Drawing Closer Novel Novels & Stories

"Business: minded." "Since when?" "Since now. This second." We work. Or we pretend to. I open the sketchbook. The leather one. Nick's inscription on the first page. I start drawing and the lines come clean and fast and I don't tear a single page out. Derek glances over. "New designs?" "New collection." "Inspired by?" "Shut up, Derek." "Shutting. Fully shut."

he laughed keeping one arm around her shoulders and the other holding back the door as he let Clara go in first. Adriella has been working on a drawing she started earlier in the week when they walked in all cozied up. Her senses fired up at the sight of Clara with Evander Lockyer. She stood erect, her back pin straight, her heart racing, her nostrils flared as his smell assaulted her senses and her vision blurred. Evander tensed as his sight settled ok Adriella, not missing her hostile stance.

Each step takes me temporarily away from Declan, but I can feel his eyes burning into my back. Claire’s room is a universe apart from the rest of the somber house. Walls covered in glow-in-the-dark stars, shelves crammed with books and stuffed animals, and an entire wall dedicated to drawings taped up with adhesive tape. “This is the mural,” she announces proudly, pulling me toward the wall. “Each drawing is a day I waited for you to come back.” My heart stops. There are hundreds of drawings. Childish strokes showing a dark-haired woman, a tattooed man, and a little blonde girl between them. In some we’re at a beach, in others at a park; many show this very house that I barely know.

“Come on. I’ll take you upstairs to rest.” He stood and guided her toward the stairs. Finn and Calvin exchanged a look. Then they followed right after them. God, I wanted to go eavesdrop so badly. Linda, sitting beside me, muttered under her breath, “Slutty bitch.” That jogged my memory. There was a drugging subplot around this part of the story. If I remembered correctly, Linda was the culprit. She had been secretly in love with Calvin for years, but Calvin only had eyes for Nancy. In the original novel, she managed to drug him, but afterward he turned the tables and dosed her ten times worse, leaving her stranded with no help. She ended up with a terrible fate.

It'd take five to seven drawings to complete the entire story. I was working on the first drawing today. It was called "A Pleasant Encounter". To put it simply, the drawing showed an ordinary Tudor woman's fateful meeting with a talented young nobleman during a celebration in town. The two of them fell in love with each other at first sight. A beautiful love story would then unravel.

A memory that refused to die. --- That night, I opened my notebook again. But this time, I didn’t draw Ethan. I drew the boy. Standing in front of the house. The blood dripping from the window. His eyes wide as he stared into the dark. And behind him… A shadow slowly crawling across the lawn. Getting closer. And closer. Until— knock knock A sound at my window. I turned slowly. But there was no one there. Just fog. And the drawing on my desk— The shadow had moved.

Well, fuck me. I pick it up and start flipping through the pictures, seeing a variety of scenes featuring Sev and me. Sometimes together. Mostly separate. But all of them hold a note of intimacy and desire on Chloe’s part. It’s easy to see that as I move more toward the front of the book that her skills become less mature, less precise. She’s been drawing these pictures for a while.

I glanced at a few of the books, some fantasy novels and a small sketch pad. I opened the sketch pad and looked through it, she was good. Really good. The scenes were mostly outdoors. Forests, waterfalls, mountains. All done with such grace and precision. Each more lovely and realistic than the last. I noticed at the bottom there was a J written as beautifully as the drawings themselves. I got to the last page and there was a drawing of a moon. Bright and beautiful in the sky but there was something else to it. The drawing felt sad. “What the hell.” I snapped as I lifted my hand and wiped a tear from my cheek.

The handmade sketch. Luciana’s face, drawn with slow, careful strokes. Her hair loose, her eyes soft. Adrian captured a version of her I have never seen. Maybe he saw her that way, or maybe she let him. The first time I opened the book, the drawing had knocked the breath out of me. Seeing it now did the same. Was this a journal he kept for her? A quiet confession my brother never voiced? I stay on that page longer than I should, then finally turn it.

Nora was all cozied up in her new room, wrapped in blankets, sound asleep, while Amelia was roaming the halls trying to find some sleep of her own that just wouldn’t come. She ended up noticing Adrian in the den. At first, he didn’t see her. His back was to her, and he had a notebook on his lap, pencil going back and forth as he focused. He looked a bit tense, lips parted. She crept a little closer, not really sure why she was holding her breath. “What’re you drawing?” Adrian jumped a little, then flipped the notebook over and closed it. “Nothing. Just some doodles.” “You don’t doodle,” Amelia said, stepping up next to him. “You sketch.”