Page 16 of Pretty When He Bleeds

I drag myself to class with my music turned up loud in my ears. The art building is quiet this early, just the way I like it. Most people don’t bother showing up until the last minute, but I’m already busy setting up my supplies because I need an outlet right now.

The canvas in front of me stares back, blank and mocking. My hands itch to start; to take the chaos in my mind and turn it into something tangible, something I can control. But every time I close my eyes, all I see is Roman.

His fucking mouth, the heat in his eyes, and the warmth of his body under me in that dream. The way he moaned my name like he hated it. My grip tightens on my paintbrush and before I realize it, I’m slashing red across the canvas in angry, uneven strokes.

This doesn’t mean anything.

I repeat the words like a mantra, hoping they’ll drown out the images. The swipe of red turns into jagged lines of black, the bristles scraping across the canvas as I pour out everything inside of me.

It doesn’t mean anything.

It doesn’t mean anything.

It doesn’t mean anything.

“Fuck,” I mutter and step back, staring at the disaster I’ve created.

The painting is a tangled mess of color and chaos. It’s angry and messy and so goddamn fucking raw that I can barely stand to look at it. The colors bleed together, jagged and uneven, but all I can see is him.

I grab a rag and wipe my hands, pacing the length of the studio as I push thoughts of him from my mind. He’s just a guy. A guy I hate… A guy Ishouldhate. He’s not supposed to get under my skin like this.

But he is. He’s under my skin, in my dreams, in my fucking bloodstream and I don’t know how to burn him out. I grab the paintbrush again, as if slashing more colors across the canvas will help me make sense of the mess in my mind.

By the time I leave the studio, my hands are stained red and black, and my gray shirt speckled with the same flecks. My head feels clearer, but only slightly. I try to focus on the usual shit going on in my day, like how much I hate crowded hallways, the smell of burnt coffee, and the way everyone talks so loud like they’re desperate to be heard, but none of it sticks.

Because whenever I turn a corner or walk into a building, I see him.

It’s like the universe is fucking with me. One second I see him across the quad with his black hoodie pulled up and walking like he’s avoiding everything. The next, he’s leaning against the wall in the media building, smirking and talking to Killian.

And then there’s the worst one—seeing him in a coffee shop near the art department. He’s sitting at the table with his laptop pulled open and his brow furrowed in concentration. His fingers drum absentmindedly against the tabletop, and for a split second, I imagine taking his wrist and pinning it to the table.

I shake off the thought so violently, I nearly drop my coffee.

“Get your shit together,” I mutter under my breath, ducking out of the coffee shop before he can look up and see me.

This doesn’t mean anything.

Except it does.

Roman

TheideaoffindingDamon and asking him to hit me is fucking insane, I know that. But the thought has been buzzing around my head all week and no matter how many times I try to convince myself to drop it, I can’t.

It’s like an itch I can’t scratch and I hate that he’s the only one I think is able to scratch it.

When I finally spot him after my last class of the day, he’s sitting on one of those weathered stone benches on the far side of campus. He’s hunched over a sketchpad, completely lost in whatever he’s working on.

He’s dressed in his usual black, earbuds are in, black curls their usual deliberate chaotic mess. There’s a cigarette dangling from his lips, the smoke curling lazily around his face, and he looks… hot.

I mean, yeah I’ve always known he’s good-looking in that broody “I don’t give a shit” way, but it hits differently now. The way his hair falls into his eyes and he tries to push it back, only for it to fall forward again—it’s distracting as hell.

I swallow hard, stuffing my hands into my hoodie pockets and wondering if I should walk away now or do what I came to do.

Fuck it.

I take a deep breath and walk over to him. By the time I’m close enough to see the smudges of charcoal on his fingers, my heart’s pounding like I just sprinted across campus. Damon doesn’t notice me at first, he’s too focused on his drawing to even look up, his head tilted slightly to the left.

The drawing is brutal. All jagged lines and dark shadows—a chaotic mess of anger and frustration that practically screams off the paper.

---