Not You It's Me (Boston Love #1) - Julie Johnson Page 0,77

you’re willing to wait out here?”

He grins, like he thinks I’m adorable, and I know the odds are absolute zero.

“Open the door, Gemma.”

I sigh, because he’s got to be the bossiest, most annoying person in the history of mankind.

And then I open the door.

***

“I know it’s not the Taj Mahal, but—” The breath disappears from my lungs as the door swings wide and I catch sight of my apartment. “Holy shit.”

I feel Chase take a step closer to me, so his front is pressed against my back, and I know he’s lending me his strength as well as shielding me from any unseen threats. I barely notice — my eyes are fixed on the disaster before me.

It’s a mess — completely trashed, like a freaking tornado moved through the city while I was gone, the damage somehow isolated to my apartment. My well-loved red couch is flipped on its side, the stuffing bursting from cushions that look like they’ve been split open with a jagged blade. My funky, flea market coffee table has gone from intentionally asymmetrical to totally nonfunctional — two of its legs are snapped off, and there are deep gouges in the glossy wood which no amount of varnish can ever fix. My bookshelves are overturned, hundreds of paperbacks lying in ruined piles on the floor, their covers ripped off and their pages dented.

My heart is beating so loud, it drowns out the sound of Chase, speaking rapidly into his cellphone behind me.

Even from here, I can see my turquoise refrigerator has been given similar treatment, and what little food I had inside has spilled across the floor in a soupy mess. My artsy-yet-functional wardrobe ladder no longer hangs from my bedroom ceiling — it’s been ripped down in a cloud of plaster and hurled through the thin glass of my French doors. Ceiling dust and glass shards join thousands of floating feathers on the floor — either Wolverine was playing with my peacock throw pillows, or someone slit them open with the same determination as my couch cushions.

None of the furniture is salvageable.

My clothes are in shreds.

I’m definitely not getting my security deposit back.

I accept these things with a kind of detached horror. It’s awful but, for the most part, I’m okay.

Possessions can be replaced.

Doors can be rebuilt.

My heartbeat starts to slow back to normal, and I’m actually pretty proud of myself for holding it together…

Until my eyes move to the walls.

I’ve been so wrapped up in the damage littering the floor around me, I haven’t spared a glance at my paintings. So, I didn’t even notice the wreckage extends to the colorful canvases I spent the past half-decade pouring every bit of my heart and soul into.

A sound bursts from my throat as I fly into motion, rushing past the threshold into the disaster site that used to be my home.

“Gemma, wait!” Chase calls, but I don’t stop.

Glass crunches beneath my feet, and my hands tear at cushion foam and shredded wood as I cut a path through the wreckage. When I reach the far wall, where most of my paintings were, I fall to my knees, barely flinching as shards tear through my jeans and slice deeply into my flesh. That pain is nothing, compared to the ache inside my chest as my fingers trace the thick layers of oil on the ruined canvases before me.

The knife would’ve been enough to destroy them but whoever did this really went above and beyond, because in addition to the deep cuts rending the canvases in tatters, streaks of black spray paint cover many of the works. Words jump out at me, creating hate where art used to be.

BITCH

SLUT

WHORE

The blocky letters scream at me, their angry message unmistakable. It’s abruptly very clear this was no random robbery, no casual break-in. This was personal. Intentional.

Someone out there hates me this much.

I feel like I’ve been punched in the stomach, the realization hitting me like a physical blow. I want to cry — I feel like I should be crying — but I’m too shocked, too angry to feel any real sadness. Hands resting on my bleeding kneecaps, I don’t look away from my ruined works of art, even when I feel Chase’s heat at my back. I don’t protest when his arms slip around me, one hooking beneath my knees, the other going behind my shoulders, and he lifts me from the floor into his arms, cradling me against his chest like I’m something to be held close,