The Veil

Chapter Seventy-One

The fence needed painting, I let myself out into the yard silently after slipping Tom's yard crocs on, glaring at the fence as I walked passed to the garage.

I frowned at the car when I entered the garage, all I could think was 'you're not downing me in those memories tonight." As I bent down to grab the paint pot.

Tom had spares of all the colours he'd used, from the outside to the inside.

I finally found the light grey, noticing it actually had 'yard fence' wrote in sharpie on the lid in Tom's messy handwriting, I pulled it out and stood to find a paintbrush, I chose the biggest one I could find, it had multiple coloured dried paint splatters all over the handle, giving it an odd texture.

I quietly and quickly ducked back into the kitchen for a second to turn on the fairy lights to give myself more light and lightly jogged back over to the fence, with a quick glance into the house to be sure I hadn't woken anyone up, I got to work painting the fence.

After the faded area was painted over, I couldn't stop, it looked uneven then, so I painted the whole panel, then the next.

I should've stopped, it was five below and the early hours of the morning, but as I went to grab the lid to put back on the paint pot, my brain wouldn't let me, I needed to finish the whole fence.

I reached out to push the brush against the third fence panel and got distracted by a smear of dried paint on my forearm.

I scratched a little off, then tried to get it from under my fingernail. I frowned deeply when I couldn't remove it all straight away.

"Lily?" I jumped, dropping the paintbrush into the frozen grass with a gasp.

I spun around and found Tom making his way towards me in the dark. "What the fuck are you doing out here?" He asked, as he got closer I saw the worried expression he wore.

He then glanced around me, taking in what was happening and his worry deepened. "Are you painting the fence?" He asked, stopping a few inches away from me.

"It needed doing, there was a faded patch that's been bugging me for days." I said, bending down to pick my paintbrush back up, flicking a stray blade of grass stuck to the wet paint.

"And you thought the best time for yard maintenance was four in the morning?" He raised an eyebrow, reaching to take the brush out my hands.

"I couldn't sleep." I shrugged.

He sighed sadly and threw the brush back to the floor, taking my hand and pulling me towards the house. "No, wait, we need to put the brush in that smelly stuff or it'll dry out, and the paint!" I tried to turn around, pointing towards the paint pot.

"I'll buy new damn paint." Tom growled, almost angry.

"Why are you mad? I didn't wake you up?" I whispered as he tried not to slam the door behind us.

I knew I hadn't woken him up, I'd left his room at two thirty, I'd been outside hours.

"You think I'd care if you woke me up?" He scoffed, switching the fairy lights off and turning back around towards me. I kicked his crocs off and moved around the table.

"Then what?" I was so confused.

He huffed in disbelief and shook his head at me, moving passed me to the kitchen door, not looking at me.

I followed closely behind him, trying to stay as quiet as I could, he was radiating anger now.

I ducked into the bathroom and held the door open for me to follow, he closed the door behind turning the light on, I squinted and blinked at the sudden glare.