What Follows 31 14.0: Eyelashes

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I wonder what's more poetic, the fear of night or the hope of day? What's more poetic, shaking hands curled into shaking fists or bright smiles and crooked teeth? What exactly is our standard of beauty, the moon or the sun?

What are we more drawn to, the dark or the light?

I wonder that as I stare at Joshua's closed garage. Joshua's closed painting s.p.a.ce. I wonder that and consider asking Tobias, who's crouched next to me, staring at a yellow daisy Benji is drooling at.

"Beautiful flower," he comments.

"Help me with the door," I respond and he gets to his feet and towers over me. He searches my face and holds his hips.

"You okay?" He asks and I lean on the garage's door as Benji jumps around freely in the front yard.

I look down. "Never been better."

He puts a hand on my shoulder, stoops to catch my eyes. "You wanna talk about it?"

"There's nothing to say." I sigh. "I've given up on the sequence of events. Too unpredictable. Too disgusting."

Tobias lowers his voice. "You're scared Sierra will kill Joshua?"

A ma.s.s of worry and dread gets tangled up in my vocal cords and I say nothing as I kneel and try pus.h.i.+ng up the garage door. I find it really difficult until Tobias decides to help.

When it's open, Tobias dusts off his hands and looks at me with raised brows. "What's that?"

"Joshua's painting s.p.a.ce," I say, letting my eyes run over the columns of paint cans and brushes strewn everywhere. Many canvases are leaning on the wall, covered by paint-splotched clothes.

I step inside and the paint stench hits my throat. And I wonder what's worse, the stench of my rotting heart or this f.u.c.king paint? What's going to kill me faster?

"You needn't worry, you know that, right?" Tobias says. "It's G.o.d's plan. You have to trust Him."

I glance at him and sigh. "But we haven't been playing by His rules all along, have we?" I say, my voice on the verge of breaking. "I mean, I've been thinking about it and if Benji-" I point at the yard where he's currently running around. "-if he wasn't there, he wouldn't have dragged Joshua's sweater under the bed and-and-"

"Sierra wouldn't have been able to take his phone?" Tobias continues. "No. Of course, not. Who put this notion in your head?"

"How else do you justify this?"

"I don't," Tobias says with a subtle head shake. He tilts his head. "Who said we weren't playing by G.o.d's rules? Don't you think that maybe those are His rules?"

I roll my shaking fingers into shaky fists and look at him helplessly. Tobias steps closer to me, his eyes drawn down to my drowning ones.

He holds my hands. "You know that I wish I could take your pain away? You know that, right?"

I sniff and nod, letting out a micro-sob. "I'm so sorry," I tell him, my eyes diving in tears that blur his concerned face.

"I'm sorry too," he says softly. "I wish there was an easier way to do it."

"Tobias," I whisper and my heart breaks into two. "Am I going to lose you too?"

He freezes for a moment, the corner of his left lip twitching.

"Am I, Tobias?" I press, positive that I'm crying a river.

"You know," he says so softly, so hurt.

My lips tremble. "I hate this."

"I'm sorry." He keeps apologizing and I keep cursing his hazels that are reaching out for me in impossible ways.

I decide to say nothing before breaking free from his loose grasp and reaching for a painting piece to uncover it. I wipe away at my teary eyes and sniff with finality. Not surprised at how awfully good Joshua is, I stare at a car accident scene come alive.

"You know," Tobias says from behind. "I can see why you fell for Joshua."

"Why?" I whisper, tracing the car he drew that hit a streetlamp.

"Good-looking. And he's either a good person or both, a talented painter and actor," he says. "I'm almost jealous."

"You're jealous," I ask/state with a faint smile and glance at him.

Tobias' lips part before he curls them into a charming smile. "Almost. I'm talented too, remember? Dead talent, I get it, but I'm talented." He points out. "Thus, it's not possible to feel jealous. Especially at that age of mine. How old am I again?"

"Ten."

He snorts. "See, Rose? That's just plain rude."

I smile. "I just find it weird, you know."

"What is?"

"Our feelings that persist in our death. I mean this torment? It's all because of our feelings," I sigh. "One would think his feelings would drown when his heart rots."

"The heart isn't where feelings hide," Tobias says.

I blink at him. "Then where? Where do they hide?"

"I don't know?" He clicks his tongue. "Everywhere?" He then looks at me like it hurts. "Because everywhere dances when you're happy. And everywhere hurts when you're hurt." He exhales smoothly. "Our stomachs tiptoe and our hearts rush to meet them, somewhere around our diaphragms," He points at his thorax. "And then maybe when our diaphragms vibrate, we feel those 'b.u.t.terflies'? That's how I felt about my first crush. Not b.u.t.terflies. Violent vibrations of strong emotion."

"Feelings are too strong to be b.u.t.terflies," I say.

"Yes," Tobias smiles. "And when you're hurt? It feels like all your organs have soaked up the pain. They pulse in agony. Your eyes get drunk on tears. Your heart is restless. Beating too fast or too slow, you think you might die. And that's how pain feels like. It feels like death. Like your every cell has aged a century. It's your every cell shackled. You feel heavy because you're not only carrying yourself around. You're carrying your pain's shackles too. And you feel it."

"I feel it."

He locks my eyes, glances at my shaking hands. "You feel it in the dance of your hands. The crack of your voice. The ache in your gut."

"The hole in your heart," I add bitterly and he nods.

"Everywhere, everywhere."

I inhale deeply, his words a new oxygen my body is getting used to. I turn away from him and force my mind from its Tobias'-words-woven vacation to my present.

"There's a sticky note on the canvas." I simply say, removing it and reading it out loud.

'Monday nights are supposed to be quiet. Why was that one too loud? Nothing will ever unbreak my heart, so I'll just keep running for my life.'

I turn to Tobias with furrowed eyebrows. "You think this is real?" I ask, examining the drawing for any date. "You think something happened to him?"

"I think what will tell us if he's drawing from life experience or not is his other paintings," he says.

"You're right," I say, returning the note and moving on to the next painting.

Tobias uncovers it and there lie my unsmiling eyes and face, framed by my blond wavy hair, staring right at me.

"Wow," Tobias huffs out.

I clear my throat and reach for the sticky note.

"It says sorry," I say, studying Joshua's rapid scribble of 'sorry'. "That's all." That's all. That's what people are good at spreading. Their meaningless 'sorries'.

Tobias is letting his fingers touch my painted hair when he says, "So he does draw from life experience."

I nod, returning the note with a tight breath.

"You know, this painting is missing a detail," Tobias then states and I turn to him with parted lips.

"It is?" I ask, examing his fire-red hair that escaped his bun.

"If you look closely, you'll find that your eyelashes," he says, pointing at my eye drawing. "-they aren't all brown. Their tips are blonde." He then turns to me. "Which makes this painting inaccurate."

I chuckle. "Come on. Give him a break."

"What I'm saying is," Tobias says, locks my eyes. "I'd paint you better."

My heart does a peek-boo from between my lungs and through the window blinds of my ribcage. I chuckle nervously. "Thank you?"

Tobias dissolves in a genuine smile. "You know what? I'll paint you right now."

My eyes widen. "Right now?"

Tobias paces around the s.p.a.ce, picking up two paintbrushes and some paint cans. He then places them next to my feet before pus.h.i.+ng Joshua's painting to the side, exposing the empty white wall behind it.

He sits down next to his paint supplies and looks up at me with a goofy smile. I shake my head disapprovingly before sighing and sitting next to him with my legs crossed beneath me.

"You'll be bedazzled," He says, picking a thin brush and propping open the black paint can. He then dips the brush tip in the can and smiles.

"Sure," I say as he starts drawing.

He draws a heart, an awful one for all that matters, then draws two eyes in them. He then dips his brush in brown paint to draw my eyelashes (awfully long eyelashes) before finis.h.i.+ng them off with yellow tips.

"I am bedazzled," I blink at his painting and try not to laugh.

"This is just about the best painting of you."

I raise my brows and smile. "Sure."

"It's everything beautiful about you," he says seriously and I look back at his 'piece of art'. A heart and eyelashes. "Beautiful heart," he says and I look at him, my heart confused with what it's supposed to feel. "I should've painted it rose pink."

"And my eyelashes?" I chuckle at Tobias who's staring at me. I'm almost fl.u.s.tered.

"Well, no-" He smiles and his hazels do little to calm my suddenly dancing heart. "It's the little details. Little things about you that do entrance me."

I blink at him, suddenly lost at words. I look back at the drawing and can't stop touching my lips to make sure I'm not grinning like an idiot.

"You don't have to say anything," he says as Benji struts into the garage, knocking down the black paint can Tobias was using.

"Who said I have to say anything?" I ask, staring at the spilt paint with a smile. "Maybe I'll just-" I put my hands in the paint. "-I'll colour everything I like about you-" I lift my hands to him and his smile falls.

"No-"

I grin and manage to get the paint on his nose and upper lip before he holds both my hands with a wide smile and fascinated teary eyes.

"You're not allowed to mess up my beautiful face," he says and I giggle, writhing in his tight clutch.

"Let me go!" I protest, trying to reach his face with my hands but he dodges smoothly and manages to hold both my wrists in one hand. My eyes widen. "Tobias, no!"

But it was too late. He swipes his paint-covered hand over my face and I shriek. Problem is, I can't feel how much of my face is covered in paint. I can't feel anything.

Seeing the look of fright on my face, Tobias chuckles and lets me go. I wipe at my face, trying to get rid of it. He laughs harder and shakes his head.

"You're making it worse." He pants out between his toothy grins and I pout at him.

With a small smile, he gets closer to me and uses his clean, shaky hand (is he in pain?) to remove the paint from my face.

"You're awful," I say. "I must look like a zombie."

Tobias shakes his head and snickers. "Don't initiate something you can't finish-" Tobias gets interrupted by the garage door getting violently pushed open.

We stare at the figure at the door and I gasp.

"It's Joshua's father. David," I say dreadfully and Tobias looks at me questioningly. We both get up anyway and Tobias gets hold of Benji who has his fur caked in paint.

David stands in the middle of the garage, hands on his hips, in a worn-out, holed, red flannel and jeans. His face is sweaty, his eyes bloodshot and beady and his abdomen three inches ahead of him into the garage.

"Papa, stop!" Joshua is yelling and comes to a stop behind his furious father.

"I'm burnin' all that s.h.i.+t down!" He thunders, taking a glance around the s.p.a.ce Tobias and I littered.

"I gave you the money, Papa, please!" Joshua begs from behind, hands caught in his hair.

"You deserve to be unhappy-" David rasps, pulling a lighter from his pocket that slips from his fingers and hits the ground.

"Why isn't Joshua making a move?" Tobias asks and I shrug in apprehension.

David stares at the lighter as if offended that it slipped from his grip before he gingerly picks it up with a heavy grunt.

"Papa, please-" Joshua almost wails. "It wasn't my fault and you know it. Please, Papa, it was fate. I'd never hurt them."

"Jos.h.!.+" Someone is yelling from a distance and I realize that it must be his sister, Selena.

When Selena comes to a halt next to her brother, she makes a face. "What the h.e.l.l, Papa?"

"Stay out it, Selen" He slurs.

"I'm trying my best!" Joshua has turned red with all the emotions he's failing to keep contained. "I'm trying to make everything better." He sniffs. "If-if you need more money, then just- just wait a few more days and I'll fetch it for you, but please don't do this. Don't take that away too."

"No-" He snaps. "You're wasting your money and time on this-" He points at Tobias and I. "-ever since they left. But no more! No more!" He growls. "If that has to be the only thing that makes you happy, I will take it away."

"Papa, please calm down! We don't want to alert the neighbours!" Selena interferes but to no avail.

"Oh let'em know my loser son! Let'em know the spoiled disaster he turned out to be!" David yells and turns to Joshua who's drenched in desperate tears.

"It's been two years, Papa!" Selena says with a frown, her eyes watering up. "I think it's enough!"

"He was driving that d.a.m.ned car, wasn't he? He was drunk, wasn't he? On a Monday night, wasn't he?" David staggers toward Joshua but Selena stops in his way.

"It was an accident!" She frets. "Accidents happen-"

David looks like he got slapped in the face. "No," he says venomously. "He killed them!"

"I did not! And I regret it with all my heart," Joshua explodes. "It isn't only you who misses them more every day! It isn't only you with this- with this pain! My pain-" He slaps his hand to his chest. "-is much huger than yours!"

"Shut up, boy!" David commands.

"What do you do, huh?" Joshua yells. "Drink your pain away? How does that make anything better?!"

David stares at him. "It doesn't."

Joshua opens and closes his mouth like a fish out of the water as Selena holds onto his arm.

"It doesn't?" Joshua repeats weakly and David says nothing but turns to us, flipping open his lighter.

"We need to get out of here," Tobias tells me urgently and I turn to him with parted lips.

We both leave the garage as I stare at Joshua and Selena continue pleading their drunk father. And it disheartens me to know that having his son play something like DevilsPlay to get him some money isn't enough to stop him from burning the only thing left that he loves.

But who am I to judge?