Page 7 of Beautiful Monster

She should know by now that these are my painting nights. If I go downstairs, everyone will want to tell me how much I’ve grown. The men will talk to me like I’m a child while simultaneously trying to get me to hug them or sit on their lap, and it’s just not worth the hassle. So, when I was about fifteen, I decided my parents’ party nights were my painting nights.

I don’t paint often. I prefer charcoals and pencils.

Putting paint on the canvas is a lot of work. It involves mixing the colors, getting the supplies out, making a mess, and cleaning it up. Plus, I hate stopping once I start, and since their parties go all night, it’s the perfect amount of time. I keep my music loud and pull an all-nighter.

“Shut the door, please,” I say over my shoulder with a smile while my sister stands in the doorway with a spiked seltzer in her hand. Her hair is down, curled and hanging over her shoulders. With her artificially tanned skin, that white bikini looks stunning on her, and it makes me envy her in a way that feels ugly.

Liam appears behind her, wrapping a hand around her waist and pulling her away from my doorway.

“Shut the door,” I yell as their laughter fades away. She gives it a half-hearted pull but it doesn’t shut completely, and I let it go. My music drowns them all out anyway.

My sister broke my noise-canceling headphones months ago when she fell into the pool with them on, so I'm stuck blaring my music to overpower the sounds coming from downstairs. It works out fine, except for the few times Mom has inevitably complained.

A couple of hours go by when I finally sit back to see the progress I've made. Billie Eilish croons from my Bluetooth speaker on the dresser, and I'm pretty pleased with how my portrait is turning out. I decided to paint a sketch I've had in my journal for months. It was a woman I once saw in an ad for sunglasses. It popped up on my Insta feed, and something in her eyes spoke to me, so I screenshot it.

Then I added a few things, having a little fun with her expression. I changed the slope of her nose so that the bridge started up a little higher than the real model's. Her mouth is wider, her lips thinner. There are freckles scattered around her face, dark ones too, not the light spatter most people are used to seeing.

Cadence called it rare beauty. Undefinable. Unattainable.

The sketch on the canvas is done with the beginnings of some color, but I'll be up until at least three if I want to get the shading in tonight, which I do. I’m afraid if I leave it, I'll never come back to it.

I need to clean my palette and mix some new colors. Climbing off the floor, I sense someone standing in the doorway and almost scream when my eyes meet his.

"Sorry to scare you," he says without smiling.

A gasp claws its way up my throat, and goosebumps erupt along my arms and neck. Alexander Caldwell is standing in my doorway. I didn’t even know he was invited.

He steps forward, and I struggle to breathe.

“Are you lost?” I ask coldly.

He responds with a chuckle and another step in. "I was looking for the bathroom, and I heard your music."

He's waltzing right into my room like he owns the place. Being this close to him, I notice things I couldn’t see from across the yard. Things that don’t translate to his online photos and videos. His brown eyes are so dark they almost match the black irises in the middle. His nose is long, and like mine, the bridge rises up to his eyebrows. On him, it makes him look like a bronze statue, a face they might have etched into stone.

He steps in farther. Still, I don't move. At this point, I realize I'm in a pair of lounge silk pants that are too long and gather at the bottom. They're covered in paint. My shirt is a light cotton tank with two peaks from my braless breasts.

My posture snaps tight. I fold my arms over my chest, suddenly aware of how soft and unguarded I must look.

"What are you working on?" His eyes travel across the room to the easel on the floor.

Oh, God. Please don't laugh at it, this supermodel portrait that is basically the artistic rendering of a Snapchat filter that looks like me if I was far prettier and sexier than I am in real life.

I remain silent, frozen like ice.

"Did you paint that?" He sounds impressed as he moves toward the painting, looking closer, then comparing her to the sketch on the floor. "I like the painting better."

My heart is hammering so loud, it pulses in my ears. No one has ever looked at my art like that—like it’s worth something.

He stands up and locks eyes with me. "Say something."

"What do you want me to say?" I mumble, my voice coming out with a shake.

"I don't know." He laughs. "Are you always this quiet?"

"Maybe," I answer.

He smiles. Then he lands on my bed, sitting on the edge, kicking his feet out, and crossing them at the ankles. "Why aren’t you downstairs? Your sister got all the social genes, huh?"