch a look of awe spread across her face. I take a deep breath and close my eyes, waiting for the disgust and horror that will soon follow. The walls are adorned with sketches upon sketches…of her. Or something similar to her,

"I didn't realize this when I first saw you but I've been drawing this girl, this hybrid, she just kept showing up in my head over and over again...you." She turns and looks at me with her blue-gray eyes. "you've been drawing me for—" she looks at one of the dates a bit closer "Years." She finishes, exasperation hinting at the edges of her voice.

"I swear I'm not a stalker. In fact, I didn't even realize these were you until this morning." She looks at the pictures again,

"They're quite accurate. It's a little alarming. Are you sure you're not a stalker?"

"Positive."

I nod, I'm standing in the center of the room awkwardly, my hands held behind my back and gnawing at the inside of my lip. Looking anywhere but at her. It's probably making me look guilty as hell, but I'm not lying to her, I think in her run through of my entire life she would have seen me following her around like a perve. She seems to come to the same conclusion, judging by the look on her face. She bites her lip but then looks back at me,

"Promise?" she asks.

"Scout's honor." I give her a cheeky grin, salute and all.

She sighs, "I doubt you were ever a boy scout." Her tone of voice is eerily familiar to Raven's venom, I'm beginning to see why they're friends

"You would be correct, darlin'" I give her a more honest smile now, even though it feels false, I want to try and make things seem less dark than they were on the way here. She looks back around the room,

"Wow."

I follow her gaze up to the ceiling,

"My most recent project, other than the outdoor ones, obviously."

"Wow." She says again, and I can't help but smile. I love it when I meet someone who appreciates art as much as I do. "You like it, huh?" an open mouth nod is my only response as she stares upward, as if the gods themselves are speaking to her. Not that I understand why, that piece is a darker artwork. Sure, it's colorful, but it's meaning is dark.. It's a single weeping willow tree, it's branches getting broken and tangled in the torrent wind of the rainstorm of crystal blue raindrops, each perfect teardrop glittering like a gem until it drops closer to the bottom of the painting, where it turns gray, vanishing into dust on the wind. A single boy, under the tree, crouched up against it, covering his face, praying for the insistent roaring and pulling of the wind to stop, as he too, turns to dust. Just looking at it brings tears to my eyes. She stares like she just found something to worship. My art, my most vulnerable way of expressing myself . I wipe the tears away, suddenly aware of the scars on my wrist, scars I hope she doesn't notice, especially if she's just going to stand there and stare at them the same way she's doing with my painting. I pull my jacket back up onto my arm and zip it up. I clear my throat, loud enough for her to hear, when she looks at me there's tears in her eyes again.

"How do you live like this?" she whispers.

"You already asked me that."

"And did you ever answer?"

I look down at my trashy shoes, my converse, torn and ragged, water damaged and stained with dirt and bleach and god knows what else.

"Not really." I whisper to the ground

"Well, answer me now. How do you do it?"

I shrug, this is a question I don't know the answer to, I'd always assumed that I eventually stopped letting myself get wrapped up in how I felt. But I know that's a lie, I never stopped, I just got better at hiding it. Eventually, I stopped really living.

"I don't live like this. I'm long dead."

She walks towards me briskly and throws her arms around me before I have any time to react. I hug her tightly. Where has she been all my life? I've needed her for so long. "What the—" I hear from the doorway, I turn to find my dad standing there, regarding me with cruelty in his eyes. I hear Amora gasp behind me. "Who's the new sexy fox?" he looks her up and down and the intention in his eyes is enough to make my stomach turn. "No one who has the slightest bit of interest in you, so unless you wanna go back to prison for rape, I suggest you keep your filthy hands away from her." I spit. "Ooo, Arthur James putting his big boy pants on now." He steps into the room and scoffs at the pictures on the wall, he rips several of them off and tears them to pieces. "Look at all this shit." he slurs, "Such a little bitch aren't ya boy?" He slams his hands into my chest so hard I didn't even see it coming. "Faggot." his hot alcoholic breath burns the hairs in my nose. I look at him with a blank expression, unimpressed by his burst of anger. He slams me up against the wall and I laugh,

"As if you haven't used that move enough."

I catch Amora's eyes as I look over his shoulder, I would have expected her to look scared and surprised if I didn't know better. But when I look at her, she only looks angry. Her knives have come out to play. I silently plead with her to just go, to not get involved, but if she even considered it for a second, it never showed. She sends one knife zipping right past my dad's ear, she cuts it. Sailing the knife into the wall right behind his head.

"OW!"

He yells, pushing away from me and cupping his ear. His gaze lands on Amora, fury igniting his already short temper.

"You little—" he moves to grab her, but she moves too fast, body slamming into him with surprising force, she shoves him out of the room, slams the door and locks it, before he can even realize what happened.

"Are you okay?" she sheaths her other knife in a place that I can't quite see and places her hands on either side of my face. I grab her wrists and pull her hands down, interlacing my fingers with hers.

"I'm fine, but what you just did. Was the most idiotic thing I've ever seen anyone do."

She raises an eyebrow at me, "More idiotic than hopping all over a building for hours, not caring if you get caught by the police as you vandalize a school?"

I roll my eyes "The most idiotic thing I've ever seen anyone other than me do."

Pounding on the door begins, "I'M GONNA GET YOU, YOU SPOILED BRAT!"

"I'd like to see you try you abusive son of a—"

I put my finger over her lips "Language!" I whisper harshly. A smile graces my lips as I try not to laugh at her burst of passion. She glares at me, right before licking my finger. I pull it away from her mouth with lightning speed. "ahh!" I pause, I wipe my finger on her neck and she slaps at my hands "ickkyyy!" She sounds, I laugh at her reaction.