Lost and Found (Growing Pains #1)(8)

So now, Krista found herself staving off her crying session to stand in a living room, dodging a flying paint brush, just so Ben could work on his painting.

Abruptly Ben turned toward her, his hands on his hips, the red from the paint brush bleeding down his leg.

“How was your day?” he asked analytically.

“Well, uh…”

“I’m sorry, that was brusque.” His voice softened, “How was your day?”

He wasn’t asking to be supportive, he was asking to solve some weird puzzle he knew existed. It made her nervous. “It was fine...”

He stared at her, his mental gears turning. She knew that look. Either she could just tell him now, or he’d follow her around and make her tell him later. Sweet, but also pushy when he was working on something.

“Well, actually, it was awful.” Krista walked over to the dining room, which was just across the way, and dumped herself into a chair. “Probably the worst day in a series of bad days, dating back months. Seriously bad.”

“I knew it!” Ben exclaimed, looking back at his large abstract painting. He turned back just as quickly, his excitement melted down into a look of concern. “How horrible of me. Are you okay? I didn’t mean to be excited for your—“

Apparently Krista wasn’t the only socially awkward person around, which is why they got along splendidly. She cut him off by swiping her hand through the air.

“I know, I know. You care, blah blah. What is it that you think you know? Are you clairvoyant, now?”

“Krista,” Ben took a step toward her, his feet approaching the end of the painter’s canvas. He looked up in frustration. “I do care. Do you need a hug?”

Krista started laughing, she couldn’t help it. Her day was bad, and things weren’t going well, but admittedly, she was being a bit overdramatic. She’d been through worse problems in her life; she’d figure this out. It just took Ben’s over-anxious concern to shed light on it.

She changed the subject. “You know, Abbey is going to kill you if she sees her living room looking like this.”

Abbey was the other roommate. She was the touchy one; prone to bursts of anger and anxious about her stuff. She was also the master tenant, which made ignoring her impossible, since 90% of the stuff in the house was hers and she could kick them out if she wanted.

A great part of San Francisco was rent-controlled, but even still, it wasn’t what most young people—or any people, for that matter—called affordable housing. Often one person would take on the contract, responsible for the rent and the responsibility of dealing directly with the landlord, then take on roommates to help pay the rent, ensuring rent control kept everything affordable. It was how Krista found the place; she’d seen the ad for a third roommate on Craigslist, interviewed, and been accepted.

Ben had been a great addition to her life. Abbey, on the other hand, she avoided at all costs.

“This is important,” Ben said, not to be deterred from his painting. “I know she’ll hound me about it, but I need to do this. I need to put this on canvas.”

“What on canvas?”

“I had a dream last night that the two of us—“

“Oh my god, did you have a sex dream about me, Ben?” Krista interrupted with an evil smirk.

As expected, Ben turned a furious shade of red. “Krista, gross. That’s—I don’t—“

Krista laughed. “Okay, okay, go on.”

Ben, still flustered, cleared his throat and continued, his hands finding his hips. “It was this really strange dream. One of the strangest I’ve ever had actually. Potent. Extremely potent. You were present, but not always corporeal. As if the whole episode was coated in your aura. It was frightening in some places, knowing you needed my help, but me not able to find you.”

Ben gave her that anxious look again, checking the edge of the tarp to make sure he couldn’t get a little closer without dribbling paint on the floor to administer that hug.

“Go on,” Krista prodded, a strange unease in her stomach.

Ben’s eyes unfocused as he thought back. “Well, the whole dream landscape was saturated with your emotion. That’s all it was, really. Strong, turbulent emotion. The emotion came across in colors. The beginning was pastels mostly. Hope. Yellows and oranges later. It was bright and flowing. But hope started to fade. Yellows and oranges became reds and pinks. Hue changes. Pastels became bold reds. Blood reds. Maroon. Burgundy. The colors started to multiply, ‘round and ‘round, swirling.” His hands were shaping an invisible swirling ball between facing palms. “The color turned muddy brown. Mud made with red clay, though. Reddish tinged. That’s what everything became. As if a red filter was placed over the landscaping.”

Ben’s eyes sought her, checking to make sure she was following. She wasn’t, since she didn’t speak art, but she nodded anyway.

“Next came pulses. A deep current ran beneath us. This was when you became afraid. Apprehensive. When you needed the most help, but were unreachable. A new color now. Blue. Soft blue at first. Translucent. Then the color got deeper. The current stronger. The red filter slashed with blues and purples. Anger now. Then sadness. This is when I start losing the themes.”

He turned back to his painting, Krista forgotten for the moment, working things out. He scratched his head with the hand that still held the paint brush. He’d have a job washing his hair.