After ✔

15 | Dani

A girl stands before me. Her wild dark hair flows with the wind as she stares into the water.

Atleast, that's what I assume she's doing. She has her back turned towards me.

I blink up at the painting. If I close my eyes, I can almost imagine her turning her body towards me and laughing the cute little way that she always did.

I clench my hands into fists. It wasn't a memory. I was imagining it.

Before I can turn to Valencia whose standing a little behind me, a rhythmic pounding begins in my head.

My eyes follow the paintings to all my mother's paint next to the counters and finally to Valencia.

The headache gets worse so I raise my hand towards my head. The pounding gets louder and louder until I'm sure my brain will literally explode.

When I close my eyes, a whirl of colour zooms past me. At first things are broken, blurry, and I strain to try and focus.

When I open my eyes again, with a surprising jolt I realize I'm in another room. This one is similar to the studio, only larger and more airy.

"You wanna play dirty, huh?" I say.

But it's not me. The words are coming out of my mouth but it's not me.

Is that even possible?

I swiftly pick up another paintbrush and swirl it on the palette.

"No, Dani!" She squeals. "It was a mistake!"

"Let's just call this a mistake too."

She tries to back off, but I anticipate that. My hand clamps down on her arm as I begin to wipe the paintbrush all across her face and neck.

She screams, trying to yank her arm out of my grasp. Her eyes land on an open bottle of black paint, and with her free hand, she picks it up and throws it at me.

This. This was a memory.

When I open my eyes again, I'm kneeling on the floor. Valencia is next to me, and her hands are on either side of my face.

"Are you okay?!" She says urgently. Her eyes are full of worry.

"Um." I gulp. My hands are shaking, and my own eyes are wide with terror.

What the hell was that?

She tucks her hair behind her ear and helps me up.

"Did you... er, did you remember anything?"

When I'm sure I don't need her help anymore, I stand on my feet and will myself to stop shaking.

"Yeah." I say, and watch her eyes light up with hope. "Apparently we were throwing paint on each other."

She licks her dry lips, trying to make sense of the situation. Finally, she nods before offering to help me towards the kitchen. "That's good." She says. "That you remembered something."

"It was just a fragment." I say as I collapse on one of the chairs. She pours me a glass of water. "Was that one of our couple-things? Throwing paint at each other?"

I take the glass from her and gulp down the water. "No." She says with a light smile. "A one time thing. I asked you to teach me how to draw."

"And I'm assuming that went well." I mumbled under my breath.

"Is the headache bad?" She asks. "There's some advil in the cabinet if you--"

"Nah." I say. "It's not that bad."