After so many years of feeling like an empty shell, I've finally found someone that gave me purpose. That filled me up.
One thing I've learned. I don't need to be well every day. For now, okay is enough. The problem is, I am trying to heal the way other people do. Not the way I needed to. All I think of is the future and the past—not the present.
It's been almost two weeks since I saw Basil for the last time. I wished I could tell someone about this. But I couldn't betray Basil.
I became even closer with Ansel and Marigold. Esther too. Now we were real. I didn't stick around them just for clues. My mother and I became closer. My grades got better. I became the best version of myself.
I entered the math class today, after classes. The place where everything started. But before I could sit down in my seat and re-live the moment we met, something caught my eye.
The back of a painting stood next to the desk I sat on that day. I slowly made my way towards it. Crouching, I let my hands wander on it. Then I let myself look at it.
It was a painting of a jay.
I flip it over.
And smile.
YOU ARE READING
The Art of being Strangers
Mystery / ThrillerIt's been two years since the student Basil Farrow was announced missing. No one really knew what happened to him. Like everybody else in school, seventeen-year-old Creek Joosten is trying to put that horrible time behind him - easier said than done...
