All Chapters of The Art of Jessica Jane: Chapter 1 - Chapter 10

Rain had started sometime after dinner.At first it had been soft. Gentle taps against the kitchen windows while Jessica and Daisy sat at the table colouring pictures and arguing over who had stolen whose crayons."You took my green.""I did not.""You did because I only have this stupid brown left.""Maybe you lost it."Jessica narrowed her eyes suspiciously."You look guilty."Daisy looked offended."What does guilty look like?""Your face."Their father laughed from the living room.Jessica could hear the occasional scrape of his chair as he sat fixing an old radio he'd promised their mother he would repair three weeks earlier.Three weeks had become four.Four had become five.Her mother stood by the sink drying dishes, occasionally glancing over her shoulder."Dylan," she called."Mhm?""You still fixing that thing?""I'm assessing it."Jessica frowned."What does assessing mean?"Her father looked up seriously."It means I have absolutely no idea what I'm doing."Jessica and Dai

People filled the house the next morning.Jessica didn't know where they all came from.Neighbours.Friends.People from nearby farms.People she vaguely recognised from church.Adults seemed to appear from nowhere carrying casseroles and cakes and trays of food wrapped in foil, as if food somehow knew how to fix sadness.The farmhouse had never been so full.And yet Jessica had never felt it so empty.She sat halfway up the stairs in her pyjamas, hugging her knees tightly against her chest.Nobody had told her to get dressed.Nobody had told Daisy either.Daisy sat beside her clutching her stuffed rabbit with swollen red eyes. The rabbit's fur was damp around one ear from tears.Neither of them spoke.Downstairs voices drifted through the house.Soft voices.Whispers.Jessica hated whispers.Adults always whispered when children weren't supposed to hear things."...such a tragedy...""...trying to protect them...""...good man...""...poor Karen...""...those girls..."Jessica stared

The last week at the farmhouse felt strange.Like living inside a dream that was ending.Jessica walked through every room slowly, as if moving carefully enough might somehow stop time. She ran her fingers along the hallway walls, tracing tiny scratches and marks she'd never paid attention to before. Sat on the stairs where she and Daisy used to race one another. Stood in the kitchen staring at the place where her father would stand making pancakes every Saturday morning.Everything was still there.But somehow it already felt gone.The kitchen table was still by the window.The cupboards were still painted the same pale cream colour.Her father's boots still sat near the back door.But the house felt quieter now.Almost like it already knew they were leaving.Outside, the fields stretched endlessly beneath pale grey skies.Jessica stood beside the fence staring out toward the hills.She could see the old oak tree in the distance.The swing still hung there, swaying gently in the wind

Jessica started counting days.She wasn't entirely sure why.At first it was just little marks in the corner of her notebook.Tiny lines no one would notice.One.Two.Three.Then weeks.Then more.She wasn't counting school days.Or weekends.Or birthdays.She was counting days until things felt normal again.Only they never did.Normal felt like the farmhouse.Normal had been pancakes and muddy boots and her father's laugh filling rooms.Normal had been Daisy running through fields with grass stains on her knees.Normal had been hearing boots on wooden floors before sunrise.Normal had disappeared.Now every day felt like walking through fog.Days blended together.School.Home.Dinner.Bed.Repeat.Jessica sometimes lay awake at night trying to remember exactly what the farmhouse smelled like.Hay.Fresh air.Pancakes.She worried if she stopped remembering little things, she'd lose them forever.She worried that forgetting tiny details meant forgetting her father.And that thought

Jessica had started noticing small changes.Not huge changes.Not the kind people made dramatic speeches about.No life changing moments.No sudden happiness.Just little things.Tiny things.Things most people would never notice.She no longer rushed back to her room immediately after lectures.She no longer kept her headphones in all day pretending not to hear the world.She no longer sat at the edge of rooms planning escape routes before conversations had even started.She smiled more.Not often.But enough.Enough that Sophie noticed.Of course Sophie noticed.Sophie noticed everything."You've changed."Jessica looked up from her sketchbook one afternoon in the campus café."What?"Sophie dropped into the chair opposite her with her usual level of chaos, almost spilling coffee over herself in the process.Jessica barely reacted anymore.She was getting used to Sophie arriving like weather.Unpredictable.Loud.Inevitable."You're talking more."Jessica frowned."No I'm not.""You