Page 50 of Under the Lies

Did I really think I could text him and have him listen? That’s the gauge for the level of tired I am, evidently. It makes me delusional.

When I walk into the living room, I find Noah in a stare down with my cat.

“What’re you doing?”

“He’s staring at me.” Noah doesn’t take his eyes off Pan.

“He’s a cat, Noah,” I tell him, remembering he doesn’t like animals. “He’s not going to eat you.”

Noah snorts like that idea is ridiculous, but he doesn’t take his eyes off Pan. His baby-blues are full of distrust.

A laugh slips out. I can’t help it. Here’s a man who makes businessmen pee their pants in a stare down with my house cat.

Finally, after what feels like hours, Pan grows bored and curls back up on the couch.

Noah turns toward me, his face blank. “You said you weren’t coming out tonight.”

I nod.

“I don’t remember telling you that you could have a night off.”

My brows shoot up as irritation spikes my blood. “You’re not my keeper, Noah.”

“I am until we catch your sister.”

Pompous, controlling, arrogant asshat. I stalk toward him with heat in my eyes. Noah watches with a curious expression.

“Listen,” I hiss, stabbing my finger into his chest. “I agreed to help you, but that doesn’t mean I’m your puppet you get to order around.”

I expect him to argue, to fight me but my anger fades to surprise as his hand wraps around my wrist, pulling me close until we’re chest to chest.

My heart beats against its cage, fighting to be freed from its shackles. I’m trapped against a body I shouldn’t want, but tilt toward anyway.

“Then what are you, Sayer?” he whispers, head dipped low.

“Your prisoner,” I whisper back. Caught in a trap of my own making.

Rubbing his jaw, Noah regards me in silence before looking behind me at the TV. They’re still talking about the Baron and something unreadable passes over Noah’s face.

He’s quiet from a moment until he says, “I want to show you something.”

I don’t know what it is, the softness in his otherwise hard voice, the fact that I’ve been home all night and have found myself actually bored and kind of restless, or the fact that he’s here now and I don’t want to watch him leave unless I’m right beside him, that has me nodding.

After a quick change out of the penguin onesie, I slip on my coat and follow Noah into the hallway and God knows where else.

Noah’s takes me to the Art District downtown, to Artwell Alley. A section of the city that’s dedicated to local artists who come and paint whatever they desire in a long alleyway between two buildings.

I used to come here all the time when I was feeling lost. The place that was my point zero. Where I felt centered. Some people do yoga and meditation to feel realigned, some turn to religion to guide their purpose. I came here.

Art was my center. My therapy. My religion.

Full of expression, love and pain, darkness and light, paintings are a reflection of the hearts around us, tales left to interpretation, forever feeling and forever changing. It’s how I found a purpose when I didn’t know who I was meant to be.

Noah doesn’t care about the art before us, stomping by them without a second glance while I trail behind at a slower pace, remembering. Remembering what it was like to get lost in a painting. The canvas was my church and the brush was my prayer. I’d spend hours at my church, feeding my creativity.

Until the day I found out my granddad was sick. I was in an art studio, working on a painting that is now in the back of my closet when he called. That was the last day I picked up a paintbrush.

Noah, noticing my snail pace, backtracks to where I am. Instead of forcing me to pick up speed, he simply walks beside me.

---