Finding Alice (Alice Clark Series) by Andrea DiGiglio Page B

like Cole’s but creepy and sunken in as if he was thousands of years old. His skin was like leather, with eyes set deep and almost glowing. I looked at Cole to find an unusual look on his face. He looked as if somehow, he recognized the face of my attacker. How would that be even plausible? This couldn’t be his actual face; more something I created in its wake to help me through that horrible moment in my life. “Say something,” I demanded with a slight panic to my voice.
    “You’re trembling.” I held my hands out and saw he was right. I was. I stuffed them in my pocket and against my will, as if compelled to do so, returned my gaze to that horrifying image I had placed all over my own home. “I shouldn’t have pushed. I’m sorry.” He grabbed my hands out of my pockets and pulled me from the room. He shut the door behind us and I excused myself to take a shower. It’s where I go to think and relax. Until then, I thought it was where I let go of all the bad things that had happened to me but who was I kidding? The only time I ever truly let anything go was in my art.
    I climbed into the soothingly hot shower, eyes held shut. I never should have gone in that room. The last few weeks with Cole had felt like everything to me. I feared walking into that room was inviting that monster, and all of my baggage, back into my life and there was no way to make it go away again. I of all people knew there was no such thing as happily ever after. This was only the beginning…of what , I still was not sure.
    143 Anathema St . My eyes snapped open. It all started after that dream of the field. I knew in my heart it had to do with Cole, but what or how exactly, I was still not sure. I felt a heaviness against my soul, as if the world was resting on my shoulders. If I was going to figure out what was going on, I’d have to start by finding that field. I was either crazy or it truly was connected. Now my head hurts.
    After the water ran cold, I turned the shower off and wrapped a towel around me. I walked into my room to my jewelry box of feathers. I could see the hinge wasn’t latched. I always latched it. A note was set in front of it with a glass of water and an aspirin.
    “Running errands, I’ll be back tonight. Try and get some rest.”
    Cole
    “Easier said than done,” I mumbled. I picked up the glass of water and played with the pill in my fingers for a moment while studying my unhinged jewelry box. I took the pill with half of the glass of water and opened the box. Nothing abnormal at all, except before today, the box smelled like the feathers kept securely inside were bathed in sand. He had to have taken his feather; it was the only explanation. I shut the box, clasping the hinge properly. At least my feathers were still here. After waking up in a bed of feathers and that first kiss with Cole when the feathers were floating above us only to all disappear, I needed these to actually be in this box. I needed some form of proof for myself that this was all real and I wasn’t going completely insane.
    I flopped onto the bed. I didn’t feel relaxed at all; if anything, I felt more anxious. Laying there in silence used to be comforting. Now I felt vulnerable with him gone. I closed my eyes, trying to regain the sense of composure I used to own. I laid in the stillness of myself for what seemed like hours, only to be mere minutes. It was just long enough for my headache to lift a bit. I got up and got dressed in my usual plain Jane wardrobe. Why must I call it that?
    I grabbed my iPod and threw something soothing on: my favorite playlist, that was primarily Breaking Benjamin and 30 Seconds to Mars. I headed to my easel and threw a fresh canvas on it. I let myself go deep into the music, letting go of all I had been through. This was my release, my moment of peace. I ran my hand across my supplies, feeling their calling under my fingertips the way they used to feel before Cole. I stopped on a paintbrush feeling jealous