Can't I Touch Your Heart?

Chapter 58 Rebuilding Ourselves

"Thanks for the food," Ember smiled.
"It was literally half a sandwich," Neel rolled his eyes as he helped Ember down the stairs.
"Hey, it's the thought that counts. You don't have to follow me by the way,"
"It's just respectful to drop a guest to the door,"

"Ember!" He heard his name and looked ahead. It was Loraine and Maple. They stood near his car. Neel stared at Loraine awkwardly. Loraine glared into Ember's icy eyes.
"The doctors told you not to climb stairs, why don't you listen?" Loraine looked worried more than angry, "We are going back, right now,"

"Leave me alone," Ember pushed Loraine away and sat into the car. Neel looked at Ember. Ember looked angry and kind of sad. Neel moved towards him but Loraine held his hand. He turned back and looked at him. Loraine looked back at him, "You can leave now,"

Maple sat in the front seat of the car. Neel looked into Loraine's eyes as he left his hand "You've made mistakes. You don't want to repeat them, right?"
"You can't dictate my friendship," Neel green eyes glared at him.
Loraine grinned as his condescending green looked down at him, "Well too bad, because that's exactly what I'm doing. Now piss off,"
He sat beside Ember. Neel looked at them from outside until the car left and disappeared.

He stood at the empty road. As always, Ember left.

Rhea came back home after a long day. She parked her bicycle in the parking which was lit by the light of sunset. She was walking towards the stairs when she suddenly turned back and looked at her bicycle. It was glowing in the light. She ran upstairs and dashed inside her room. He took out her drawing book and pencil and left with her drawing file. 

She walked down to the parking and started making the sketch of the bicycle. Till the time she finished, the sunlight was gone. Not in her eyes though, the sunlight was still falling before her.
"Use perspective," Neel stood behind her and she turned back, "You scared me!"
He leaned towards her, "The back wheel will be smaller, it's further away," He made incisions with his nails on the paper. 
"Is that what perspective is?"
"It's just an illusion of creating a three-dimensional effect on a two-dimensional canvas,"

"What? How do I do that?"
"Give it here," He snatched her pencil and sat beside her, explaining the technique. And this was just the beginning, Neel seemed to know more than he showed. His father had enrolled him at an art academy since a very young age, so naturally, he knew a lot of different styles and ways of painting. They sat in her room, over a chart,

"Have you ever heard of the contemporary colour theory?" He asked.
"What?" She asked.
"There's this technique of divisionism, where you apply contrasting dots of colour side by side so that, when you see them from a distance, these dots would blend,"
"Wow! What the hell! I never thought something like this can happen!"

Jessica occasionally came to watch them work, working on a different painting every time. It was winter vacation, and both Rhea and Neel were free. And every one of them mesmerised her. The room was soon running out of space for canvas boards. The boards started taking up space on the walls, the walls on one side of the room were almost full. Rhea would click a picture of every painting she made and send it to Ember. 

He would cheer her from the other side.
"You should come too," She'd ask him.
"Nah, you guys enjoy. I have work," He'd always reject her offer.
"Oh, I wish you were here :("
"Haha, I will be, soon,"

As the paintings increased, so did her time spent on her hobby which slowly turned into a passion and soon, books on Art theories covered her shelves, art magazines, local art events, online commissions got her enough money to buy her own supply. "Ember, look, my first income!"

"Good job,"
"I wish you were, I want to celebrate with you,"
He laughed, "I will, once all this work is done,"

Everything seemed to go smoothly, until one day,