The weight of the day finally pulled at Annie's limbs like lead. Her bones felt hollow, drained by the violent outpouring of grief that had just stained her canvas and her soul. She sat amidst the wreckage of her emotions, unable to even lift a hand to brush a stray hair from her face.
"Let's get you to bed," Ethan murmured. His voice was a low, grounding hum against the static in her head. He shucked off her oversized button-down- makeshift painters cape, mapped with frantic streaks of the rainbow from years of use.
"Thank you," she whispered. The words were barely a breath. Her eyelids were heavy, dropping shut despite her best efforts to stay present in the safety of his company.
Ethan's chest tightened with a bittersweet ache as he felt her slump, her forehead coming to rest against his collarbone. He lifted her easily, mindful of the fragile way she seemed to be holding herself together. He settled her onto the cool sheets, her small frame looking swallowed by the bed in just her tank top and shorts.
He vanished for a moment, returning with a warm, damp cloth. He didn't want her waking up to the crusty reminder of her breakdown dried against her skin. Nor did he want her to ruin her new bedding.
Taking his spot on the edge of the mattress, he took her hand. His touch was clinical yet impossibly tender. As he swiped the towel over her knuckles and between her paint-stained fingers, a rhythmic, soothing heat spread through her. It was the first time in twenty-four hours she felt truly safe.
But as the cloth moved to her face, tracing the curve of her jaw and the bridge of her nose, the wall between her subconscious and the room began to crumble.
"Did you know I was there?" she mumbled. Her voice was thick, caught in the haze of a dream already beginning.
Ethan paused, the towel hovering over her cheek. He took her in- the soft roundness of her face, the way her lashes flickered like wounded butterflies against her skin. "Where, Doll?" he whispered back, his heart hammering a slow, heavy rhythm.
"I saw my mom," she drifted, her head lolling toward his touch. "The car... the glass... I saw her go."
The air seemed to leave the room. Ethan's hand trembled slightly. He had known about the loss, but he hadn't known she carried the weight of the final moment behind her eyes. He looked at her- this kind, humble soul who had spent the last four days pretending she wasn't shattered, and felt a fierce, protective surge of affection that he knew he had to keep suppressed. It wasn't the time. Not after three years apart, and certainly not while she was drowning in grief.
"I'm so sorry, Annie," he breathed, his voice cracking.
He leaned down, pressing a ghost of a kiss to her forehead, but she was already gone- pulled under by a sleep so deep it was the only thing that could finally silence the sound of breaking glass.
Ethan grabbed the blanket and pulled it over her, he then turned his attention to the mess in her room. Ethan began to clean it, leaning the easel to the wall, putting her unfinished-finished painting to dry on top of it. The discarded half-used canvases he set in an empty box. Hung up her painters shirt, grabbed her paints and her brushes, cleaned each surface of Annie's paint therapy mess.
Once her room was cleaned he took one last glance at her curled up form sleeping soundly on her bed. He moved a single black strand of hair from her face, a small smile gracing his lips. Then, he left.
*~*~*~*~*
The heavy, dreamless sleep of the exhausted finally broke, leaving Annie blinking at the shadows dancing on her ceiling. She reached for her phone, the glow of the screen felt like a spotlight in the dark. 10 hours. The sun had long since dipped below the horizon, trading the fiery oranges of her breakdown for the bruised purples and deep indigos of a midnight sky.
As the fog of sleep lifted, the memories of the previous day rushed back, the jagged edges of her grief, the frantic strokes of paint, and finally, Ethan.
A sudden, prickly heat crawled up her neck and flooded her cheeks. "Howembarrassing," she groaned into the silence, burying her face in the cool fabric of her pillow. The vulnerability of it mortified her, she had always prised herself on being the steady one, the kind soul who held it together for everyone else. To have Ethan see her so unraveled, so raw... it felt like he'd seen her without her skin on.
Curiosity eventually won over her shame. She sat up and nudged the curtain aside just an inch. Across the narrow gap between their houses, her window looked directly into his. There he was, silhouetted by the dim moon light peeking through his window, completely dead to the world. His blanket was a chaotic nest tangled between his legs, and one arm hung off the side of the mattress as if he'd simply run out of fuel the moment he sat down.
A soft, genuine smile tugged at her lips. She closed the curtains gently, as if the sound might wake him, and clicked on her bedside lamp.
The golden light revealed a room that looked nothing like the disaster zone she'd left behind. The floor was scrubbed. The discarded "painting shirt" was gone. Even her brushes had been cleaned and laid out to dry, their bristles soft and orderly.
"He does nothing but give," she whispered, her chest tightening with a mix of guilt and affection. "And I've done nothing but take."
She looked at the painting from the night before- the one that held all her sorrow. It was finished in its own way, a clear picture of her pain. But looking at the clean room and thinking of the man sleeping across the way, she felt a different kind of inspiration stirring. It wasn't the frantic, drowning need to scream on canvas, it was a quiet, humble urge to say thank you in the only language she truly spoke.
Moving with a newfound lightness, she dragged a fresh, white canvas onto her easel. The emptiness of the fabric didn't feel daunting tonight, it felt like an invitation. She squeezed a dollop of warm gold and soft sage onto her palette, the colors of a new beginning, and began to work.