Being Tesni

Chapter 28

I stand out there and I feel the sunshine dance along my skin. The squirrel in the tree next to me scurrying. The wings of the bumblebee. Sunny sits and watches me his head cocked to the side. As I stretch into downward dog, he does too. I giggle seeing his fluffy tiny body try to copy me.

I hear Morana before I see her. Her shrill one of a kind voice breaks the through the air with a loud "Good Morning!" I look up to find her talking to Jules. Not sure when he walked out on the balcony I see as they both stare at the sky. I sky write a "Goodmorning" in the clouds. Morana's face looks confused and amazed at the same time. She's easy to fool.

"Goodmorning!" I shout from below them. And walk towards the house. It  seems as if the entire house is starting to wake up. As I enter the door, I'm immediately magically cleaned. Cyrus knows how I hate grass stains. I smile at him. Morana asks Cyrus to hang out with her today and he asks me if it's okay.

It pains me for him to ask for my permission. But I know he's doing it for me to feel okay. So I nod. "Sure. Just let me know what y'all end up doing. Touch base with me please."

"I will" he says.

This is when Adah appears. He's wearing a more casual outfit than I've ever seen him in. He looks beautiful. His hair pulled back I can really see how beautiful even his jaw line is.

"Are you ready, Darling?" He asks.

I gasp. "No, let me go get fixed up real quick." I smile. I know it's from ear to ear. My excitement is hardly contained.

I run up to my room and fix my hair. I pull it back, since this is a painting adventure, I don't want it in my face, or in my paint. Just a few fly aways to fall delicately in my face. A pinch of my cheeks and a bit of mascara. I look in the mirror. Ah, there we go. Okay. I rush down back to Adah.

"I'm ready now."

"I have everything packed and ready, let's go."

He offers his arm for me to take and I put mine inside of his. It's warm, and muscular. My arm looks delicate and small laced with his. As we start to walk down the street he asks.

"Where would you like to go to paint?"

I didn't realize I would be picking, but I did remember near the lake was pretty so I suggest there.

"Sure." He says.

When we walk up to the lake, there is already an area set up.

"You did all of this already?"

"Well here and everywhere else I thought you might pick in town."

"You set these up other places?!" I say in a shock. Maybe he could hear it in my voice. That he would do that, just to spend a day with me.

He chuckles "I knew you would probably pick the lake. I just set it up here."

In the back of my mind, I like to believe he did in fact set up a bunch of places just in case I picked somewhere else. Just to let myself think maybe he wants to put that much effort into me. However, he laughed it off so easily, maybe he was just joking. Even this amount of effort seems like a lot for him to do I think. Which is maybe why others are "warning" me.

We paint and as we paint we talk, I'm trying very hard to look at the lake, but I can't help but look at him instead. The way his wing glistening with its own light, but the light of the day mingling with his own, how his shirt flows against his chest and abs as the wind blows it close to him.

I look at my painting. It's definitely a point of view painting, because on the canvas is not the lake at all, it's Adah. I sigh, and I accept that I am completely distracted by my attraction to him and use him as my muse instead. I let my paint brush move in the way it wants. I paint the shapes the light reflects from him inside the wings, and the colors I feel match the date, blues of the lake and sky, green of the grass, from the wing.