The Heartbreak Chronicles

1•3

Step Three: Controlling

"I saw her today."

Charlie looks up from the worn out copy of Wuthering Heights placed on her lap. "When?"

"I was on a grocery run," Axel says, staring out the window; something which he seemed to be doing a lot lately. "And she was there, clinging to the arm of some guy."

"Did she try to talk to you?"

"No. She just smirked, like she knows how much it aches to see her." He sighs, closing his eyes. "But do you know what scares me most, Charles?"

Charlie didn't speak. It was almost as though she knew the thoughts running through his mind.

"It's that if she had tried to talk to me, if she had tried to apologize and come back, I would've let her; without sparing even a moment for thought."

Setting her book aside, Charlie gets up and walks to him, throwing her skinny arms around him in a tight hug. "Do you want to paint?"

He pulls away, chuckling softly. "Charlie, you know I can barely hold a brush the way it's supposed to be held."

She beams. "Doesn't matter. You'll see why we're doing this after you're done."

Pulling out two large canvas boards, a nimiety of brushes and a twenty four colors set of acrylic paint, she swiftly places them in a corner of her room. Her hands move quickly as she sets the boards next to each other.

"Why are we doing this?" He questions, looking at her in unabashed awe while she makes a headlong dash through the room.

"I'm not a psychologist, Ax," She smiles, without taking her eyes off the brushes she was arranging. "But I do have a few tricks up my sleeve."

She beckons him to come forward and hands him a brush.

"Paint," She says, gesturing towards the vibrant shades of color.

They spent hours dragging the brushes on the canvas, creating streaks and smears of color and grinning at their cluttered yet intricate masterpieces. As he bid her farewell at nightfall, Axel realized why Charlie made him paint even though he was pathetically terrible at it.

She was teaching him to let go; of his clouded emotions and of himself.