“Oh. How many have you seen so far?”
“This one.”
“How many are we looking at?”
“I’m not really the shopping type so, this one.”
“Then it’s perfect,” she says, faking enthusiasm.
My phone vibrates in my pocket. It’s Jenna’s office. “I need to take this, go look around,” I tell Cereus and then go outside to answer the call.
“Hello?”
“Ryan?”
“Yes, Jenna. You called my number.”
“I’m just checking up on you. I heard about the tragic accident at Grace Manor.”
I pace the small porch that borders the front of the apartment. “It wasn’t an accident. It was done with purpose of the end result.”
“Well, yes, I know. Unfortunately some patients with this kind of depression suffer major setbacks and a high number of them take their own life.” She sounds quiet, like she’s talking me off a ledge.
“Some people just can’t be saved,” I tell her and she breathes down the line.
“Are we talking about the girl or you?”
“I am saved, didn’t you know?”
“I want you to come in tomorrow. You could be in shock and I would like to see you.”
Damn, I thought I’d be left alone now. I would turn her down and tell her to leave me alone but the niggling inside me that wants to play with her won’t let me.
“Sure, what time?”
“Oh, hang on, let me look.” There’s rustling down the line from her flipping the pages on her calendar. “Two p.m?”
“Fine.” I end the call and go back inside.
Cereus is staring at the back wall of the living space when I enter. “So?” I ask.
“It’s the one,” she jokes. “I think you should paint a mural on this back wall.”
I stand behind her; the scent of apples from her shampoo tickles my senses.
“We should do one together.”
Her breath hitches from my close proximity. I move back and she watches me over her shoulder. “That would be really cool,” she murmurs.
“So, I can’t hang around tonight,” she grumbles, walking over to pick up her school bag. “Stacy is being a girl and making me watch movies and eat ice cream with her.” I raise a brow. This is not Cereus and I hate that she indulges Stacy with her crap. “She’s hurting over some guy giving her the brush off. She was really into him and she thought he was into her but he just stopped contacting her.”
She’s tragic. I hadn’t gone further than brushing her lips with mine once. How can she be broken up about nothing? I should never have bothered going through her to learn about Cereus.
“She sounds needy.” I groan making Cereus grin at me.
“She really is. He sounds like a creep to me anyway. She met him in her Dad’s liquor store. She said he was in there a lot and they got talking. She said he was thirty, so I think it’s probably for the best.” She shrugs.
I walk over, tucking her hair behind her ear and leaving the pad of my thumb to linger on her cheek. She’s so soft. The heat of her blush warms my skin. I can’t be sure if she’s blushing from the affection she presumes I’m offering or the uneasiness. We’ve become close but the line is fuzzy of what we actually are to each other. I don’t treat her like a child or my niece, I treat her as if she’s my equal and that’s a first ever for me.
Stacy took a guess at my age, as I never gave her that age or any age. I shouldn’t be disappointed, she took years off me, not that age really means anything to me.
“Why a creep? Is age that big a deal breaker? Your Dad’s older than your Mom,” I tell her.
She lowers her eyes and I move my hand away from her. “It’s more the fact he’s in there to buy liquor all the time and then leading her on. Men know an easy target when they see one and she’s . . .”
“Easy” I finish for her, and her eyes flash to mine. I break the stare and hand her the folder she placed on the counter when she arrived. She grabs it, causing some pieces of paper to flitter free and litter the floor. We bend down at the same time to pick them up, our hands picking up the same image. It’s a drawing of me; I’m standing in the middle of the subway and everything around me is in shadow, including the train. The only color on the picture is the red aura around me. The detail is amazing. The broken color around the focal point makes the image bold despite the black and white. Everyone and everything around me in the image is muted; it’s how I see the world.
“This is incredible,” I say honestly. I don’t offer praise lightly, or ever. I never really found anyone worthy of it but she’s beyond talented.