This young adult tragedy focuses on Bailey, a woman who has a near death experience when being hit by a car on a rainy day. This leads to some mysterious illness suddenly affecting her. During her research about the rare condition, she meets Adrien...
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THE PAINTERS
For three days, the mansion was dead silent as Adrien and I shared haughty stares at each other whenever our eyes met. However, hollow loneliness rapidly set in, even with barricades of books to read in my guest room. Occasional calls from my bar tending colleague Mike were soothing, his crazy tales making me momentarily forget what I'm going through. His cheerful tone was dynamic and full of energy, similar to little Elsie whenever she talked about fairy tales. A sudden knock interrupted my busy day dreaming, cutting me out of my haze.
"Hey Bailey?"
"What?"
"I'm thinking I might paint. You want to tag along?" Although I was still angry at him or yelling at me, I craved the social interaction as well as the creative outbursts. In a bitter mumble I replied;
"Yeah" I stepped out of my room, scrutinizing Adrien's features; his face was much more sunken down, his skin turning into coal grey tones. There was a certain morbid beauty to it, like a perfect representation of nature's powerful grasp on mortality. His hair had begun falling out, a few shaven patches remaining on his skull. He was in such a state... Empathy intruded into my heart, patting him on the back as I said ;
"Since it's 5 am maybe we should get you your croissant, hm?"
"Exactly. Do YoU FanCy SomE TeA LoVe?" I mimicked his accent mockingly, responding;
"AcTUallY I do!"
We stumbled our way down the stairs _miraculously without falling_ as we walked to the vast island kitchen to enjoy the breakfast we were immediately going to throw up, anyway. My bloating kept getting worse, although Adrien now looked much thinner; his arms and legs had a skeletal appearance, each section of muscle easily distinguishable. Our marbled skin camouflaged itself onto the cooking counter, almost disappearing as we scarfed down on some toast and croissants.
To my delight, I inspected the dust-covered painting set Adrien had ripped out of his old attic. After a few brushes of my pale hand, the colours looked vibrant; all hues of the rainbow laid below me. I could feel an enormous grin settle itself on my face as I looked at the rest. Canvases, watercolours, oil paint, acrylic, pencil sets... We could open an art shop with everything Adrien had found.
"You look eager to paint" I immediately nodded to his remark, excitedly clapping my hands as he continued; "Shall we look after your bloating after or before we start?"
"Let's do it now, I guess..." My heart sank to my stomach, suddenly recalling my disgusting appearance.
As Adrien slipped the scalpel around, occasionally switching with the sewing set, I felt lumps of hair slipping out of my hands and onto the floor. Horror stained my grimacing face, crying at the sight of my decaying body. How much longer did I have to stand all this? Tears trickled down the broken façade of my face, my heart melting as I realized how royally screwed I was.
