That one. She'd spent a good three months working on that one. Never could get the smile right. Then again nothing could beat the real thing.
Tilly slotted another drink right from the bottle in her hand as she looked at the finished product now.
One of her best or so she would have said if her heart hadn't been completely shattered by the very woman whose beauty her creation had been attempting to capture.
"God your are so beautiful when you smiled, Targo." She mumbles dribbling a few unswallowed Drops of amber down her front before tossing a few splashes onto the picture in front of her.
A few traitor tears fall like the newly wet lines for the penciled sketch as she turns away from her now ruined creation.
Months to get right but only seconds to destroy the wounded artist muses as the scene that had caused her current longing for destruction replayed behind her now tightly closed eyes.
Ivy. Why of all the people in Hyperion Heights to choose from did Margot have to go and cheat on her with Ivy?
"Didn't give her time to explain" a whispered voice reminds as the memory of her ex's begging pleas to let her explain replay in her mind from the short time Margot had chased after her. Not that she'd caught her.
Tilly was faster. She had the fresh wounds of newly given heartbreak adding to her speed. Plus she knew all the town's best hiding spots. She could walk around blindfolded and skill get to where she needed. It was all but pointless to run after her.
"But she did. She came after us anyway."
"What's there to explain?" Tilly argued with the phantom voice in her head "Why else would she have been half-dressed in someone else's bed" she goes on needing another hard swallow of liquor to steady her flaring temper as she remembered with painful clarity the look of amused satisfaction on Ivy's face when the dark-haired and equally half-dressed woman had directed her towards the apartments only bedroom with a coy "don't believe go see for yourself" scoff as she'd pulled open the refrigerator door.
"Enough" Tilly screamed through her tears as her eyes landed on the only untouched piece left of her attempted exhibition.
"You," Tilly growls her eyes gleaming with a wild kind of light as she took another half drink from the dwindling bottle in her other hand. Almost as if she'd expected the painted figure of an archer standing poised at the ready, her bow raised in warning an arrow notched and drawn back ready to fire would answer back. "I think I'll keep you." Tilly decided to drop the bottle completely as she trips her way forwards not caring one bit about the waisted liquor or the broken glass she was treading over as she pried her only "meaningful" picture from the wall.
One last suvinear she decided tucking the thing carefully under her arm as she rocked back on her heels with a slowly exhaled breath.
The others only reminded her of the pain of heartbreak. This one. This one felt safe.
"Let's go home, Robin," Tilly whispered adding an unspoken addition of 'not that we have a home to go to anymore' over the soft sounds of a lighter being flicked open its igniter twisted into life.
"Goodbye, Targo," Tilly says taking one last heartbroken look around what others might consider a newly vandalized art gallery before she drops the still burning lighter in the poured-out trail of top-shelf liquor at her feet.
Both Tilly and her painting are long gone by the time the spreading flames reach the first dripping painting. And far longer before any of the burning pictures could be saved by the shrill ring of the gallery alarm.
They had to be. The last bus out of town was boarding in five minutes. They didn't want to miss it.