Page 35 of Where You Are

“You know, you can make any color pretty when you put all of its different shades together. Even brown,” she says, smiling encouragingly at Luna.

“Wow! I want to do that!” Luna exclaims, as she sets her crayon down and starts flipping through our coloring book to find a new page to start fresh on, ignoring the masterpiece I wasn’t finished with on the opposite page she was on.

Uncle Matt is officially chopped liver. But I let it go, seeing as how the kid is excited and inspired. I sit back again and relax, letting Luna do her thing.

“What’s your favorite color?” Melanie asks Luna, her hand hovering over the crayon bucket.

“Umm…” Luna looks up at the ceiling, putting serious thought into her answer. “Purple,” she finally reveals. I knew that.

“Okay,” Melanie answers, and starts digging through the bucket, helping Luna find different shades of purple, pulling out lilac, plum, blue-violet and grape before handing them to her. The two of us let Luna go to town while we sit back and make easy conversation.

“You have an eye for color,” I state, gazing at her as I drape an arm over the back of Luna’s chair again and giving her hair a quick mussing, which she’s oblivious to. “Are you secretly an artist and didn’t tell me?”

Melanie smiles modestly, sitting forward to watch Luna.

“It’s just a hobby.” She’s downplaying it, I know it.

“Why didn’t you make a career out of it? I can tell you enjoy it.” I hold my hand that’s resting on Luna’s chair up in question before dropping it again.

“Well, one,” she starts in, looking up at me. “It’s hard to pay bills as an artist, let alone travel around the world. It’s the rare few that end up making the big bucks. I needed something that was going to give me a solid income that would help me save up and that I could also keep doing for work to help keep bringing the money in to keep me going. And I still get to be creative and use color with my job,” she says, lifting a shoulder.

“And two,” she continues, sitting back again. “Art is something I like to enjoy without the pressure of having to make money from it. Again, it’s the lucky few that are able to do that,” she finishes, gesturing a hand at me, indicating me and the fact that I make music for a living.

Again, I’m baffled at how I feel like I know Melanie so intimately, yet I’m still finding out these little surprises about her. Watching her work with color, despite the simplicity of the platform, I feel gave me a small, privileged peek at how she sees the world. Just when I thought I’d uncovered every layer of her inner beauty, another one deep down within just opened, bloomed, and blossomed before my very eyes, showing itself to me without me having to do a damn thing.

“Oops, I went outside the lines again,” Luna says aloud, a trace of exasperation in her voice and it brings me back to the real world.

“That’s okay,” Melanie assures her as she folds her arms on the table to watch her. “It takes practice,” she continues as I see a thought pass over her face. “You know what I think you’d like?” Luna halts her crayon and looks up in question. “Working with oil pastels.”

“What are those?”

“They are a lot like crayons, but a little softer. You’re actually supposed to make your picture look kind of messy with them, but it comes out looking really cool. I’ll bring them next time I see you, you’ll have fun with them.” Melanie looks just as excited to show these pastels to Luna as Luna is to try them.

The draw I have to Melanie just reached a deeper realm I’ve never found myself in with anyone before. It’s stronger, more intense, and like I’ve been pulled into some unexplored wonderland. I swear it’s like a drug, and each time I take it, I get taken to some new dreamscape of Melanie’s spirit.

At the lake, I saw her in a soft yellow and orange glow as she showed me how passionate and illustrious she could be. Last night I saw a different angle of her sensuality in blue tinted moonlight. Now I feel like I’m seeing her passion for color and creation as if through her own eyes, while she simultaneously shows me how nurturing, caring and encouraging she can be.

Just when I think I’ve seen every room in her mind, she opens a door and shows me another. And she welcomes me and shares it with me unabashedly without me even having to knock.

I feel compelled to do the same with her -no. Iwantto do the same with her, which means letting her in on something about my family.

Chapter Eighteen

Matt

“What a wonderful little girl,”Melanie muses with a reflective smile on her face a few minutes after Kasey leaves with Luna.

“She’s pretty awesome,” I agree as I lean in the doorway of my bedroom and watch Mel look around for her shirt. She spots it on the floor by the nightstand and bends over to swipe it up, giving me a spectacular view of her ass.

“She adores you Matt,” she says as she lays her shirt on the bed and starts taking mine off of her which devastates me, and then she’s shirtless in that beautiful bra again which gets me hard, followed by putting her own shirt on making me sad again. “I love how close the two of you are. I think it’s sweet,” she adds, bringing my focus back on the subject which is where I need it to be.

“Speaking of that,” I segue in as I walk over to her and take her hand, prompting her to sit on the bed with me. Mel follows my cue without a word and gives me her complete attention, reminding me what I’ve always loved about her from the get-go, not to mention that we’re approaching a place where we seem able to communicate without words.

I take a deep breath before diving in.

“Luna and I are close for obvious reasons. But there’s something more to it.” Mel’s eyes don’t waver from mine as she patiently waits for me to continue. “When she was two, Luna had to live with me for a month.” I give that statement a moment to settle. Melanie blinks and looks at her lap a moment and then back up to me, letting me know she’s absorbed it and is ready to hear the rest.

“Kasey struggles with addiction,” I confide, and she presses her lips together, “and she seems to be a magnet for lowlife scumbags that like to manipulate her, starting with Luna’s father. He was druggy that could get laced on Oxy and hold it together between fixes. He introduced Kase to it before knocking her up and bailing.”

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