Picasso's Promise | rewriting 🖊️

Volume Two | Pilot

Pilot

Genesis never showed up, but Picasso did.

I tossed Martin his cigs, not really looking at him, but focusing on the so called boyfriend I had. "We need to talk, and I mean now."

Martin hoped out the car as though his feet were on fire and the only relief was the asphalt outside Picasso's car.

Picasso laughed, and for some reason, it made me hate him for it.

"Are you seeing someone else?" I slammed the door shut, closing me in his car. "I want to know."

"Hello to you too."

"I just got the worst news of my life and I don't need to hear the worse possible outcome come out of your mouth," I muffled a sob.

"Baby, what's wrong?"

"My mom's not dead."

"What?"

"My mom...or my whole family really, lied to me about how my mom died," I let out a cry. "I need a supportive boyfriend right now and not some flake like you've been these past few days. What is wrong with you? What has gotten into us?"

He closed his arms around me, hush me like a toddler who dropped their candy on the floor and couldn't keep it. "I want you to know that there's nothing you need to worry about when it comes to me and you. We're solid. Things have been hectic because Javier's cousin just got out of jail and I've been hanging out with her-"

"Her? It's some girl you're leaving me high and dry for? I knew it!"

"It's not like that. I swear. She's a smart girl who got involved with the wrong crew. Snitched on her and got the punishment of what her whole crew did."

"That doesn't justify what you are doing to me."

"I know it was wrong for me to ignore your texts. I'm sorry for that baby. What do I gotta do to make up for my stupidity?" He kissed my cheek.

"What do I have to do?" He kissed my other cheek, and I turned my face so that he could miss my lips. "Awww, it's gonna be like that?"

"I have more to talk about. I don't wanna get into a makeout fest with you."

"Don't you miss me?"

"Don't you listen?" I huffed. "My life is going up in smokes. My whole sense of reality is -"

"Okay," he kissed the top of my head. "Continue. So, your mom isn't dead. Who lied?"

"Everyone."

Exhaling, I began to detail the damaging information I had just been told.

"I can't believe your dad and your aunt had a thing," he shivered, "and then that's why your mom left you with your dad for good? She was that mad?"

I nodded.

"My aunt said that once my mom found out about the affair, she wanted nothing to do with me. But what shocked me the most was when my aunt said that my father was so sure that she would return that he left the mansion under my mother's name. The deed to the house, technically, isn't even under my father's name."

"So, that means your stepmom could be evicted."

"If I had proof."

"If you could get her out that house," he noted.

What he said next left me astounded.

"We could fake her kidnapping."

The words that slipped and slid off Picasso's lips like butter kept me on edge, listening to his words like a song that I couldn't turn my ear away from. Tempting, the lyrics were alluring, stuck on repeat. Mulling through my thoughts, the lyrics turned into a chant.

At once, my head drew blank, filling the chatter with silence. I didn't think there was anything else to be done in this harrowing fight for answers. He had every chance to run for the door, not look back, but so had I.

There was not much the world could do, sulking in their sadness, other than seeking some kind of form of home, of normalcy. That house, that town - that was my only sense of normal, and Picasso could see that I wouldn't be at peace till I knew the truth.

Would there be a definite end to this battle? There had to be one. No pain lasted forever unless one was speaking of the aftermath of sin. I had not fallen for the belief that everything was solidified in place from actions from the past, written in stone. I preferred to believe that every day was a brand new start, receiving possibilities in a way that made me ache for the morning sun.

Picasso was the one to bring up the decision that was going to alter the dynamic, stuck in the spiraling whirlwind of the unknown —of a future not ours—to put my own hurt to rest. I saw a gleam that was unrecognizable in his eyes, pooling promise into me.

"We won't get caught," he had sworn so assuring, "We can get away with it." 

With that tone of his, was he planning breaking in or something more sinister?

He wouldn't kill her.

The thought resurfaced, unsure this time. He wouldn't kill her for me, would he? Deep down...that's all I want. Her dead...

My hands shook. After blinking, I saw that they weren't shaking, in fact my eyes were watering, and my body was trembling at the thought of him risking it for a possibility.

"I promise, baby," he swore, "if anything goes wrong, I'll take the fall for it."

There it was. The promise that would bind us, barrel us into the world of lights and cameras—like it or not—and refuse a path of righteousness.

The conflict that rested in our hands, one that had been set to destroy us from the beginning, was our temptation for more. That temptation for more would be our doom.

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