nig

his sternum like a trapped bird. His throat w

weating body and swung his legs over

pitch black. The only source of light was a faint, yell

bare foot pressed down on the top wo

antly, holdin

drifted up the stairwell. She was speaking in a hus

nst the wall, sliding down

t the insurance company denied the claim. They said self-inflicted in

an abstract concept. He had never considered the brutal rea

her end of the line

I am not putting him in a state facility! He is my

didn't plagiarize that painting. Those kids at the academy ruined hi

Cyberbullyin

together in Erich's b

emotion. It was the residual, suffocating despair of the body's o

accompanied by the frantic squeaking of a sponge scrubbing the

in his chest-the part of him that Erik Patton had s

. Instead, he turned around and

d his hand around the cold brass doorknob and t

the art

os. The floor was littered with crumpled sketch paper. The air was thi

, draped in a heavy canvas drop cloth. I

dge of the cloth and ripped it away. Dust

f raw, desperate art Erik would have despised. And yet, beneath the rage, he could see it-the familiar, precise way the sh

s fingertips over the rough, ra

moment the original Er

he same. Both of them were artists pushed to the absolu

the walls covered in rejected sket

rison. He would take this broken life, and he would use

ng on the wooden table. He gripped the wo

edge across the bottom corner of the canvas, carvin

declarati

The metallic clatter e

on the stairs. Bre

over the easel and stepped out into the

. She gasped, quickly wiping her wet cheeks with the

are you doing

st time since waking up in this body, he reached out vo

e steady and deeper than usual.

he fragile, broken boy she had been taking care of was gone. T

nd walked back to his be