"Life is about deep kisses, strange adventures, midnight swims, and rambling conversations." -Unknown Running away wasn't the hard part of it. In fact, that took very little thought at all. Trying to figure out why it felt so right was what made it complicated. How a boy on a bus changes everything.

Elle Grey doesn't need anyone. She only needs herself, a paintbrush, and if she gets desperate enough, there are the few people she actually tolerates that she can talk to. She knows that there's more out there in the world - in fact, she spends most of her time either daydreaming or painting about it. She knows that the South Dakotan town she's grown up in is only suffocating her. That's why she finds Harry so intriguing. He's different and he brings out something in her that she wasn't sure was still there. Suddenly she's second-guessing everything she has known her entire life - maybe she does need someone.

(complete) we sat there smoking cigarettes at 5 in the morning. © 2014 polaroidlou

Art is a form of communication. Whether it is through music, through writing or through painting, every note you play, every word you write and every drop of paint you put on the canvas displays an emotion. For many, it is also a form of relief, a way to say everything you wish you'd say and a way to escape everything. Some paint on a daily basis, other paint on impulse. Annabelle Snow paints on impulse. To her, it is the way to paint. It shows what you truly feel, although sometimes it may reveal things you would rather forget. This is the story of a girl passionate about art, who had her fair share of misery and was left bitter by it.

✓ "The day he lost his mind was the day he lost his heart." - He's a broken-hearted artist who's just left rehab with nothing but the clothes on his body. She's chosen living life waiting tables in a nearly bankrup café instead of going further on her career. He abhors the possibility of ever loving again and she doesn't even try to. But when their paths cross, their point of view might be changed. Because they don't really know how tough dealing with absence can be.

This is NOT a sequel to Grey Street, only bits and pieces of their story after that day in the café. I'd highly suggest reading Grey Street first. What happens when Harry becomes the missing piece of Elle's New York story.