Canvas

10| The Night

The hallway from Charlie’s bedroom to the kitchen seemed longer in the late light of the smallest hours of the morning. Or maybe it wasn’t the darkness of the night that gave the appearance of an expanding hallway, but the presence of Alice in his bedroom. It felt like a thread was spooling behind him, marking the distance between the two. His heart tripped over itself as the idea of her, waiting, coiled into his awareness again. 

He heated the water quickly, trying to be as silent as the furniture that watched him as he grabbed two mugs from a cabinet. He was as quiet as the passing of time itself, which he felt was both speeding up and slowing down. It made him dizzy. The night was pulling thin, letting him spend as much time as he could with the girl of his painting, but it still wouldn’t be enough.

Tiredness dragged at his eyelids, trying to snag him unwillingly into sleep. He shook his head, pulled his hands over his eyes, and let the sparking of his nerves keep him awake. Before the kettle had a chance to scream and shatter the peaceful night, he moved it away from the flames of the stove, which he extinguished quickly. He filled the two mugs with the steaming water as high as he dared—knowing he would have to carry them back to the bedroom without spilling or sloshing the water—and replaced the kettle to it’s usual burner. Nothing out of place that would catch his father’s keen eye.

Carefully, he lifted the hot mugs in his hands and made his way back to his room. He paused for a moment before pushing into his bedroom to look farther down the hall to his parents’ door. There was no sign that they were awake, only the quiet snoring of his father and the muffled squeak of mattress springs as his mother turned over in her sleep.

Assured that his parents were still dead to the world in the heaviness of sleep, Charlie bent down and set one of the mugs on the floor, freeing his hand to silently open the door. He bent his head to pick up the mug again and when he stood, he found his feet had turned to lead, anchoring him to his spot.

Alice sat on his bed, her back turned toward the door as she looked out the window to the still pouring rain. Her back was bare, pale and milky for just a moment before the flames of the candles flickered and bathed her in gold.

The fire of the grouped candles on his dresser spilled across her porcelain skin and gave her the appearance of light itself. She looked like the glowing warmth of the sun at noon; the way the sunrise turned each bedroom a warm orange in the early light of day, or how the white sand of a beach becomes rich in sunset.

He should look away. He knew he should—knew it was improper to stare. At the very least, he should make himself known. Announce he was there. But he couldn’t move. He could hardly breathe, barely control the slight tremor in his hands.

She was sunrise, noon, and sunset all in one breathtaking moment. He wanted to live in the morning of her, stay through the brightest hours of her daylight, and die in her twilight. The small wings of her shoulder blades sat perched above an expanse of perfectly smooth skin. Her waist was narrow and gently curving to her hip bones, which poked sharply out of the pajama pants he had lent her. 

He studied her for just a moment longer, thinking of how he would trace her silhouette with his thinnest paintbrush, capturing her in this one infinite moment. She could live forever like this on a canvas, be the envy of every onlooker. A true work of art; his new muse. 

Before he could stop himself—straighten back into the fine gentlemen he had been taught to become and crush every thought of her body, her hair, and her lips which he tasted once before—he imagined what it would be like to trace her with something other than his paintbrush. His fingertips, his mouth… A different kind of shiver worked its way up his spine; a new heat spread to his ears. His breath bloomed in his chest and caught on his lips as she pulled on the top of the pajamas.