Page 69 of Undone

Chapter 27

Lily

Just try. No one is watching. Just—

I’ve been staring at the canvas on my floor; underneath is a load of spread towels as if that might protect the polished floors beneath.

My last class of the day was canceled, which threw off my usual routine, which also means I’m home before Paloma, alone and staring at the cream stretch of nothingness because it’s broken. Or it’s me that’s broken, I’m not sure.

I haven’t let go of painting, art in general, begging my dad to let me have this one thing for years now. But I also haven’t painted something for anyone else’s eyes in two years. Everything has been hidden, in secret. Painting to be seen feels . . . different. Like I’ve somehow severed a cord in my creativity with the added pressure.

So I’m stuck.

An artist without art— Can I really call myself an artist still? If it’s only a feeling?

My record player skips, alerting me to the end of the one I was playing—Don McLean’s “American Pie.” I flip the album, slightly reluctantly as I know what short list of songs exists on side B. But perhaps a bit of torture will create the tortured artist I feel I’m slowly deteriorating into.

“Don McLean?” I ask, kneeling to sit by the record player on the floor. It was my mother’s, one of the only things she left to me. Or that’s how I imagined it. It was more comforting than my dad’s quiet, “Fine. You can have it,” when I’d asked about it.

Toren smirks and nods. He’s grown two inches since last week I’m almost certain. He’s always growing, always getting taller. Once I’d thought we’d end up the same height, since we basically were when we met. Now, at fifteen, he seems like a giant and I haven’t grown since fifth grade.

“There’s one on here I think you’re gonna like,” he says, squatting down. One long arm stretches across to lift the cover, putting the disk on and adjusting the tonearm until the needle makes staticky contact with the disc right where he wants it.

A guitar flickers, solemn, alone.

Toren sits down behind me, his ridiculously long legs stretching out on either side of me as he tucked my back against his front. My entire body calms, like just that contact is enough to relax the spinning floating feeling that sometimes plagues me.

His lips form over my ear, singing quietly as the song begins with, “Starry starry night,” and my smile grows so wide I’m afraid my jaw will break.

We listen in total silence, besides the stir of my breath and the slight, low hum of Toren’s voice. A tear works down my cheek, throat tight as I half turn to look up at him, still lying lazily in his arms.

“How did you find it?”

He smiles, a bright boyish thing that I don’t always get to see on him. “It took a lot of searching—I couldn’t believe there was a whole song about Vincent van Gogh that you didn’t know about. I’m learning to play it on my guitar now. Then I’ll really make you fall for me, Lil.” He bops my nose with his playfully, but it only makes me suck in a breath.

Because—I want to kiss him.

“Toren?” I ask, my eyes intense and locked on him. “Can I . . .” Heart in my throat, I look down. “Can I see it again?”

The tattoo, I mean, because every time he’s wearing a shirt my body feels too tight, desperate to lay eyes on the sight of Starry Night, on the sight of his devotion.

He laughs, a low chuff with a silly grin, pulling his button-up shirt off and leaning back on his forearms so I can trace the patterns across his abdomen. My fingers hover, before Toren’s hand grasps my wrist, pushing until my fingers meet the golden russet hue of his skin now lined over in black ink.

“It’s all right, Lil. You can touch.”

My head is pounding.

No—not my head, the door?

I look down, a little disoriented, seeing the digital clock on my dresser reading 5:30 p.m. Shoot. It’s been four hours since I’ve come up for air.

Scrambling up, I dart out of my bedroom to the incessant knocking that’s only growing louder and louder by the second. I trip only once down our staircase, noting that it seems like Paloma still isn’t home, before yanking open the door to Carson’s angry face.

Carson is so rarely angry that I involuntarily step back.

“What the hell? I’ve been banging on your door for ten minutes! I thought the neighbors were about to call the police on me.”

“I’m sorry—”