Mailboy (Wattys 2015 Winner)

11. Sleepy Discoveries.

nico is on the side, I think he's hotter. 

- - -

"I got 99 problems but you ain't one."

Zoey Willow Hunter

THE sun was on the border of the horizon, wavering over it as if by a magical force. A new day was beginning and I knew I only had a two or three hours until delivering mail with Nico, so I had to hurry. I put my muscles into the paddle, discarding the slight pain shooting up my arms. Beads of sweat were formed on my forehead and I groaned.

Almost there.

The shore of the minuscule island seemed so close, yet so far away. After a few minutes, I jumped off the sailboat and pushed it into the hot sand. I grinned at the thought of being so close to my goal. I sprinted past the gigantic, majestic trees that horrified me at night. The building appeared, and I sighed.

The high, white walls of the antique mansion stood there, attempting to be a menace to me. I simply laughed, a happiness filling my heart for the first time in forever. The paint boxes were peeking in the back. I ran towards them and looked at the back wall. The upper half of it seemed ordinary. A few vines there and there, and the usual look of a fifty year old wall.

Although, the lower half was my escape.

It was filled with all sorts of paintings. Black and white ones, colored ones, bright ones, unnoticeable ones, ones that can't be missed. There were ones of Lucy, Mom, Skye, Julia, Walters and others. Memories were inched to most of the surface. The very first one was in the middle; it was the back of a family on a boat. A mailbox was one of the biggest paintings on the wall. It was open, with a few letters inside, a bag of candy and a faint portrait of a smiling Walters beside it. "Oliver" was written underneath a small painting of Niagara Falls.

I smiled. "Home, sweet home."

Taking my phone (whose screen was still shattered, by the way—), I put it in the speaker dock and put 5 Seconds of Summer's new album on full volume. I bobbed my head to the music, grinning. I threw my old painting shirt that had splatters of color everywhere.

"That's what I like about you, you hold me tight. Tell me you're the only one, want to come over tonight?"

I took one of the brushes and dipped them in a water container. Contemplating the paint buckets, I closed my eyes and let the events of the past two weeks rush back to me.

Walters left.

Nico Forrest arrived. I deliver mail with him now. He's a pain in the ass. I kissed him, drunk. I don't remember any of it. He was going to run away, he didn't. We fight a lot. I don't think I hate him anymore.

Oliver and Xandra together. He broke my heart. The kiss didn't mean anything to him.

I placed the brush in the black paint and struck a big X on Walters' face.

Small paintings of my friends were in the bottom. The guys on one side, the girls on the other. My eyes fell on the Xandra painting, her arm on my shoulder.

Dipping the paintbrush in the red bucket, I drew an X on Xandra and Oliver. Taking a smaller paintbrush and making it drip with white paint; I drew a minuscule plane beside it. I noticed the empty space beside it and started at the process of drawing a perfect forest.

"'Cause it's true, that's what I like about you!"

And it was like I was the only one in the world. I could let out my feelings and every single thought I had on the walls of this mansion. It had been abandoned for years, and there were even rumors that ghosts lived here.