Runaway - A DEVIL'S NIGHT FANFICTION (PTBR + ENG)

Chapter 3 - Nini

Four years ago...

"Nini, didn't we already agree that you cannot sleep with headphones on?" – I hear my mother as she removes the headphones from my head and I feel her sit up in my bed. – "What if I had left without coming to talk to you today, uh? Would you miss class?"

I open my eyes and a smile as I feel her icy hand on my face.

"Would it be that bad?"

My mother smiles back, but I see her expression change to concern when she asks using her words and ASL communication:

"Oh, no! Again? Evans!" – she calls out to him, but before he can get up from the bed, I hold his forearm.

"I'm fine," I say, sitting up in bed, taking my glasses from the table beside the headboard and putting them on.

She breathes with relief and holds my face with both hands.

"Thank heavens. Come, get up, your breakfast is ready," she says as she pulls me out of bed to get up, and I obey her.

I turn off the music that was still playing and start getting ready for the school day, finishing by gathering the colored rectangles lying around the bed that I used last night to study for the statistics test, and throwing them anyway into my backpack.

Today I had a test that I had been trying to study for, but finding it difficult to absorb the content.

"I am finishing the December exhibition and planning the January one, but I will be here for Christmas" - my mother informs me as I eat. – "And since I'm not finished yet, I'll be late today too, but Evans is having some friends over and I'd really like you to behave yourself while I'm gone..."

"Okay, I'll stay out late, got it"- is what I say staring into her blue eyes.

"You can't stay out past ten, Nini," she scolds me, pulling my ear lightly. - "If you do it again, I'll ask Germaine to keep you in a cell, and I'll only pick you up the next day to take you to school."

I bite my tongue to avoid telling him no that would be nothing new to me.

"I don't want to be in the company of Evans and his asshole friends," I complain, losing my hunger.

"You don't have to do anything, just be sociable and greet people. If he needs help, be nice and then go to bed before ten o'clock," she asks, sitting down next to me. "Please? For me?"

What wouldn't I do for her? I nod and my shoulders slump in defeat, but before I can get up to leave, she stops me:

"I brought you a present," she announces, placing a baby-blue rectangular package with a white bow on it.

I smile and take the package, opening it as she puts her arms around me and hugs me, kissing the top of my head and trying to tidy my hair.

A gel writing pen slides into my hands. I can see the black ink just inside the colorful tube and on the lid, hanging by a small chain, there is a figure of a butterfly and a tiny pot of glitter that is also blue.

I lift my face to give her a kiss on the cheek in thanks and get up from my chair, putting the pen away in my backpack.

"Come on, you're late enough," she calls, putting her arm around me.

"You don't have to drive me, I can go--"

"Dominique, no. It's winter and it's dangerous. Come on, I'll take you to school"

I look at my bicycle leaning in the garage and frown when I hear her call me that, giving up and getting into her car.

Claire Colbert was the curator of the Menkin museum and this job cost her all her time, but it was something she loved. She was very intelligent and knew about related historical facts of all the works she had ever dealt with, and she loved to tell me stories about the paintings and the artists. Visual arts always impressed and moved her, and I liked to believe that I had inherited that from her.