Wild Girl ✔️

chapter 10: answers

Rose

I peered through the curtain, careful not to rustle it too much, and creepily watched as Sebastian picked up the painting from my pile of garbage. The look on his face was enough to make me feel horrible for throwing it out. But what else was I supposed to do?

Caleb was dead.

Caleb was dead.

And last night, when Sebastian told me that my work was beautiful, when he looked at me like he could truly see me... My heart flipped in my chest and a familiar feeling of toe-curling warmth spread through me.

And I hated every second of it. Because the last time a feeling like that crept its way through me, I was laying in bed wrapped in Caleb's arms.

The feeling flashed within me for a split second, long enough for me to acknowledge it, before the aching guilt set in. The self-hatred. The anger. Caleb made my heart flip. And only him. It felt wrong for another person, especially one that was still practically a stranger, to make my heart do the same tricks.

And when Sebastian said those words to me, when he reminded me that my heart was very much still capable of functioning properly ... It scared the shit out of me. And for once, I actually missed the feeling of a knife scrapping its way down my heart because the grief was easier to handle than the guilt.

So I channeled the actions of every dramatic protagonist I had seen in a romance film and shut the door in his face. In the middle of the night, when I was sure no one would see, I threw the painting out.

But the small fact that Sebastian was the one who picked up the damn garbage escaped my mind completely.

Now, here I was — watching as he slowly grabbed the canvas and stared at it. When he glanced up at my cabin, even with the distance between us, I could see the sadness on his face. I wanted to cry. I wanted to run outside and apologize and explain to him that I was the one who was damaged. That I was the garbage that should be thrown out. That this was all my fault and he had done nothing but bring out a dormant feeling within me.

But I simply stood there frozen as Sebastian quickly brought the painting back into his cabin, my mouth hanging open in surprise. Well, shit. I hadn't seen that coming.

I had no idea what made him decide to keep the painting or what good he saw in me, and I sure as hell was not about to go out there and ask. I would pretend that I hadn't witnessed this entire thing and that my painting was currently resting atop a heap of smelly, rotten garbage where it belonged.

I stared at my own chest and wondered if I could rip out my heart and throw it in a landfill, too.

It was better this way. I moved here for distance, for peace and quiet. I wanted to be alone to grieve the loss of my boyfriend and spark a new relationship with myself. Happiness and warmth were the two very last things I needed right now.

I sighed and let the curtain drop, blocking out the light from the rising sun.

* * *

Three days had passed with no sign of Sebastian. Some mornings I woke up early to try to catch a glimpse of him chopping wood or gathering the garbage — any of his morning routines — but I never saw him. It was like he had vanished into thin air.

Today, I woke up at sunrise again to peer behind my curtain but he wasn't there. I had to do something to distract myself from worrying about him so I packed up my paints and a blank canvas and trudged my way into the depths of the woods.