Lies, Lies And More Lies✔️

42: What Do You See?

A/N:

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"Tiara. Fancy running into you here." Derrek Dune smiled down at me and I felt my heart melt.

"Y-Yeah." I stuttered to my greatest embarrassment. "How-How are you feeling now? You look, um—"

"Dashing compared to the last time you saw me in a hospital bed?" He completed, gesturing himself. He looked really good, dressed in a black and gray checkered suit, a white t-shirt and white sneakers. I nodded in agreement, giving him a small smile. "I feel great. Thanks for asking. Believe it of not, this is my first official outing."

"Really?" I answered, wondering why he was here, talking to me. I was just a stranger that he had met at the hospital after all.

"Yeah. The doctors ordered me to stay indoors until my muscles fully healed. I tried to defy but Candice was quite stern with me." He chuckled.

"Candice?" I gulped, knowing exactly who she was.

"Yeah, my fiancée." He said, looking around. He was probably searching for her. "She's around here somewhere. She saw some old friends and they are catching up."

I gave a nod, forcing a smile on my face. I didn't want to hear about Candice. It still hurt when the images of her holding onto him flashed in my mind. What was wrong with me? Derrek and I were never a real couple, so, why did it hurt me to see him with Candice or hear him call her his fiancée?

"You mind if I sit?" He asked, gesturing the space beside me on the bench and I stared at him, confused. Now, he wanted to sit with me? He said 'please' when I didn't reply for a few moments. Nodding, I moved over so he could sit. "So, you like art or you're just here for the cocktails?" He leaned in a little as whispered the last line and I couldn't help but smile.

"You got me. I'm here for the cocktails." I joked, tipping my glass towards him and he laughed. "I love art." I answered seriously.

"Interesting. What's your favorite piece here?" He asked and it instantly came to my mind.

"It's on the ground floor. It's an abstract piece."

"Really? Could you show it to me?" He asked politely and my eyebrows shot up. Why was he so friendly to me? I had expected him to never even glance at me after he lost his memories but here he was acting like we were old friends.

"For real?"

"Yeah, come on." He said, getting up to his feet. "I'll show you my favorite piece as well."

I stared at him for a few moments before nodding. I couldn't bring myself to turn him down. I walked with him down to the ground floor and directed him to the abstract painting. It consisted of both harsh and soft strokes of both light and dark hues of the primary colours. It was almost like the painter was having an inner battle with anger, happiness, sadness and peace. It was a very emotional piece for me and I felt like I could relate to it the most.

"Why do you love it so much?" Derrek asked after we had stared at it for a minute or two.

"It's because I can feel the artist's pain. Each stroke carries a certain emotion. The negative emotions are trying to overpower the positive ones. It's a battle and only one can emerge the winner." I explained, assessing each stroke on the canvas, each color and hue. "It's conflict." The colors red, blue and yellow represented several emotions the artist was trying to convey. The violent strokes of red showed anger, the lazy strokes of Blue showed sadness and the excited strokes of yellow showed happiness. Light and harsh strokes of the primary colors overlapped over each other, showing some kind of struggle or fight. To most it would have looked like a simple scribble of colours but I knew it was much more than that.