Page 48 of My Sweetest Obsession
Black and white spreads across the pale bricks of the side of the building with focused, broad strokes and a steady hand…
It blends together into varying shades of gray, creating dimension that captures the memory so vividly that it could have happened yesterday instead of over twenty years ago.
The car headlights illuminate my progress in the otherwise darkened lot. Cold wind blows across my exposed skin, sending my hair flying wildly around my face, but I can’t even feel the chill. The sounds of North Philly after midnight fill my ears—occasional cars on the street, laughter, yelling, the bark of a dog.
So many things that could be distracting…
Yet I block it all out easily.
One hundred percent of my focus falls on this wall.
This memory.
This hope I somehow feel the more the mural comes to life.
Because that’s what I should have been doing this whole time since I lost Drew—focusing on his life. All those moments we shared that will remain embedded so deeply in my soul. Not his death and what it did to all of us.
And doing that meant going back to the beginning.
Coming here.
Doing this.
Because this was us.
16
IVY
The pounding on the front door draws me from bed far too early considering the mostly sleepless night I had after Cam left, and I groggily stumble to it, rubbing my eyes and yawning.
“Ivy!”
Marlo’s muffled voice reaches me as I struggle to throw the lock with my brain still not quite completely awake.
“Hold on!” I finally manage to throw the deadbolt in the right direction and tug open the door to find her practically bouncing on the porch with the sun barely risen. “What are you doing here?”
And why the hell are you so damn perky this early?
She pushes past me, tugging her phone out of her pocket as she does. “Did you see the news this morning?”
“What?” I rub my eyes again, nudging the door closed with my hip. “No, you just woke me up?—”
“Look!”
Blinking rapidly to clear my vision of those last remnants of sleep, I scan the headline of an article pulled up on her phone screen.
Cush Returns In Philly
My breath catches as I snatch it from her hand, quickly scrolling down to the image below the words. “Oh, my God…”
Marlo nods vigorously. “Right? That’s them, isn’t it?”
Them…
Tears blur my vision, and I have to swipe them away with my free hand to see the mural painted on pale brick. “Yeah, that’s them…”
Right there in black and white.
