Always As You Say (Book One In The Waven Series)

18

She was yelling again.

Always always yelling.

And what was it about this time you ask? Well apparently her steak was underdone.

Yes, that's right. A vampire, who's only required sustenance was blood, was unhappy because she got a medium rare steak.

This was the same girl who, for the first three years we lived here, refused to eat anything cooked above blue raw.

So of course, I left.

Took my sketchbook and my charcoal and walked out the door. I always did when we fought, and of course she would try and follow me, but years of exploring these forests with Anthony made it easy to navigate.

True it was different since the fire The Waven started but, the hidden treasures we found, those were the same.

I arrived at an alcove where we had told each other of torture. Me of my own and him of Amaras. One halfway up the cliffside here and surrounded by waterfalls.

It made it impossible to see me and any noise I might make would be blocked off by the waves.

I drew. Not the falls or the trees or the bleak sky ahead of me.

I drew them.

I drew them laughing and running, dancing and crying. I drew them in lakes and at home, back when it was still a home.

I drew us.

I drew us screaming and fighting, hunting and leaving. I drew us alone and wrapped up together, pretending that we were still us.

I drew him.

I drew him in shadows and darkness, with a beard and clean shaven. I drew him searching for me. And what would happen if he came to find me.

But mostly, I drew them.

It made me happy to draw them, to draw her eyebrow all quirked, and his face so enraptured.

I drew her cooking and laughing, with flour on her face and a twinkle in her eyes.

I drew him reading and surrounded by more books then could be counted, with a sheepish grin on his face as though he had been caught in something embarrassing.

I drew him running through forests and falling in streams.

Talking with his hands, and kissing her cheek.

I drew him cleaning and hunting and filled with such joy to have caught something.

I drew him in streets eating icecream, and making a face as he tasted a coffee. Him covered in ashes with a frown on his lips.

Hanging my paintings on walls and falling off the step ladder.

Him talking and talking and dancing and laughing, until I ran out of paper.

Until it was filled front and back with his face, with his smile. A slight smirk and hand gestures.

I closed the book.

Deep breaths in, deep breaths out.

Putting it off to the side I got up. I wouldn't think about that, wouldn't think about him.

Why do I keep drawing him?

Entire sketchbooks were filled with his face, the back of his head, his hands as he flipped a page.

Lately whenever I try to draw how Veronica used to be, it comes out lifeless, plain.

But him, Anthony, him I could bring to life.