Chapter 6

~Edward~

I glared at that ribbon for a long time.

I had to assume it came from deer girl as that ribbon looked like the same faded color of the loose ends that were hanging off that odd dress she wore. I furrowed my brow at the offensive material again and guessed that girl was probably my nearest neighbor, the one I was angry about in that house across the way. The one Rosalie hadn't mentioned when I'd told her I wanted solitude. The one I stared at too long once I found her in the grass. I left her in that circle noiselessly as she continued talking to that damned animal and tried not to think about them all afternoon.

I tried to distract myself from that image of them together in the grass, the one that had taken my breath away. Her hair laid out around her like sunshine, her knees bent and exposed, her soft face, slightly pink as she spoke to that thing. I'd even gone so far as to try and forget that image by arguing with myself, debating about going to the attic to look for something to hang on the walls, but I won that battle, and the attic remained unvisited.

My attic struggle preoccupied me, let me forget for a while that I didn't help her. Them. I had left that clearing deciding they were okay and made the conscious choice to not do anything about them. It was a bitter, routine decision, and as I stared at the ribbon, I couldn't stop thinking that I wished I'd gone about it differently. Just like so much else.

I frowned at the last cold sips of my morning coffee left in the bottom of the same cup I'd been using and looked over at the spot in the field I had been blissfully unaware of when I stood here yesterday. I couldn't help but notice it now. A fucking blemish in the tall grass I'd hoped would cushion me from anything around. There was no sound fighting with the bubbling of the creek now, so I assumed she went back to the gray house. After she tied that ribbon, maybe.

Not wanting to see it anymore, I turned to the right, to the ramshackle shed that looked like it had been built by Mr. Windchimes himself, rickety and leaning like I imagined him to be. That was all I wanted around me. Just that worn, blue shed. Not that fucking sad house over there that apparently had life in it.

The small town wasn't far; I knew from passing through it with Rose, and I decided to get started with my plans to make this house new, make it mine. The realtor told Rose and me when we stood on this porch that the previous owner was a collector, and I might find his antique bicycle in that shed, mashed inside somewhere with rusted car parts and tools. She said this as she looked at the black patch over my eye, when Rose told her I would be out here alone, no car.

The realtor had offered to be my chauffeur, and I knew she was offering more, but Rose thankfully squashed that for me, telling her as soon as the doctor in town gave me the green light, she'd arrange for me to get something. I just nodded in reply, not bothering to say I doubted I would—machinery not something I wanted. I'd had enough of Humvees and helicopters delivering me where I had to go; I was looking forward to using my feet.

The barn-like doors creaked loudly when I pulled them back; the sound of rodents scurrying at the unfamiliar light of day barely registered as I began to poke around. After a scratch to my hand and some bricks falling on my feet, I found that bike she had mentioned. With a little grease still wet in a half-empty oil can, some air for the tires, and a couple of tightened screws, I rode that squeaky bike all the way to the little town that housed what you were supposed to need out here.

I loaded up on anything I could transport back on the handlebars and around my neck: a few groceries and toiletries, but mostly some brushes and four half-full cans of someone's leftover paint the guy at the hardware store sold to me for a discount. Once I settled on a color, I knew I'd have to carry one or two full cans back at a time in the rusty baskets on either side of the back wheel or walk it, but that was fine, I had nothing but time to use up.

When I arrived back to the house, sweaty but spirits lifted from the physical activity, I left those cans on the grass to the left of the porch where I figured a good test spot would be. I rushed through putting the groceries away, anxious to get to work. Glad to have something to do with my camera-less fingers.

Opening a beer, I went back to the shed to get the little radio I'd spied earlier. I'd grabbed a flashlight and some batteries in town, and I was happy I'd guessed the right size for the little transistor. After securing them in place and snapping the black plastic closed, I turned the dial and heard the whine of AM frequency. Scrolling through slowly, I picked up hisses and pops, hearing the strains of distant voices as I got closer to something. I fiddled and moved the antenna around, stepping out from the shed to give me a better shot at it. The notes of big band music hit my ears, and I figured that would be as good as I'd get, so I adjusted it on the floorboard of the porch close to where I was going to work, settling on Glenn Miller and his "Moonlight Serenade."

Flipping the lids off all four cans, I stood back to assess. Sky blue, emerald green, sunshine yellow. I'd looked at the brown at the store, emblazoned with the name "Fawn" but passed that one up quickly, choosing a berry purple instead that now stood beside the yellow. I looked at them all and shrugged, deciding that the house would tell me which to choose.

My brush stroked blue against the twelve inch board closest to me, knowing it was just a test, painting over the grime of Kansas life well-lived. Nail heads and bumps from older coats of paint raised the surface and made it imperfect. Figuring I'd applied enough to decide, I rinsed the brush in the spigot jutting from underneath the porch and put the green on the board directly under the blue. I stepped back, unsure, because Lord knew I'd never had to choose anything permanent, rinsed the brush again and did the next board in the yellow.

Under that came the purple, and there it was, a fucking mosh of color in horizontal stripes on the side of a house I barely knew. I rinsed the brush once more, the puddle under the spigot swirling the washed-off color into a muddy kaleidoscope.

Looking at the tie-dyed water, I smiled wryly when I thought about my camera again—the second time in two days I'd found something I wanted to snap—and imagined how I'd frame the image. It had been so long since I took a picture for the sheer beauty of what it would capture, and the thought that I wanted to do it felt as foreign to me as I'm sure the house felt with the damp paint that now marred its side.

The sun marked noon above me, and my stomach growled, pulling me from dangerous thoughts, so I threw the brush down onto a plastic bag and made some lunch.

I let an hour pass as I sat eating a sandwich and drinking a couple beers, propped up against two hay bales that smelled faintly of animals, and wishing I had chosen a spot under the trees not too far from the house. Sweat gripped my neck as I stared at those colors on the side of the house with one eye, asking it to tell me which it preferred. A distant feeling of amusement as I mulled over the paint rose within me, and I shook my head, laughing at myself and this strange idea of doing something for the pure fun of it. Something unexpected. Something that didn't follow rules.

It was probably my one eye and drunk brain trying to deceive me that it looked good the way it was.

It was wrong. Who painted a house like this? But somehow, the boards looked so right. I felt energized as I stripped off my sweat-soaked shirt and spent the rest of the afternoon painting, talking to the house, explaining what I was doing to it like a child, how I was freeing it. I finished each board from left to right and front to back in the color each plank was testing. And it was strangely exhilarating.

In another way, in a new life, I was creating art.

I stepped back, stood up on those hay bales and laughed. There was no army green, no dull brown desert camouflage, no crumbling gray concrete. I'd created a mess, a giant circus tent. Who decided a house needs to be all one color? I was high, empowered with the idea that I could make something ridiculous just because it fucking made me happy. A fleeting emotion, if ever there was one.

I felt desperate to finish the house, right then and there. My heart clutched itself inside, afraid that if I stopped, I wouldn't feel the same way in the morning. I was almost frantic to hang onto this lightness, but I knew it was too late to get more paint or find a ladder in the darkening shed.

The waving of that ribbon caught my one eye, and I just stared at it as I had that morning, trying to imagine the why of it. Tried to imagine that girl in the white dress coming to tie it in the middle of the night. What was she hoping to achieve? For a moment, I considered going to that miserable house and offering to help fix it up much as I was doing to my own, especially if I was going to have to look at it. I didn't know if that girl had brothers or a father or even a husband to do that kind of work, but if she did, they were doing a shit job of holding onto what they had. I felt my eyes narrowing in the direction of the house, pissed off that she thought she could tie that ribbon on my newly alive home while she left her own to die.

Mad love to LayAtHomeMom, Hadley Hemingway, and CarrieZM for making us pretty.

Enjoy, and leave us your thoughts!

HB&PB

* We are in love with your reviews, and will reply to each and every one as soon as we can!