The Soul Painter [completed]

-Chapter Seven-

Location: Central

At night, I usually have nightmares. When I don't, I have dreams. And they're always weird. 

In this most recent one, though, there were only words like the ones that I've been thinking lately, flashing through my head over and over, which is a whole different level of weird. I mean, I thought before that cheetahs wearing fedoras made an odd dream.

She doesn't belong here. Her past is clean. She isn't like the rest of them. Central is not for her.

I couldn't speak in that dream. In some I can, but in others, like that one, it feels as though someone has clamped a hand over my mouth. 

Femi? It meant Femi.

She isn't made to be here. She can't stay with you. It's only a matter of time until she leaves.

I can still see those strange and slightly creepy words like it was yesterday, which it was.

I smile to myself as I strip the plastic jacket off of a length of electrical wire and toss it to the floor fifteen feet below me. 

The ladder wobbles a bit and I almost gasp. I don't like heights much, and standing on the top of a ladder with my hands above my head while I string live wires from the ceiling isn't a very cozy thing either. 

Femi doesn't pay any attention to me, though. She's been working at redoing the garage door all morning. The inside of it this time, because I have had a little bout of paranoia and locked her inside. I think she's mad at me.

Every so often she'll turn around, scan my face with an irritated look in her eyes, and watch as several colorful shreds of plastic drift from my hands. Or to be more precise, my left hand. My right hand is still very off duty, almost completely useless in the splint Femi made. 

"Femi?" I bite down on the handle of my screw driver, freeing my good hand to tie the wire to the rafter. "Are you listening to me?"

She looks up, quickly meets my eyes and looks away. 

She's been kind of cold to me for the last day and a half.

I like to think that I don't know why.

"Are you mad at me?"

She shakes her head. No. 

Then what's going on with you? I want to ask, but I lose balance and the thought flees my mind.

Don't die, don't die, don't die...

I right myself and grip the beam above my head, shaking.

I hate heights. 

But more about the dream.

It basically just told me that it's only a matter of time until she leaves me, which isn't news. Everyone seems to leave sooner or later. The words said that she doesn't belong. Which she doesn't, in her looks.

She seems pretty average and normal overall, though. Except for the lack of color. 

Especially the lack of color. 

The ladder wobbles again.

"Femi!"

The sound of a paintbrush clattering to the floor has never sounded sweeter, and the rocking stops as she hugs the legs of the ladder.

"I think I'm going to call it a day with this." I shudder as I begin to climb down. That's the problem with me. I almost can't do dangerous things because I have a hyperactive imagination when it comes to disasters. If I'm up high, I can imagine falling and hitting the ground with a bone-crunching "thud." If I imagine being mugged, I can almost feel the cold metal making a ring on the side of my head. And then a floating feeling when the gun goes off. 

My imagination is a dangerous and scary place.

The shop is a mess right now, and I try to make myself remember to clean it later when my feet are back on the solid ground.

It's chaos. There are grease rags everywhere, slung across my toolboxes, over the only fan in this place, against a box of gaskets, and under the tire of my freshest tinkering project.

It's the nicest car that I've ever fixed. A gorgeously ancient 1970 Firebird, midnight-blue paint with a glossy finish, a silver racing stripe from hood to fender, and best of all, an engine meant for the races. 

Sure, this car might be illegal to race on the roads around here, but what I wouldn't give to take it on a lap around the place, even if I got caught.

Gives me shivers just thinking about it. 

Femi doesn't share my excitement. When the man pulled it in here, told me that it needed some fixing, and then left it here, she just stared at it like it was any other car.

Apparently the paint wasn't bright enough for her. 

"Femi, do you think you could do some dusting?"

But I know the meaning of the look she gives me.

Are you kidding? The dust bunnies are as big as I am! 

I'm ashamed to say that it's not too far from the truth. I thought there was a cat under my toolbox the other day. There wasn't.

She screws the caps back onto her bottles of paint and sighs, tucking her hands into the pocket of my hoodie. 

"I can't wait until Friday," I groan, stretching.

On Friday the man who owns the Firebird is coming back to get it, and hopefully to pay me. The grocery money is gone, and dinner is looking like it's going to turn out to be a can of black beans boiled with some freeze-dried potato wedges. 

By far not the worst meal possible, but, those potato wedges. That's all I'm going to say about them.

Femi nods in agreement. I discovered a while back that she also detests the potato wedges. Which suits me just fine—I don't mind having someone to hate nasty foods with—but I hope that she'll put up with them just for tonight. It shouldn't be that bad. They're already boiling with the beans, so they might end up tasting like beans themselves. 

Hopefully.

I swallow, thoughts drifting as she steps closer and leans against my shoulder.

Lately there's been a word at the back of my head that I can't put my finger on, drilling at my thoughts, making me feel like I'm going crazy. I can't figure out what the word is, but every time I look at Femi, it strikes me that I want to say it to her. But I don't know what it is, so I can't. It's like I've forgotten something, it's on the tip of my tongue, but not far enough on the tip so that I can say it. 

The whole thing is making me feel like a crazy person. 

As we stand at the stove, watching the beans and potatoes simmer together, I reach for her hand and clasp her warm fingers in my cold ones. 

"I don't know," I whisper, biting the inside of my lip. "I'm sorry, Femi, but I just don't know."

She turns her head and looks me right in the eye, a quiet smile shadowing her mouth. She isn't feeling the smile deeply enough for it to be wider. 

It's okay. I don't know either. 

And so we just stand there, staring at our dinner, as I wonder what it is that I want to say but can't remember.