[DAY 4 OF BEING HOME]
Annie walked over to her father and gently explained her usual ritual of painting when it came to these particular ones.
It was a deeply emotional process for Annie, and she liked to stay in focus when she did them. So she kindly asked him to pass around the word to those who asked, that she didn't want to be disturbed until the process was done. What Annie forgot to mention was that this process could take hours, or days.
After 24 hours straight that her light was on, Ethan stalked over to the empty house, noting that Kyson bad left with Vanessa, Margaret wasn't home and Dylan was working.
Ethan walked up the stairs and opened the door to her bedroom, the sight before him broke his heart.
Annie sat on her floor sobbing, three unfished canvases layed on the floor as Annie held a fourth in her hands. The painting pressed into her chest as she curled in on it as low, almost silent sobs escape her mouth.
"Annie!" Ethan gasped as he swooped in to give her a hug.
"I can't do it, can't do it!" Annie sobbed.
"What can't you do Annie?" Ethan asked gently, holding her while they sat on her floor.
"I can't do the damn painting, I-" Annie let's out a choked sob, "I keep painting her," she breathed deeply before a light hiccup escaped her lips.
Ethan looked at the discarded paintings on the floor, seeing nothing but what looked like black hair. Then Annie uncurled herself and showed Ethan the rough painting.
The background still undone, but a slightly smudged woman who sat in the middle of the canvas. Her blue eyes just as peircing and shiney as Annie's, her smile raiment.
Annie set the painting down on the floor as she put her face to her knees, hiding the tears that rolled down her cheeks.
"Is it important to finish the painting?" Ethan asked gently, watching the quivering form beside him, his hand rested gently on her back rubbing soothing circles.
"It is to me," Annie sniffed.
"But it's not in like.. Painting therapy rules that you have to finish?"
"Technically, no," Annie replied, her sobs turning to silent tears.
"Well then maybe you're done your painting."
"Are you joking, this isn'tdone!" Annie said lifting her head and pointing to canvas, "and even if it were done, it's all smudged."
"Hear me out, maybe you are done. Maybe this is what your emotional painting is supposed to look like. Unfinished, a little smudged and messy, and at the center of all the mess- as in your thoughts, is your mother," Ethan said as his heart beat in a steady rhythm, willing himself to stay calm.
Annie didn't move for a long time. She just stared at the canvas, at the smudged, piercing blue eyes of a woman who was no longer there to hold her. The silence in the room felt heavy, vibrating with the exhaustion of the last twenty-four hours.
Slowly, she turned her head to look at Ethan. Her vision was still blurry with tears, but his face was steady, a grounded contrast to the chaos of her mind. "Unfinished," she whispered, the word catching in her throat. "Because she was unfinished. We weren't... we weren't done yet."
A fresh wave of tears spilled over, but these weren't the frantic, sobbing kind from before. They were quiet and resigned. She leaned her weight into him, her shoulder pressing against his chest, drawing strength from his warmth.
"You're too good at this," she breathed, a small, sad smile ghosting her lips for a fleeting second. "Finding the logic in my mess."
She looked at his hand on her shoulder, feeling the steady rhythm of his touch. In this moment, she wanted to turn into him completely, to let the 3-year time apart disappear and simply be his. But as quickly as the urge came, the weight of the "smudged" painting pulled her back. She was the unfinished canvas, and he was the steady hand trying to help her dry, but she knew she was still too wet, too easily ruined by a touch.
"Thank you, Ethan," she said softly, her voice raspy. "For not telling me to just keep going. And for... for knowing exactly what I needed to hear, even when I didn't."
Annie didn't pull away, but she didn't lean in further either. Simply grateful for a man who liked her enough to let her be messy.
"I've said it once, and I'll say it over and over. I'm here and I understand," he gave her a comforting squeeze.
Annie bit her lip as she played with the paint splatter on her fingers, still leaned into Ethans chest. "Did you go through a similar process of... grief?"
Ethan signed, "something like that," Ethan replied, "I didn't explode at paint therapy thought," Ethan lightly joked earning him a small sad chuckle from Annie.
"I bottled up my emotions like you did, didn't shed not one tear for... a month?" Ethan questioned himself, "didn't want to seem like less of a man over my fathers death, but I know now that not only was it inevitable, it was silly to think that way."
"It all came crashing down when I picked up an old baseball my dad and I used to play catch with. Let's just say my mother wasn't prepared to come home to an 12 year old boy sobbing on her bed, clutching his father's picture."
Annie hummed in understanding, "I'm sorry you had to go through that ordeal mostly by your self. I appreciate your presence now more than ever," commented Annie.
"It's okay," Ethan shrugged, "it needed to happen, and it eventually did."
The silence in the room was a comfortable silence between the two, until Ethan broke it. "Can I be honest with you?"
"Always," answered Annie.
"When my mom saw you at the store, when she got home she demanded I keep watch over you and help you through your grief," Ethan admitted, "I mean it was kind of myplananyways, but you know my mom," Ethan scratched the back of his neck.
"Yes, I know Kia," Annie gave a light chuckle, "it's okay, I get it. No one really knew what actually happened three years ago, so someone's gotta have an eye on the flightrisk," Annie shrugged. "Who better than my window buddy."
Annie turned her gaze to Ethan and furrowed her eyebrows, "Oh, I'm sorry I got paint on you," Annie frowned.
"Don't worry about it Doll, its just a shirt."