Always Remember

said it wasn ’t, honey. But you do use it.”
    Bing snorts, and I grin as my phone lights up in front of me. I swipe at the screen absently, opening the message.
    Carl: If he hurts you, I’ll kick his ass.
    Okay. This probably couldn ’t be any more awkward.
    Ass-kicking covered, f armer boy. Back to your cows!
    I grin and put the phone down.
    “Amusing?” Bing asks across the table.
    “Just Carl warning me that if you hurt me he ’ll kick your ass.” I smile sweetly.
    His face hardens, and I can see the tick in his jaw. “You still talk to him?”
    I raise my eyebrows and point my spoon in his direction. “Hey, don’t you go getting all ignoramus on me, Samuel Edwards.”
    “What the fuck is an ignoramus?” Alec snickers.
    “Ignorant ass. Shut up, Johnson,” I snap, my eyes still focused on Bing. “Mine and Carl’s relationship ended mutually, on good terms, and we are still friends. Did you get that one? F. R. I. E. N. D. S. Friends. So don’t you pull that “You still talk to your ex?” card on me, because we all know that only one of us here has a pain in the ass ex who, I might add, is absolutely, completely and utterly, bat shit fricking crazy.”
    I let out my breath and put my spoon down, nodding. Lexy gives me a thumbs up behind Bing ’s back, and turns to her kettle. Bing looks between me and Alec, and Alec holds his hands up.
    “Hey, leave me outta this. She ’s right though. Heidi is bat shit crazy.” He shrugs, moving to where Lexy is standing.
    Bing ’s eyes settle back on me, and he takes a deep breath. “I suppose,” he grinds out. “I can deal with you being friends. ”
    “You suppose?” My voice rises an octave. “No, Samuel, no. You will deal with it. Carl is in Devon, I ’m in London. That was the reason for the break-down of the relationship.” Lexy shoots me a look over her shoulder. “Well – that and I wanted to jump your bones.”
    Bing ’s expression changes, his clenched jaw relaxes, and his lips turn upwards in a half-grin. “You did, huh?”
    “Yes. But that is not the point of this conversation-”
    He gets up and walks around the table, stopping next to my chair and leaning into me. “There was a point to this conversation?” he murmurs. “Because I was too busy watching your lips move.”
    I swallow. “There is a point to this conversation, yes, so don ’t come over here doing that sexy “let me fuck you” voice in my ear, because you already did today. Twice.” I shove him away, and Lexy chokes on her tea.
    Bing laughs, sitting back in his seat, and Alec nods.
    “Good effort, mate.”
    “Can we not? This is my brother.” Lexy leans back against the counter. “The point of the conversation is – Jen and Carl are friends, Heidi is bat shit crazy, and Bing, you can put your alpha male complex back in its box because Jen and Carl are friends.”
    “You already said they’re friends.”
    “I know I said it twice. I was supposed to.”
    I look at Bing. “See? I told you.”

Chapter Twelve

JEN

    University isn’t always bad, but when it is, it’s a pile of shit. That pile of shit would be the four assignments I have due in. I guess that’s what I guess for putting the “pro” in “procrastinator.”
    Emotion – it ’s a funny thing to put down onto paper. Sure, I could grab a pencil and start sketching an image of a girl in an old run down house with her head in her hands, her body curled up, and it would be clear – sadness, devastation.
    Or I could grab my pastels and smooth out an image of children playing in a park, laughing and joking. Again, it ’s clear.
    But art is the more than the obvious. It ’s a combination of the obvious and the discreet, all mixed in together in a breath-taking pattern. It’s not what you draw, it’s how you draw it. It’s in the stroke of the brush, the hardness of the pencil, the smudge of the pastel. It’s in the shade of the colour, the frequency of its use, and the blend of several together.
    Art is the true reflection of everything inside of us, put out there for the world to see.
    I run my fingers along the pastel box, to my paint box, and back again to the pastels. I pick one out at random, not caring to look. Whatever I pick… That is how I feel.
    The warm pink tone is soft across the canvas, and the red that follows it is anything but. It ’s hot, bright, and tears straight through the pinker sections. The white smudges in the areas where the two colours cross, blending them