Page 31 of The Spider & the Storm

I released him from my hold and gave him a hefty shove forward. “Good boy. Now, go.”

He shook his arms out and began to step out from the bushes. “F-fucking psycho.”

“Hey, asshole, I wasn't the one grabbing women off the street,” I countered with a roll of my eyes, turning in the direction of the woman with the black hair, still standing against the building's shadowed exterior.

Then, I asked in a gentler tone, “Are you okay?”

The flashing lights revealed more of her face to me now, and—oh shit—I recognized her. I’d recognize her anywhere. She was that woman from Jolie Tea this afternoon, the one who'd been sitting with the tattoo artist. I'd bumped into her weeks ago, right outside of that restaurant, Village Tavern. The one with the most ethereal green eyes I’d ever seen in my life. More vibrant than every emerald and peridot unearthed from the planet’s crust.

Those eyes were wide and frightened now, like gemstones swimming in a sea of crystal tears, as she barely nodded.

“Th-thank you,” she whispered, understandably shaken as she wrapped her arms around herself to grip her elbows.

“Just doing what anyone would have done,” I muttered, retracting the box cutter’s blade and tucking it back into my pocket.

“No,” she replied, her voice breathless and hushed. “N-not everyone would’ve.”

I held her gaze for a moment. It was a statement that begged a question, and it also held a truth I knew too well. My intuitive gut tugged, and my curiosity demanded that I continue the conversation, but she had to speak with the police, and I had to get back to the utility truck, and it was better for both of us if we went our separate ways.

The adrenaline from the altercation was already wearing off, and there were my nerves again. Reminding me that pretty women and I never mixed well.

“Come on, Charlie. Give her your number.”Luke broke through the fog, and I huffed in reply.

“No,” I said to her and the voice of my faraway brother, focusing on nothing but speaking that one simple word and taking a deep breath. “I-I guess not.”

Then, I turned and slipped away, denying myself one more glance at a woman like her, too beautiful to deserve the attention of a monster like me.

CHAPTER EIGHT

CONNECTICUT, AGE SEVENTEEN

There was one time in elementary school when my art teacher had instructed the class to pick any color and draw any animal. I chose to draw a spider—always my favorite of all the creatures—with a black crayon because it was also my favorite color.

I was incredibly proud of that drawing and couldn’t wait to show my mom, excited about how lifelike it looked compared to some of the primitive stick figures a few of my other classmates had scribbled on their sheets of construction paper. But when I showed my teacher, she gave me an F on the assignment before proceeding to hold my drawing up to show the rest of the class what not to do.

All because I’d chosen black instead of acolor.

I was seven years old and made to look like a fool in front of a classroom of kids who’d already decided they hated me.

I’d thrown that drawing out on my way back to my seat, and I seldom allowed myself to draw again, no matter how much I’d enjoyed it then as a kid.

But the thing about experiencing immense trauma and grief was that nothing that had happened before seemed to matter anymore. And those horrible, soul-consuming emotions had a way of making a guy feel like a boiling pot, full and ready to bubble over, and that was exactly what had happened shortly after my parents died.

I had been fifteen years old and pulsing with unimaginable pain, desperate for a release that nothing else could provide. So,on a rainy night a few months after I'd last spoken to Mom and Dad, in a fit of tears and snot and blubbering sobs, I grabbed a black permanent marker from my desk and scribbled exactly what I’d been feeling inside onto the back of my white bedroom door.

Luke heard the outburst from down the hall—in the middle of fucking Melanie, I was sure, since that was all he ever seemed to do those days—and knocked, asking if I was okay. Of course, I wasn't okay—neither of us were—but when I let him in, I expected him to yell at me when he saw my ruined door. Toddlers weren’t supposed to color on walls, let alone teenagers, and I had once again broken the rules.

But instead of getting mad, he was silent. He stared at that door with his hands on his hips, his eyes growing wide and his mouth hanging open, before breathlessly uttering only one word. “Damn.”

I didn’t say anything in reply, unsure of how to take his single-worded response. He’d said it the way one did when they were impressed by something, and I tried to understand why. I stood back and stared at the graffiti—a black-and-white sketch of a long-legged spider trapped inside a wild and chaotic storm. Drenched in rain, surrounded by bolts of jagged lightning, the spider wore a look of devastating horror—and I knew exactly how he felt. But I still couldn’t understand what Luke was so taken aback by. Yet, after the initial shock wore off, he told Melanie he’d be right back and took me out to buy a box of Sharpies and a few cheap sketchbooks. Then, on our way out of the store, he said to start drawing and never stop.

“But I'm not good at it,” I had said, looking into the bag from the local craft store.

Luke snorted, shaking his head from behind the wheel of his truck. “No, Charlie, you're notgoodat it. You're fucking amazing, and that’s something to hold on to. Shit, I wish I had something like that. I’m not good at anything but fucking up.”

The compliment stirred something else inside me as my eyes welled up with unexpected tears. But these tears weren't like the ones I'd cried while destroying my bedroom door. These were pulled from a feeling that wasn't anger or grief or loneliness.

For the first time in months, I actually felt good.

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