Savior

The Girl and the Gallery

I have never been a very superstitious person.

Breaking mirrors and spilling salt never meant that much to me because I don't believe in fate or worry about how I can control it. I never did any harm to anyone and my dad still left, my mum still got cancer.

Everything happens by chance.

Life is out of our hands.

But, four days ago a dark and angry cloud moved in above my head after a certain phone call and has not gone away since. It has only grown.

And although I try to shake it off and tell myself that I'm just paranoid and imagining things, the ominous feeling in my gut refuses to settle.

Something isn't right and I can feel it.

Each framed canvas that I wrap up for protection and stuff inside a box to be shipped to some strange American only makes the cloud hanging over my head rumble in warning, makes the feeling in my belly tug desperately.

I know that I am overacting, my common sense and logic tells me that the 'bad feeling' has more to do with the fact that the paintings I have to part with are ones of my girlfriend than the actual stranger I am shipping them to.

Because, it does feel weird, almost like a betrayal, to sell the pictures I worked so hard to create of a woman I tried so hard to obtain.

But, I don't really have a choice.

I need the money.

Luckily, I don't have to dwell on the stirring doubt and suspicion for too long because a certain whiny Irishman demands my full attention.

"So, are you coming?"

Niall swings his legs back forth from his perch on my stool, munching on an apple and refusing to help me pack up my paintings. Though, it's probably for the best because I'd be too afraid he may damage them because he is Niall and also because his dilated pupils tell me he is not entirely sober.

We don't really smoke that often anymore since life had gotten in the way and Betsy threatened to call our mothers. But, as of late, Niall has been hitting the pipe more often than not.

Niall takes one look at my dumbfounded expression and sighs, realizing I haven't been paying attention to a word he has been saying since he stumbled in here an hour ago.

"To the pub. You told me last weekend we could have a boy's night," He glares at me menacingly, though he is about as threatening as a loaf of bread, "You can't back out now, you promised."

I sigh, taping up a box of my smaller works before grabbing a long, flat box to store one of the larger ones.

"I don't know man, I have to have these shipped out by tonight and I was kind of wanting to see Layla later..."

He groans in annoyance, kicking his scrawny legs back and forth, "You see her all the time, man! I have barely seen you in the past few weeks you've been working so hard and any free time you do have you-"

"Niall," I interrupt, exasperated, but making sure my tone is soft, "Why don't you just call her?"

His rant is cut short by that and his legs stop swinging, his face pales, and he avoids eye contact. I can see his jaw clench as he throws out his apple core in a nearby trashcan, but he still won't look at me.

I struck a nerve.

I stop packing, the room full of tension and unspoken words and maybe I shouldn't have brought it up at all.