Page 55 of From the Embers

Mom and Dad want to throw a small housewarming for her when I get back if you’re up for it?

Oh, I’m up for that. I wonder if I’ll get to see her apartment from the inside before then. I also don’t want to make the whole thing awkward for her either, especially if he’s talking about that being soon… I can’t go to her housewarming with all her family there and none of them know about us. It’s like lying. I’m sure her parents would be over the moon, we’ve always gotten along really well, and of course, they have never forgotten me climbing up onto their porch roof to grab Daryl, Sammy, and Adi out of the window the night their house burned to the ground. Crazy, crazy memories right there.

Denver

Sure. Why not

I’m so going to Hell if I don’t have this talk with Daryl soon. Okay, we’re all grown ups here, but I still feel as his best friend and for my own code of ethics—even though I’ve been breaking them at every turn—he needs to know the truth.

Daryl

I’ll see you in a few days

Denver

Sounds good

I toss my phone beside me and lay for a while cuddling Bodhi, while he makes himself at home lying on my chest. For once I don’t feel the need to hit the gym, or go for a run, or do something to distract me from anything going on at work. It’s just nice taking a moment, a breather for myself, something I seldom do. I close my eyes and let them rest, weariness coming over me now I’m relaxed and laying on the couch. Falling into a light sleep for an hour is not what I planned, but probably what I’ve needed.

When I rouse I stretch out I glance at the sketchbook on my coffee table. The graphite pencils are still in the box. I stocked up on some supplies months ago, but I haven’t sketched anything in a while.

I’ve always found art therapeutic. I’m better at drawing than painting, but I can do both when I have the time. I’m no professional, it’s just something I like to do from time to time.

When I rise up to sitting, Bodhi slides down onto my lap and I reach for my large sketchbook, pulling it open. They’re black and white sketches mainly. Landscapes. Scenery. Trees. My cat. Nothing ground breaking, but things I enjoy.

Something about my time with Adi suddenly inspires me to want to draw again.

I have a setting in mind; a landscape, a sweeping sky at sunset with lapping water from the Chicago river below it. I open to a fresh page and grab a graphite pencil out of the packet and just let my hand glide. Not even thinking too much about it, I just let the strokes flow. It doesn’t take too long for me to slide onto the floor to get closer to the table, Bodhi still on my lap, while the scene comes together.

The need for some color strikes me. My vision is a burnt orange sky in different shades, and the river a soft green… Red and green. I smirk to myself at the irony. Only just realizing what has sparked my sudden outburst to draw again.

The sky I’ve sketched and colored already has the same tones as Adelaide’s hair. The water—which I’m yet to complete but have already started shading in—is an enigmatic green, bright but softer in places, and it matches her eyes exactly…

The picture forming before me is clearly Adelaide-inspired.

“What do you think?” I ask Bodhi, after a while of tweaking the different oranges through the sky. “Is it coming together or what?”

He continues to snooze on my lap, providing no insight at all. “You just keep sleeping, bud. I’ve got this.”

“It seems you do,” says a voice out of nowhere, and fuck me, if I don’t jump out of my skin and my heart leaps out of my chest. Bodhi wakes up too with a jolt. I glance up from my fixation on my sketch coming together at the unwanted sight of… Hannah?

At first I think I’m seeing things, but then quickly realize I’m not. She’s standing here in my living room.

“What the fuck!” I place Bodhi on the couch beside me and clamber to my feet, quickly closing my sketchbook. Bodhi lifts his head and hisses when he sees her. If it wasn’t for me being so shocked she just broke into my apartment without invitation, I’d laugh at his reaction.

She’s standing there with her locks loose in waves, wearing a long beige trench coat and insane high heels. “How did you get in here?” I bark. And just like that, my serenity is gone. The magical moment I was having with my sketchbook back out and pencils in my hand has been ruined.

She waggles a key around in the air. “I thought I’d better drop this off at some point.”

“So you just walked into my house unannounced?” Oh, this is something else entirely, and I don’t like it one bit.

She pouts. I can’t believe she still has another key. And she isn’t supposed to have one since I recall she flung it back at me after the split.

“I didn’t think you’d mind,” she says. “I know the other night you must’ve just been out of sorts. Drunk maybe.”

“You need to leave,” I say through gritted teeth. “I wasn’t the one drunk the other night, you and your bitch friends have got a damn nerve.”

“It’s not Brittany’s fault,” Hannah sighs. “She didn’t know you were into fa—um—bigger chicks now.”