The Grey- Noah Sebastian

thirty two

*Noah's POV*

Our tour got cancelled 8 days later, sending us all back to our homes. Getting everything settled and back home was horrible, especially with all of the widespread panic that was happening. We got told to stop the tour after we had set our stage up in Ohio, but did the show anyway, and it was an incredible decision.

I thought about Sutton a lot more since we talked, but I know that she didn't want anything out of this. I redirected my loneliness to streaming on Twitch. There were days that I'd play video games and days that I would play some acoustic covers.

We've been home for a month now and I am hating feeling so restricted. I started running a lot more consistently before the pandemic, so sticking to that hasn't been hard. There's no one ever outside, so I'm not worried about it. It feels so... dystopian and depressing. The fear lingers in the air while the weather is the best I've ever seen, a stark contrast to one another. This April isn't even stormy, it's just spring and gorgeous.

I was running on my normal route one random April day when I noticed a beautiful bush of azaleas, these ones being the same copper tone that Sutton's hair was when I met her. I stopped in my tracks, staring at them from the road. Unfortunately, that person was home and noticed me, maybe from their Ring camera, and popped their head outside. I had talked to them before on a run, so we weren't strangers. "Hey Noah, you okay?"

"Yeah, uh, this might be a weird question, but can I take a picture of your flowers?" I wanted to slap myself immediately, but I was here already.

"That's fine," she said with a chuckle. She was a super nice elderly lady. I approached and took a picture of the azaleas, wanting to track this moment just in case. "You wanting to plants some azaleas?" She asked kindly.

"Yeah, I love them," I fed into it. I knew I probably would kill the flowers because I kill every plant I own, but I didn't want to get deeper into it. "Thank you!" I called as I started my run back home.

*Sutton's POV*

It was late March when my location closed for a few weeks, but it's been a month now and things are only getting worse.

I'm on a constant quarantine since Danielle still works in the medical field. I'm just glad that she doesn't work in the ER. Every single day when she gets home, she changes into a new pair of clothes and washes her work clothes, in case they have COVID-19 on them. She sanitized her phone, keys, and shoes every day, too. She is absolutely freaked out by it, the fear spreading to me, as well.

I have spent a lot of time watching shows and drawing, liking that I finally wanted to draw again. I said fuck it and invested in an iPad so that I can draw digitally, starting flash sheets for different bands that I like.

When Danielle had a longer shift one day, I spent my day finally listening to Finding God Before God Finds Me a few times, fully immersing myself in my headphones, and drawing a few different designs on my iPad. I spent most of my listening time crying, thinking hard about the time period they were written.

The first one I drew was a pair of praying hands with chains around them, a crown of thorns resting on the hand, drawing blood from puncture wounds in some spots for The Hell I Overcame. I also drew a hand that had a couple of playing cards in them, pinching them between the thumb, index, and middle finger for Kingdom of Cards, which is still my favorite. I challenged myself and drew an American traditional lion that was pissed off and snarling for Limits. Seeking conversation, I sent them to Nic. He called me immediately.

"Hey..." I trailed off, kind of sheepishly.

"Sutton! I didn't know you could draw like this!" He said, basically yelling out of excitement.