"Brooklyn doesn't like us asking about her drawings," Aiden looks between Rhys and me. I have to agree with Aiden, she keeps her drawing very close to her.
"I know, but Atlas needs to see them, it will explain why she ran the first time she saw him." Rhys looks up at me, and I can see that he needs me to look at them.
I lick my dry lips, as I open the cover of the pad while looking at the guys. Why is my heart pounding so hard right now? My grip tightens on the pad, as I look down at the cover of the pad. I lift the cover up slowly to reveal the first drawing.
What the hell is this? My skin begins to tingle looking at the images in front of me.
They’re my eyes.
My body straightens, and I double-take to make sure I am not imagining things. My eyes, perfectly drawn, the color, the depth, the creases by the side of my eyes, everything. The detail is that strong, I could easily be looking into a mirror.
I flick through the pages, every drawing has my eyes drawn masterfully Not my face, my eyes.
"Look at the date," Rhys tells me as I continue to look through the pad.
I go back to the first page and look at the date.
"What? This can't be right," I say as I check the date on every picture again.
My legs begin to tremble, and I have to sit down. I pull Brooklyn's bag over and pull out the next pad, and it's the same thing. Some of these are a little more out there. My eyes looking between her legs, an image of her being tied up, my eyes looking at her again. As I turn each page, my hands shake, but I’m not sure what is happening to me.
There are a few shots of my face, and the detail in each picture is a spot on, she has even drawn the scars on my face. I can’t resist myself from looking at all the drawings.
"If I looked at all of Brooklyn's notes right, she started drawing your eyes about a month after the surgery." I hear Rhys, but I have nothing to say at the moment, not knowing what to say to him.
How can Brooklyn draw my eyes without even meeting me before?
Throwing the pads back into the bag, I lean my elbows on my legs, and ram my hands into my hair. My head has so many things running around it at the moment that I don't even know what to say to anyone. How do I talk to Brooklyn about this now?
"Lucy loved you, a strong love, her heart…maybe...something… you know what, I don't know, but your love was strong enough to be in Brooklyn through images." Rhys takes the bag off me, and I look at him willingly agreeing with him. I don't know what to say either, but did Lucy love me that much that a part of me went with her heart to Brooklyn?
"Mr. Kane," I stand and stride towards the doctor, and the guys follow me. "She had a severe panic attack, but everything is back to normal now. We’ve been observing her for quite a while. She is awake, heart rate back to normal, and nothing to worry about." The doctor looks through his pad, then looks at his pager as it starts to beep. "She will be good to go home, we would like to keep her in for a few more hours just to keep an eye on her. If everything is normal she can go home. She has asked for someone named Rhys to go to the room," he tells us, and I look over at Rhys, and he shrugs.
The doctor leaves, and I turn to Rhys. "Can you at least tell her I was going… if she can… ask her if she's okay?" I don't know what to say to Rhys, I would like to talk to Brooklyn myself, not through Rhys. I wish to explain why I never told her about the heart, that I was going to tell her…soon.
Rhys walks out of the waiting room, and I sit back down and wait for Rhys and Brooklyn to come out. She just had a panic attack, I don't want to upset her.
"Why do you think she asked for him?" Aiden asks.
"Well she hates me right now, and you're not the easiest person to talk to. Apart from me and Rhys, who do you talk to?" I turn to face him, and he looks the other way.
Aiden is a good guy, there isn't much difference between us; we both keep things in, don't talk to others.
I know why I'm like this, the past fucked me up far too much to even go back to the way I was. I know Aiden thinks back to the war, and he keeps a lot of it bottled in.
"It will all work out, give her time; some time to figure things out," Aiden tells me as I look up at Rhys walking back into the waiting room.
"Brooklyn doesn't want to talk to you or anyone. Didn't want to listen to me, I was there to listen to her. When she can leave is wants to sit in my car, as she doesn't want you close to her." Rhys stands in front of me with his hands in his pocket. "She… she looks broken, man," he tells me.
I broke her, no one else but me.
"Meet you at the house." I tell him, there is nothing else to say to him.
I don't want to fight with Brooklyn, and if she wants space, that's what she’ll get.
As much as I want to be next to her, be the one to tell her I'm sorry, I need to wait until she wants to talk to me. I just hope it doesn’t take forever.
The second Brooklyn got home she went straight to her room, didn’t look at me, or Beth. I tried to knock on the door hoping she would let me in, but nothing.
This is fucking torture not being able to tell her why I did all this.
I can’t stop staring at Brooklyn's bedroom door as I sit at the dining table. The guys and Beth are sitting at the table talking about something, but I can't focus on what they’re saying, as my head is in one hell of a fucked up place at the moment. I’m fighting my demons, I’m fighting myself for not telling her, and I’m fighting myself not to just walk up the stairs and kick the door down.
"Atlas, I think you should tell her everything," Beth says, and I let out a small chuckle. Now if only I thought about doing that. It’s the only thing I can think about, telling her the truth.
"Don't you think I know that? She needs to open the fucking door, so I can talk to her!" I snap at her. I mean, do they think I like sitting here waiting for her to open the door?
"Just go up and talk, even through the door. She might open the door-"
"I can't tell her through a fucking door!" I shout as they start to get on my nerves.
Do they fucking think this is how I wanted the day to go? I wanted to sit her down and find the best way to tell her. I have no idea what way that was going to be, but it would have been better than right now. Right now is fucking shit, and I hate it.
"Rhys told me about the drawings." Beth stops as I turn to face her. Rhys gave Brooklyn her drawing bag soon as they got home. "What do you think it means?" Beth asks.
"How the fuck am I meant to know?" I ask.
The only person who can tell me that is Brooklyn. How much of Lucy's life does Brooklyn feel? By the looks of the drawings, it's my eyes that Brooklyn saw, some drawings had her tied up, my eyes looking at her as I went down on her; if there was anything else, only Brooklyn can tell me. Some of the drawings from what I could tell were of things I did with Lucy and Brooklyn, and she drew all of them before even meeting me.
Rhys said that he didn't look at the other drawings past the first few pages, so he never knew about the sexual ones, and I was happy about that because I think Brooklyn would have hated it.
I look over Brooklyn's door when I hear it open, and see her walking out, but my body tenses when I see her wearing the dress that she had on the night Aiden brought her here.