so I don’t know why I feel compelled to draw him. My hands start moving on their own accord. I draw his crooked nose, his full lips, the way his eyes seem to look at you and see all your secrets, the faded scar above his eyebrow, and the way his hair falls across his face. I don’t know how I did it, but I drew a perfect likeness of him.
David walks over and sits beside me. “Is that Liam?”
I look intently at my notebook, nodding.
“He looks familiar, like I’ve seen him somewhere,” he pauses, his eyes remaining fixated on the drawing. He blinks rapidly and touches my upper arm, “Are you ready to train?” When I nod, he continues, “I’ll walk you back to your room, so you can get changed and then we’ll walk up there together, considering you still don’t know where the room is.” He smiles. “We wouldn’t want you to get lost again.” I can tell that he isn’t going to let that go anytime soon.
We walk to my room, well the guest bedroom, quietly chatting on the way. It is easy to talk to David. He is funny and witty and doesn’t say anything that makes me second guess their meanings. He is straight forward and to the point. We stop at my door and I walk in, confused. New outfits are scattered across the bed.
Claire.
She knew I would need more clothing. I know that I didn’t grab anything that would work today. I was more focused on getting out of the house quickly than finding matching outfits.
I walk over and sort through the work-out clothes. Everything is way more form-fitting than I would have grabbed for myself. I know that I am not fat, but I don’t necessarily have the confidence to wear something like this. I grab an outfit and walk to the bathroom, trying not to think about how ridiculous I’ll look in this. After changing, I walk over the sink and search the drawers underneath until I find a small container with a bunch of hair ties in it. I grab one, put it on my wrist, and leave the room.
I open the bedroom door and find David standing on the other side, hand outstretched, ready to knock. His eyes widen as he takes in my appearance.
I cross my arms self-consciously and look at the floor, “I know I look stupid. There wasn’t anything else to change into.” I grab the bottom of the shirt and pull it away from my body, trying to stretch it out, but it only sinks back into the previous shape.
“You’re not reading my mind right now, are you?” he asks.
“No, I decided I’m going to try and not use that unless it is absolutely necessary. I feel like it is an invasion of privacy.”
David exhales in relief, shakes his head, and rolls his eyes. Before I am able to ask what that was about, he grabs onto my wrist and starts walking down the hallway.
“I’m going to have to talk to Claire when she gets home.”
“Why?”
He turns towards me with a look that screams, seriously? “Never mind.”
“This house has three floors?” I ask as we head up another set of stairs.
“The third floor is the training room. It used to be an attic, but we converted it when we moved in.”
Colton is already in the room setting up the mats when we walk in. This is the biggest attic I’ve ever seen. The room is in the shape of a square, with large red mats outlining the bottom half of the walls. A long rope hangs from the ceiling in the far corner. Looking up, my eyes stop at the high ceiling. Wooden beams overlap each other in an interesting cross work pattern. I drag my eyes from the ceiling and turn towards Colton who is staring at me with eyes the size of saucers, mouth slightly open. My eyebrows rise in confusion. When he catches me looking at him, he coughs and averts his gaze.
“Are you okay?” I walk towards him.
“Fine.” He looks past me at David.
“Yeah, I know.” David agrees. I look between the two brothers wondering what they are talking about.
“You know I could just read your minds, right?” That knocks them back into their senses.
“Ok, Ryanne, we’re going to just teach you some basic self defense moves, how to defend yourself if you are ever attacked without a weapon,” says Colton.
“Will I get to learn how to fight with a