Sun Poisoned (The Sunshine Series) (11 page)

The first rip only reveals more layers of paper underneath, so I have to shred through them. At first, I jus
t see a black surface, but it takes me less than a second to recognize that it’s canvas beneath my fingertips, canvas with layers of thick paint over it.

I glance at Myles for a moment and he’s still standing, staring intently at me, waiting for me to keep going. So I turn and continue to pull the wrapping apart, each torn piece revealing something new. Some color that wasn’t there before, a pattern or shape.

I don’t realize what it is until the entire thing is in front of me.

The only detail giving away that it’s me is the shock of magenta hair flying wildly around, blocking the view of my face and mingling with the rest of the painting. I’m sitting at a piano, my hands blurred in movement. The line of the piano’s glossy edge turns into a house, the shiny black fading into dark wood grain, then lighter shades of the same wooden pattern, my hair trailing a vine up around the side of the building, weaving in and out of the windows and the busted open roof, where a flood of colors erupts. Blue, green, red, white, yellow. I trace the imploded rainbow with my fingers, aware of how much work must have gone into it. The layers of paint are thick, yet smooth in some areas and rough in others. Everything looks so realistic, yet dreamlike and surreal at the same time.

“Do you like it?” Myles asks softly, like he doesn’t want to interrupt.

“
Who did this?” I ask, not taking my eyes off of the me in the painting. My head is thrown back in passion, yet I cannot see the expression on my face.

“
I did.”

I shoot my gaze to him
. “What?”

He smiles, almost sheepishly.
“I’ve been working on it for a while.”

I glance back at the painting, then to him, back and forth, trying to make the connection.

Myles inches closer, kneeling next to me in the small space between the painting and the couch. “It’s you,” he says like I can’t see that. “This is how I see you. When you play.”

“
How long have you been working on it?”

“
Since I saw you play for the first time,” he says, brushing some of my hair out of my face. “Every time I tried to capture you, it never seemed quite right.” He shrugs, inclining his head toward his work. “This was the closest I could get.”

“
I didn’t even know you could paint. I mean, you were in my art class, but I never saw…” I motion to the painting. “Anything like this.”

Myles gives a small grin, the dimple near his mouth appearing.
“I couldn’t find the right time to give it to you. I wanted to give it to you for your birthday, but it didn’t seem right.”

I nod. Yeah. Nothing was right then.

“That’s when I added the house.” He indicates with his hand, and I touch the hard grains painted into the canvas.

“
You really thought this through.”

He smiles again.
“I had a lot of time.”

“
Is this all you’ve painted?” I ask.

“
No,” he says simply. “Just the only one I like.” He grazes his hand at the crown of my painted head. “It’s kind of an outlet for me,” he says. “Having peoples’ feelings, thoughts, and emotions running through your head can get tough. Your image of people can get blurry. So I paint to sort of remind myself of how things really look, even if it looks somewhat…exaggerated.”

“
It’s beautiful,” I say.

“
So you like it?”

“
I love it.” And I don’t so much as hug him as tackle him, kissing him on the cheek as I do.

He laughs.
“I’m glad.”

“
How did you hide something like this from me for so long?” I ask once we’ve become more or less vertical again, his arm still lingering at my back.

“
I kept it mainly at Ava’s house, where I would work on it from time to time.”

I don’t want to go back to that conversation, so I tread lightly.
“She paints?”

He nods.
“Mainly watercolors,” Myles says. “She’s good with paper too.”

I don’t have anything to say. I’m not jealous, exactly, but it’s kind of weird that he would paint with her and not, I don’t know, me?

That feeling melts away when Myles kisses my forehead. For a brief moment, I’m caught trying to convince myself that this is my life.

But
when Myles’ lips brush mine for a real kiss, I give him one.

My pulse begins to drum out a steady, heavy beat into my temples, my chest rises and falls a little bit faster than normal as my breathing quickens, my hands struggle to stay at my sides, then at his sides, then they’re in his hair, and his hands are in mine as well. The question is, which part of me will win this time?

Myles backs away first, taking the choice away from me completely.   

“
What's wrong?” I ask, trying to catch my breath.

Myles doesn't seem to be breathing evenly either as he buries the bridge of his nose into my shoulder.
“Nothing,” he whispers.

I try to comfort him the best I can, placing a hand on his back.
“You can tell me,” I say after a long few minutes.

Then another silence follows. The only thing that fills the air is our semi-heavy breathing as it slowly steadies and becomes normal.

“My fangs,” he says so quietly that I almost don’t catch it. He gulps once before continuing. “They came out.”

“
Oh.” My voice shakes only for a second.

“
I didn’t want to scare you,” he explains.

Several more seconds pass between us.

“Are you okay?” I ask.

He nods, his face not leaving my shoulder.
“I didn't want you to see.”

“
Why not?” I want him to look at me, but he doesn’t move.

“
I thought it would freak you out.” He pauses, becoming slightly braver by resting the back of his head on my chest. I still can’t see him, but at least his face isn’t covered. “Does it?”

“
No,” I answer quickly, almost not having to think about it. “They’re a part of you, so they shouldn’t scare me. Right?”

He finally faces me, but he says nothing.

“Can I see?” I ask.

He blinks a few times and for a few moments, doesn’t respond, as if he’s weighing his options and their outcomes. Then he slowly nods.

We both get up to sit on the couch. I can tell he’s a little nervous by the way his arms have tensed up, and I’m a little nervous too because no one’s ever shown me something like this. Obviously.

The left side of his lip
s pulls up in a smirk for a moment before disappearing. I wait patiently for him. And slowly, like he’ll regret it any minute, he smiles with his teeth showing this time.

I didn’t know what I was expecting, but whatever it was, what I’m seeing doesn’t match up. His teeth look the way they always have: white, straight—like anyone else’s teeth—but his canines have elongated the tiniest bit. They look sharper, sure, but not as menacing as any of the vampires in the movies, not as gross as any from books.

“That’s it?” I blurt out.

Myles’ mouth instantly snaps shut.

“Sorry,” I back track. “I. . .didn’t mean to offend you, or whatever.”

“
You didn’t,” he says, almost laughing. “It’s just not what I was expecting.”

I shrug.

“It’s not weird?”

“
Well, yeah,” I say. “But that’s okay.”

He smiles again, unafraid of his teeth showing.

I stare at my hands in my lap. “So. . .”

“
So. . .you have questions?”

I smile in response, nudging him. He nudges back.
“How do you make them go back?” I ask.

“
Watch.”

I turn my attention back to his face and he opens his mouth again. I blink, and they’re gone. His usual canines are in their place.

“I just have to want them to go away, and they normally go back.” He smiles a little, almost embarrassed.

“
Where do they go?”

He shrugs, points to above his top lip.
“I think somewhere up here.”

“
And what happens to your other teeth when they’re out?”

“
They stay where they are,” he says. “The fangs just come out on top of them.”

I stifle a cringe.
“Does it hurt?”

“
No.” His body finally seems to relax and his arm reaches behind my back so we can be closer. “It used to.”

I nod.

“Is that all you want to know?” Myles asks. “Just the mechanics of it?”

I sigh, because that's honestly not all. I was just trying to avoid the inevitable uneasiness that's sure to follow the answers he gives me.
“Did they come out because you want to bite me?”

His chin is resting on my shoulder, so it’s impossible not to hear him swallow hard. I guess he wasn't expecting that.
“A part of me, yes.”

I nod.

“But I wasn't going to,” he adds on quickly. “It's not some uncontrollable urge. It's just that when we're. . .closer, physically, I mean, they come out.”

“
Why?”

He shrugs.
“The monster in me wants something from you.” Then he shakes his head like that's not a good enough answer. “I don't know if I'm explaining it right.”

“
No. I think I get it.” And I do. I understand how a monster can live inside of a person, dormant until something happens in that person’s life that makes it come out. I’ve always had to live with my monsters; it never occurred to me that Myles had his own. “I get it.” I kiss him on the cheek before settling my head under his chin. “I’m sorry.”

“
Sorry?”

“
Yeah. For making you think about it and have to explain it.”

He turns my face to him, looking me directly in the eyes now.
“Don’t be sorry,” he says. “I’m okay talking about it with you.”

We both smile.

“So…” I say.

“
So?”

“
Does this mean we have to stop kissing every time this happens?”

His mouth twitches in a smirk.
“No, not unless you want to.”

“
Well that depends. Are your fangs going to graze my tongue or anything?” I joke.

He laughs softly.
“Not unless you want them to,” he jokes back.

With that, we pick up where we left off.

Old Friends
Chapter 5

“The henchmen came and knocked down the door to my never, never world”—The Misfits

Myles is knocking on my door the next morning, just as I’ve slipped on my skeleton tights and boots. When I open the door, the painting he made me is leaning against the wall in the hallway.

“
Where do you want me to hang it?” he asks before I even say hello.

I take a sweep around my living room.
“I guess above the couch?”

“
That’s perfect,” Myles says, grasping onto either side of the painting and hauling it through the doorway.

I only notice that he has a hammer strung through his back belt loop when I’m shutting the door behind him.

Myles stands the painting against the couch and slips off his shoes so he can stand on top of it, taking a handful of nails out of his front pocket.

“
You want coffee?” I ask because I have nothing else to do. “Or,” I add. “You know, help?”

He simultaneously shakes his head and starts banging the nail into the wall above my
couch. “But coffee sounds good,” he says, taking another nail out of his pocket.

Somewhere between brewing the coffee, getting two mugs from the cabinet, and pouring it, last night flashes through my mind. It’s like the whole fang thing wasn’t exactly a dream, but maybe a really distant thought, one I couldn’t quite grasp between sleep and waking.

“Thanks.” Myles’ voice breaks me out of whatever road my mind was about to go down.

He holds his mug in one hand and sets the hammer on the counter with the other. He takes a sip of his coffee.
“Do you like it there?”

Above the sofa, the colors on the canvas swirl into and out of the house, around the piano. My painted form plays a song that I probably haven’t even written yet, but I can tell that she’s happy. If not happy, at least free.

I smile. “It looks at home here.”

Myles is behind me, an arm around my waist.
“Good,” he says into my ear.

I gulp some coffee and my smile grows even wider when his lips brush my temple.