Total pages in book: 68
Estimated words: 66267 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 331(@200wpm)___ 265(@250wpm)___ 221(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 66267 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 331(@200wpm)___ 265(@250wpm)___ 221(@300wpm)
Looking away from the longing is his expression is impossible.
“Japan was where we were going next. Just the two of us. We had a shared fascination with kintsugi for different reasons yet were on the same page for exploring the stories intertwined with it.” All of a sudden, Tucker’s thumb delivers a firm stroke to the nape of my neck. “It never crossed my mind that that trip might not come.” He digs the digit deeper. Makes my frame simultaneously melt and shiver. “That the day of I’d walk into the kitchen and find him falling to the floor.”
“OhmyVanGogh!”
“He had…suffered a concussion the week before. He said he was fine. He said they said he was fine but…” Tucker’s voice trails off until my hand slides supportively onto his thigh. “He wasn’t fine, June. And he wouldn’t be fine. He had something called a bilateral convulsive seizure I later learned. Basically, he lost consciousness. His body went stiff, and he hit his head on the edge of the counter on the way down – which just so happened to be the moment I walked in to see.”
“MotherofMonaLisa!”
“When he was on the ground he was uncontrollably twitching and jerking almost like a fish out of water. And I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know how to stop it. Or help him. Or save him.” He presses harder into my flesh causing me to clamp down on his leg to prevent a somewhat inappropriately timed moan from escaping. “I called 911 and then just…watched him end his own life by involuntarily bashing his head repeatedly against the marble floors. I thought about grabbing a pillow or dish towels, you know just something to cushion the blows but…” A loud sniffle slips into the story. “I didn’t. I just…I couldn’t leave him like that. I didn’t want to leave him like that.”
“Is that why you scream out while you’re sleeping?” I gingerly investigate, thumb providing a small comforting stroke to the territory I can’t believe I’m lingering in. “You just keep reliving that moment?”
“It’s one reason.”
“What’s the other?”
Rather than answer, my reluctant roommate attempts to distract from the emotional paint spill he didn’t mean to let occur by distracting me. “You think I should sign my artwork?” He tips his head towards the board. “Maybe right underneath the truck?”
“I think you should tell me the other reason you have nightmares.”
“Night terrors.”
“There’s a difference?!”
“Slightly.” Once more, he sidesteps giving me details, forcing me to add that to the list of things to Google when I can’t sleep later tonight after hearing his verbal pain. “And I think you should frame me a secret now.” The touch on the back of my neck lightens so that it’s just the tips of his fingers stroking the space. Sending new shivers down my spine. Goosebumps along my arms and legs. “I displayed one of mine. You display one of yours.”
“Um…” Breathing grows harder not from the panic of exposing myself but the increased ache I can’t alleviate between my thighs. “Like um…like what?”
“When’s the last time you had a real Friday night?”
“Implying that all other Friday nights prior to this one weren’t real?”
My good-natured taunting is received better than I’m expecting. Tucker chortles on a slow nod of his head. “Alright. Poor phrasing on my part.” There isn’t time to dodge the follow up he splashes my direction. “When’s the last time you had a date on a Friday night?”
“I mean what really constitutes as a date?” It’s my turn to play the avoidance game. “The word is like the topic of art. It’s subjective. It’s in the eye of the beholder. It’s-”
“Your way of telling me it’s been longer than you wanna admit, which is why I need a measurable amount of time given for my understanding.”
“And how exactly does a person measure time? I mean…” mirth floods my gaze as our eyes linger in one another’s, “just yesterday I asked how long we needed to let the chicken tortilla soup bubble for, and you told me ‘until the streaks of blue became the stripes of night’.” My smirk shifts to an even sassier one. “Which still makes absolutely no fucking sense to me.”
“I was referencing a drying window primarily because I was painting; however, I also don’t believe in the traditional construct of time. I’ve been to far too many places and experienced far too many things to be attached to the numbers on a clock.” His fingertips dip a little lower under the collar of my shirt to rest. “Your two-minute neck rub is over-”
“Pretty sure that was more like four.”
“-but I will happily continue to be the reason you make that O face you think I’m not noticing if you answer my question instead of continuing to circumvent it.”
Ouch.
That poke with a paintbrush was a little below the canvas.