In your Arms

Chapter Eighteen

Amity woke up a little late the following morning, she glanced at her clock and saw that it was fifteen minutes past nine o'clock. It was around four a.m. when she had slept and it made her head a bit fuzzy, add up the dark circles in her eyes. She stood up and went in front of her mirror to comb her hair, she looked at her reflection and squirmed as she saw herself. Amity thought she looked like a zombie, a little amount of drool on the corners of her mouth would do to make her actually look like one.

She was lazily combing her hair while she thought of her "to do list" for the day and suddenly froze. She stood up and quickly scanned her room, then it made her uneasy. Her canvas was nowhere to be seen. Amity felt a wave of terror, a weird feeling that something bad had actually happened.

She hurriedly walked out of her room and searched for it within the whole place. Amity let out a sigh of relief as she found it on top of the dinner table, she must've forgotten all about it, since the latest incident with Alexander kissing her happened here last night. She admittedly forgot all about her painting.

The canvas looked untouched and still as it is when she placed it above the dinner table before she took a glass of water. She was at least relieved that it looked like no one touched it since she'd left it lying on the dinner table last night. Amity loosened up and removed the cloth only to find out a dreadful sight.

Someone had scrawled on her painting using a black marker. It looked like a four year old kid had trifled with her work. There were lines and shapes of all sorts, Simon suddenly had a mole on the tip of his nose and he had a mustache and a beard, a drawing of a boy and a girl made out of stick holding hands at Simon's background, Smiley's everywhere. She touched her canvas that was once pristine but is now grubby. All her hard work, besmirched.

"My work.. My masterpiece.." Amity croaked and tears welled up in her eyes, her vision became blurry and teardrops fell on her canvas.

She was shaking real hard and she felt her heart is going to burst at any minute. This was her work, this would give her the one chance to be recognized by a renowned painter who happened to be one of her inspirations in this craft, and most importantly, this was her painting of Simon. Her perfect painting of Simon, looking calm and serene, the man he loves, and someone just made fun of his face and mutilated her work.

A cauldron of emotions stirs within her. She was angry, hurt, horrified, and frustrated all at the same time. And it made her snap. Because she knew, she knew exactly who could've done this devastating thing to her. She gripped the sides of her canvas really hard and took it with her as she stormed into Alexanders bedroom.

Amity didn't even thought of knocking, she opened Alexander's door loudly and found him still sleeping with his back turned to her. The sight of him made her anger reached it's highest peak and she didn't held back as she shouted at him.

"Wake up you son of a bitch! Wake up!" She kicked Alexander on the side and he stirred.

"What the hell do you want?" Alexander asked him looking unhappy about the way she had woken him up. He grumpily stood up from his bed and looked at her with creased eyebrows. "What the hell is your fuckin' problem?!" His attention shifted from the thing she was holding in her left hand, her canvas. He looked back at her and that's when he realized that her face was damp with tears, and they still kept on pouring real hard.

"You're asking what's my fuckin' problem?" Amity scoffed. "Well how considerate of you! This," She lifted her canvas, "This is my fuckin' problem!" Amity shoved her painting on his chest.

Alexander winced as it hit him, "I don't know what you're saying!" He then laughed as he took sight of the canvas, "Wow, it looks like a four year old made that. Don't tell me it's you who did it? Ha ha ha!"

"Do you think I did this?" Amity asked him, "I left this on top of the dinner table! This isn't what it looked like when I left it there!"

Alexander shrugged. "Well, maybe some burglar entered our unit. And when he realized there's nothing he could steal here he got pissed off and saw your painting and messed with it since he didn't find anything to steal."

Amity reached her boiling point. "And you expect me to believe that?! Do you think I'm an idiot?! Fuck you!"

"Whoah! That's a foul mouth you have there little miss!" Alexander whistled and raised his arms.

She looked at him with pure hatred and even with the crying she managed to tell him, "You don't know how much this painting means to me. It took me a long time doing this. It took me all the hard work to at least make it a little perfect somehow. And you know what? This is the only thing that could help me reach my dream of being recognized with my work. And what did it cost me? A frustration that I would remember for the rest of my life. I use to believe there's no evil in this world. Not until I met you. You destroyed my dream. You destroyed the only thing that kept me driven all these years." Amity croaked and her lips quivered. "I hope you're happy now. You've won." With that Amity walked out of his room carrying her canvas.

Alexander looked like he was lobotomized. He just stood still and went silent. He was stunned by what she had told him and it had hit him straight in the chest. He felt awfully guilty. Alexander forced himself to move and walked out of his room to follow her. He plans to apologize.

As soon as he came out he saw her with her backpack on and was about to go out the door. She was carrying her canvas and was about to leave.

"Jordin, wait." Alexander called her. "W-Where are you going?"

She looked at him coldly, "Somewhere far away from a devil like you." She spat then roughly opened the door and left.

"Jordin!" He called her but she never looked back. "I'm.. Sorry.." Alexander whispered and placed a hand on his forehead looking guilty.