Page 100 of Cherish

My heart races as I walk over and stand about thirty feet in front of one of the pieces, my eyesight suddenly blurry with unshed tears.

“Dude.” Flint lets out a long whistle, staring at the wall, too.

“Seriously,” Jaxon says as he steps a little closer to the display than me, his head bouncing as he takes in painting after painting. “I get people being grateful you saved them, but this is some next-level shit.”

It’s not said with an ounce of bite or jealousy, and I get it. When we first got to “Vegaville,” I thought it was amusing. Awesome. Amazing that so many people could see how incredible my mate is. But I recognize now it’s more than just hero worship.

There’s a painting of Hudson playing pisbee with a bunch of people in the park, Hudson grinning in the foreground and the others at the farthest end of the field. There’s one of him lifting a giant timber single-handedly above his head in front of a half-constructed house. Hudson throwing giant boulders from a cave entrance covered by a landslide. Hudson waving from a rooftop, a small child in his arms. There’s even one of Hudson with his arms crossed, one eyebrow raised as he struggles not to laugh at a group of kids coated in paint, the building beside them also covered in random splashes of color.

And my personal favorite: Hudson standing with one foot on the neck of a dead time dragon, knee bent, hands on hips, townspeople crowding around him and cheering. The only thing missing is a cape…

“Oh my God,” I whisper. “Vegaville isSmallville!”

Heather gets the connection immediately, as she should, given our mutual love of comics. “Hudson didn’t just save the town when the queen attacked, Jaxon.” She turns to him, then waves at all of the paintings before gesturing to Hudson behind us. “Clark Kent there never put on his glasses. Helivedwith them. Kept them safe. Made them feel loved.”

Eden grins. “Can you imagine growing up with Superman living next door? For reals?”

“Well, there’s loved and then there’sloved,” Macy says, staring at the two-foot-by-four-foot painting in front of me. “I’d be worried this artist is thinking of making a dress out of your skin.”

“Hey,” I say and playfully jab her in the arm. “I resent that.”

Five heads swivel as one from the painting to me, and my cheeks suddenly feel very, very warm. I’ve never been the kind of artist overly comfortable with people looking at my artwork, so this is ten levels of self-inflicted hell right now.

“Youpainted this,” Eden says, pride lacing her voice, and I give a quick nod.

And then we all just stand there, staring at the painting of Hudson.

I remember exactly when I painted it, too. It was the day after he told me he loved me the first time. When I told him I loved him, too. And it’s evident in every pull of the brush against the canvas, every streak of paint left behind.

I swallow back an ocean of tears clogging my throat.

I don’t want anyone to see what I’m feeling right now, but Hudson sees. He always sees. And when I feel him slide his arms around my waist and tug me against his chest, I wrap my arms around his and hold on as tightly as I can even as a sea of emotions rises up and threatens to swamp me.

It’s not just the embarrassment of my friends studying the painting I did of Hudson that is suddenly making it hard for me to breathe.

It’s not even the love I have for this boy exposed in every brushstroke I made of the creases next to his eyes and the flecks of navy in his bright blue irises that is twisting my stomach into knots.

And it’s not the realization that in front of me—right in front of me—there is finally proof that I was here, that Ididmatter in this place that has chosen to forget me that is currently making my knees tremble.

It’s that this painting represents a lot more than just its parts. And one of the other things it represents, one of the reasons why it matters so much, is that the act of painting is now just one more thing I used to do. One more thing I used to love.

Because other than what I painted for art class back at Katmere, I haven’t picked up a brush since living in Adarie. Sure, I still have my old paints and brushes, but I haven’t looked at them once in the last several months. In fact, I’m not even sure what closet they’re buried in back in San Diego.

My love of painting is just one more thing this world has taken from me, just one more part of who I am that’s gotten lost beneath the crush of being the gargoyle queen.

Heather gives me a strange look, but she doesn’t say anything else about my art, which I’m grateful for.

Hudson rubs soothing circles between my shoulder blades as he guides us to the left out of the entryway. I flash him a grateful smile, but he doesn’t smile back. Instead, he just studies me with watchful eyes that see way too much.

Which leaves me no recourse except to turn to my friends and start babbling on and on about this place. “So what floor do we want to start on? It’s kind of divided by art forms so that the different equipment is easily accessible to anyone who needs it.”

“What kind of equipment are you talking about?” Eden queries.

“All kinds,” I answer. “The bottom floor is where most of the painters and photographers are, but when you go to the second floor, there’s a sculpture studio with every kind of chisel you can imagine. Also pottery wheels and ovens and a ton of clay.”

“And the third floor has looms and sewing machines and a bunch of yarn and textiles,” Hudson adds.

“That’s the neatest thing I’ve ever heard,” Macy tells him, cherry black–colored lips tilted in a slight smile as she stands in the center of the warehouse and looks at all of the murals on the walls around us. “Do the artists pay for it themselves?”

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