Pursuing Pandora

Chapter 22

Sometimes if I sit really still, I feel my body starts solidifying. It burns a bit before the wind tries to push out the discomfort. Taking shallow breaths, I concentrate on the object in front. Noticing their nuances that escaped the daily glances. My stationary body could become just an ornamentation like them. An effigy stuck in a singular moment.

This is how modeling for Maroon's drawings feels like. She has been busy scratching the graphite really hard for over 20 minutes. I decided to add on to yesterday's holiday to keep an eye on Ron. I was still hoping to get some work done while I was at home.

After the gallery event, we went to Reese's apartment. The kids had arrived before us and were pumped with whatever action movie they had watched and the burst of sugar rush from all the candy they had stuffed in the theater was too much for Derek to handle alone. Seeing Ron feeling so down in the dumps Austin decided to stay and called Natalie over. The best surprise was Robbie dropping in just before the food arrived.

My brothers are the best at distracting us with the most ridiculous things. They got out the old Dance Dance Revolutions pad. We went crazy during Lady Gaga's - The fame monster album. I found out that I was no longer an Expert and have been demoted down to Basic. The Fletcher babies were so much better at it. I didn't have any energy after competing with Zara and Beau consecutively.

This morning Ron returned back to my place refusing to go see Will. It's therapeutic for her to draw when she's stressed hence, I've been sleeping on the floor of my living room with my feet resting on the window sill and hand loosely stretched towards her. I've lost the feeling in all of my limbs. Sometimes times I hear Zara repeating a few words in the other room till she gets it right.

Ron's phone has been buzzing since the morning. You don't really have to use any brain cells to guess who it is. "What's he saying?"

Placing the phone on her thigh she got back to the drawing. "He wants to meet tonight. To talk." Her continuous pencil lines movements were not abstracting the fact that she was thinking of him.

"Aren't you still mad at him?"

"Hmm. Yeah." Her attention shifted completely to the phone. I took this moment to get some light movement in my body. She fervently typed consecutive replies with furrowed brow. "He's saying he lied because he didn't want to scare me." She rolled her eyes at another unwise message she received.

"To give him some benefit of doubt, it is true that you don't deal with death well." Salt on wound. The alarm repeated, salt on wound.

She sighed as she thought about it for a while. "I know the day before yesterday was a really bad freak-out. It hasn't been this bad since ages. It's so embarrassing. I always manage to make a spectacle of myself." She pressed her pencil to her forehead trying to drill the memory out.

"It's alright. I'm not the best example of handling death either" Emphasis being on the small foreign child learning American history in the other room. "You handle it better than me at least." My mind flashing back to the crying fest I had yesterday morning.

"Yesterday was so crappy."

I completely agree. We are suffering for our past sins. At least I am. I apologized, feeling responsible for setting the whole thing up in a gallery with an audience. She peeked out from the drawing board. Looking sorrowfully at my limp body she acknowledged she had a good time. Right before the very end.