Page 133 of Undone

It’s only then that I realize, Lily LaBlanc is nervous.

I’ve seen her nervous before, but it’s very rare and never attached to anything with me.

Whatever is in this room, her buzzing energy is unmistakable.

“It’s weird,” she mumbles, like it’s mostly to herself. I step forward a little, until my body catches her eyes enough, skimming up my legs, over my black boxer briefs where she lingers a bit. Probably because I’m still hard and would much rather have her in her bedroom on her back with my head between her legs than standing in the dark hallway of her town house.

“Show me,” I say.

That seems to be all she needs before she opens the door.

The room is dark. No light, windows closed if there are any windows, as Lily stomps through, disappearing into the pitch black.

My stomach drops, but more like I’m on a roller coaster. An anticipation of excitement. A thrill of her.

“Lily?”

She flips a switch, a tall lamp in the back illuminating the space. Then another, until there’s just enough light to see what exactly I’ve walked into.

An art studio, of sorts.

The paintings are first. My eyes glance over the two nearest the front, one still on the easel. It’s a close-up of a guitar, tattooed fingers pressed across the fret. The one beside it is the span of a back against lilac sheets—my back, by the artwork in black ink across it.

There’s an eye, though it’s almost hard to realize, painted on the biggest canvas. Swirling gold made up of thousands of different shades of brown and yellow and opal, blending together. The closer I step to it, the more intricate the colors become.

A shed in ivy, a maroon jacket slung over the cracked door—the same maroon jackets we wore at Walden Prep. The same shed that was once our playhouse, where Lily pretended she was my wife, and I pretended that wasn’t my exact dream.

A hockey bag by the door with motorcycle boots and a sunlit entryway.

A couple kissing, their faces blurring with an impressionistic swirl, but the tattoos and red hair are unmistakable.

More. More. So many more, lined up in every corner, peppering the walls—not a blank space anywhere.

To someone else, it would look like a studio. An artist’s work stockpiled for some event. But I can see what it truly is.

It’s not an art studio.

It’s a shrine.

“Lily . . .”

She shuffles her feet, turning around to stare at me only just now, as if she’d gotten distracted by her own work. The same way she gets distracted by the tattoos on my skin. The one on the wall farthest back is an exact replica of my body, not my face, just my chest under lilac sheets, all in her dot and swoosh style.

“It’s weird, right?” She tucks her hair back and bobs her head. “Maybe I shouldn’t have shown you, I just— I wanted you to know. You never scared me. This is—” She lifts her hands, as if presenting it all to me, before shrugging. “It’s all I’ve painted.”

For three and a half years.

Every single painting is of me, in some way.

And she thinks I find this weird? Something is healing in my chest.

When my mother died, I had no one who wanted me and I’ve always felt it, always. The foster family I got stuck in didn’t want me. Henry left me behind. LaBlanc didn’t want me, not really. Every team I played on found something wrong with me, and I couldn’t find the source. Maybe, if I could, I’d be able to cut that rotten bit that everyone seemed to hate out of me.

Orphan. Scholarship kid. Psycho.

Like brands on my skin, too deep to hide with any of the tattoos I’ve inked. Tattoos I wanted because it meant Lily LaBlanc would look at me like she is now. Like she always has.

The truth is, Lily has always looked at me like that. I can remember her in that garden, seven years old with a pretty dress and smile, looking at me like I was the best person in her life, and she didn’t know me.