All I see ✔️

CHAPTER 60

                                       

Alexis

It's not every day that I miss bringing a tweed coat with me, but today is one of those days. The whole gallery is giving me dark academia vibes and makes me want to wear a tweed coat with a plaid skirt, and dangle an unlit cigarette from my lips mysteriously. But I am in a chiffon tie-knot shirt and skinny jeans with my hair in a high ponytail and I have bright pink lipstick on. Which is just the opposite for the look I should be going for in an art gallery.

The place is swarming with people, and by that, I mean it's swarming for an art gallery, it's pretty vacant for a club. I cant find Aaron or Logan and I hate that I have to search for them alone; Ellie bailed on me because her oh so helpless, damsel in distress friend Jade needed her help getting out of a party. I told Ellie that she was probably choking on pubic hair after blowing ten guys simultaneously but she asked me to shut up and not very kindly.

I wonder how Ellie would react if I tell her that I actually think that Jade probably slept with someone's trash boyfriend and now the person broke her heels, because she's exactly that kind of person. To not know boundaries and morals and cry over her pair of heels.

In front of me, there's a circle of people oohing and aahing over a glass case. Curious, I walk over to it and my breath catches in my throat.

Assemblage/ Thorns, tin cans, paper, blood.

Tin cans are hammered and molded into the shape of a face with high cheekbones, and hollow sunken eyes, that look eerily angry. A circlet of thorns tipped with a red liquid I realise with a jolt is blood, sits on top of a mashed up, paper hair. The piece is made by a Pierre Fernandez and it looks like it's going to haunt me in my dreams. The tin face exudes a glaring power that is oblivious to the eyes but I can feel it in the goosebumps on my arm, as if it's whispering profanities on my spine.

"Lex?"

I jump five feet in the air from the voice. It's logan.

"You look like you've seen a ghost," he offers me a tilted smile.

"I Have," I brush off a hand at his raised eyebrows, "not literally. Just look at this piece."

I point my fingers towards the assemblage and Logan spends the next five minutes swallowing some invisible force down his throat.

"It's gorgeous," Logan croaks out.

I clear my throat to release the tension in the pregnant air, "What's up with you Damon Salvatore?"

"Except I am hotter than him," Logan winks at me and I chew the inside of my cheeks.

"Mmhmm not really. Where's Aaron?"

"Where's Ellie?"

"I asked first."

"Mine is more important."

"How is anyone more important than the person whose paintings are up here?" I ask, exasperated.

"Ellie will always be the most important for me,"

"Simp. Where's Aaron?"

"He was at the back, go find him."

Logan points behind a wall and sashays away from me, furiously typing in his phone. He's probably going to phone sext Ellie now. Hopefully Jade doesn't come from eavesdropping on the conversation.

I start towards the direction Logan points me at, crossing the huge paintings on my way. Some of them are brightly colored, achingly beautiful to the eyes and the others are eye-catchingly light, almost dull. It's almost like the artist tried so hard to bring color to it, but failed; the painting didn't want to be coloured.

I cross the curtained partition and I stop dead in my tracks. I have never seen anything like this. I want to walk inside the painting and live their but at the same time I want to run as far away from it as possible. It's an image of a woman, with steel blue eyes and ramrod spine, sitting on a bamboo chair, but she's wearing a low neck dress, with raven hair as dark as the night sky falling behind her in a straight wave.

But the thing that's holding me captive, is her eyes. Her eyes are filled to the brim with a storm grey sadness and are toppling over at me through the painting. She looks os sad, so unbelievably sad as she looks down at me.

I walk down the wall, staring in awe at the paintings as I pass by. The talent that is dripping from the air in this room is feeding to my inferiority complex.

There's a man in front of me, a little girl perched on his shoulders and I smile at the image. She's animatedly chatting, pointing at the wall in front of her. I don't think she's old enough for an art gallery but at least she'll grow up appreciating it, if not embodying it.

Curious, as to what's got her all chatty and excited, I slowly walk up to her and the air is knocked out of me.

It's me.

I mean, it's an oil painting of a prettier, much more sensual me, but it's me alright.

It's in a car and the windows are open and my back is facing the window. Blonde hair whipping all around me and when in real life I'd have looked like a maniac with a lion's mane, here, I look like I have swallowed the sun, the hair around me a golden halo and I am glowing. My eyes are crinkling and the blue of my eyes are the exact shade, so much so that my heart stops inside me. A small smile is playing on my lips and cheeks are radiating with love.

Desiderium

Oil painting. Aaron Richards.

Desiderium comes from the poem by Richard Le Gallienne, and in layman terms, it means an ardent longing for something lost. Divinity is a power vested by the Gods and it can be a deep shade of cruel when the halo burns away everything you hold dear and comes back to taunt you in the face. You experience your desiderium.

I stumble backwards two steps, everything running haphazardly inside me. This is the most gorgeous thing I have ever seen and I cant breathe right now. When did he make this, and how terrible did I hurt him for the whole image to ooze out a desperate sadness from every pore of the canvas?

"Tha-thank you sir"

I whip my head towards the voice. It's Aaron. I turn around and see him talking to a middle-aged man with a slight bent in his posture, his back facing me.

I wait for him to finish the conversation before I jump on his bones. I am so overwhelmed right now; I blink away the rush of tears threatening to spill and take deep breaths to make sure I am still breathing.

For what feels like eons later, Aaron turns towards me, his signature sunshine smile plastered over his face as he walks up to me.

"Hi"

"I love you so much," I don't give him the chance to reply before I wrap my arms around his neck in a vice-like grip and his come around my waist in an equally choking hold. He kisses my hair and whispers in my ear, "Thank God you loved it because it took two weeks of insurmountable heartbreak."

"Shut up, Richards."

"Lexieee?" he says, drawing out my name.

"Hmm?"

"You caught the Aaron disease."

I groan against his back, shaking from laughter, "how very pathetic of me."

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Guysss the assemblage is a copy from LJ Shen's book : Angry God. The mc Lenora Astalis makes this. The book is so good aaaahhhhh *rams head against a wall*
Amore out now)