Remind me why

Chapter Five

As I sit handcuffed to the table, I wonder how I even got myself into this mess. Who would have thought I would be sitting in a police station cuffed to a stainless steel table, in a tiny gray room with only a two-way mirror and a camera pointing at me. I can feel their eyes watching me closely waiting for me to give some type of hint I’m hiding something from them. What feels like two hours passed. You would think they would at least put a clock in here. Someone finally decides to walk in and sits across from me at the table. The man clears his throat and I turn and look at him. He’s an older man balding on top, dark bags under his eyes like he’s been working for days and a coffee stain on his white button-up shirt. “Miss Walker is it?” He doesn’t wait for me to answer him “Why don’t you go ahead and tell me from the start exactly how you meet or know Mr O’Neil.” "O'Neil? Is that Noah's last name?" "It is." "Um okay sure, I met him at the club earlier tonight." "So you've never known him pier to the club?" "No, I don't usually go to clubs." "I see, what made you want to go tonight of all nights?" He says as he writes something down. "My best friend and I are celebrating that I quite my job." I respond as I look at his writing but can't read what it says from his sloppy writing. "That's a weird thing to celebrate." "Yeah well her and I are weird." "I see, and what were your plans with Noah when you meet him at the club." He made air quotations when he said meet. Like I am lying about when I met him. I rolled my eyes. "Usually when someone leaves with someone at a club and goes back to their place to have s*x, Mr?" I dragged out Mr. Since he never gave his name. My patience is running out with the ridiculous questions. At this point, I am exhausted and want this to be over with, so I can go back to my apartment and back to being in my homelessness that I clearly should never have left. "Is that what you were doing, Ms. Walker? Going back to his place to have s*x with a man you just met?" He says it like he is judging me for it. "Yes it is, I met him at the club, decided to go home with this hot random stranger and have s*x with him because it's been awhile, and why the hell not, but when we arrived I decided not to, and before I could leave he steps into another room. I heard a bang as I was about to walk out the door and decided to check on him. Then next thing I know, I had a gun pressed against my head for the first time in my entire life. Which is really traumatizing. Thank you very much. And now I'm here." I spit out in one breath with as much annoyance as possible. "I see." He writes more stuff down. "Ms. Walker, I am a very thorough man. I look into everything and one when it comes to my job. So do you care to tell me why you had a transfer for 1.2 million dollars a few days prior to "meeting" Noah at the club?" "What does that have to do with this guy?" I questioned, what the hell? Why would they look into my accounts and stuff because of Noah? Who the hell is Noah? "Mr. O'Neil sells illegal firearms and drugs. We finally located him, and you happen to be with him. We have looked into you and look at that a big money transfer. So you can see why we are questioning you. Are you his provider? Did he buy it from you? So many questions." he says as he puts his pen down and leans back into his chair. "For a thorough man, you clearly didn't look at where the transfer came from. My mother died a few days ago, and she left that money to me." I stared at him. He looks over at the mirror, then back to me. He stands up. "People launder money. If you are telling the truth, we will get you out of here sooner rather than later, but if not, be ready to be here for a long time." He walked out of the room. I let my head fall on to the table with a groan and went back to waiting.

After a few more hours passed, I was finally cleared to leave. I step out onto the sidewalk just as the sun is coming up for the day, and just stand there for a moment and wonder what just happened. I grab my phone out of the clear bag, they put my belongings in it, and it's dead. I walk up to the edge of the road and am about to wave for a cab when I hear. " You are not about to jump into moving traffic again are you?" I turn and see the man with the unforgettable eyes walking up to me. "I thought about it." I say sarcastically, and he smirks "guess it's a good thing im here to save your life again." "My lucky day." I turn back towards the street, and he steps next me whistle's loudly for a taxi. Just as the taxi pulls up, I turned back to him. "Thank you again for the other day I was out of it, sorry for being rude and rushing off." " It's New York. Everyone is rude and rushing. Why were you out of it?" He asks, staring at me. Do I mention I know it was him in the room, that I know he knows the answer to that question already. Or play dumb like I don't know anything? " I uh left a will reading for my mother." I looked down at my feet to break the eye contact "I'm sorry for your loss." " Thank you, I never did catch your name the other day." I said as I move towards the taxi and look over at him. "It's Cal" "Well it's nice to officially meet you Cal." I turn and climb into the cab and give him my address. When I make it inside my apartment, I go straight to my bed, strip down and climb under the covers and exhaustion claims me finally.

I wake up to the sound of someone downstairs. I climb out of my bed and throw sweatpants on and a shirt an make my way downstairs. Emma is in my apartment cleaning. "What are you doing?" I asked her as I make my way to the fridge and grab me a drink. "I came to check on you because you didn't answer the phone and never update me hoe. Then, when I got here and saw you sleeping, I figured I would clean up while I waited for you to wake up." She says as she straightens magazines on my coffee table. One thing about Emma is that she loves to clean. It's her own form of therapy, I suppose. "Yeah sorry about that, had a rough night you will never believe what happened." I sit down on the couch and curl my legs up underneath me as she sits on the other end of the couch and looks at me. "Uh you had crazy, wild, lush filled s*x with a hot guy?" If only that's what happened. "Actually, I got taken to the jail by a swat team for questioning because Noah sells illegal firearms and drugs. " I say it casually like its another normal Saturday for me. For some reason, I decided to leave Cal out. "Uh what?" She says with wide eyes scanning my face to see if I'm joking. "Yeah, I had a gun pressed to my head and everything." "Oh my god Adaline!" She jumps up shocked when it clicks that I was not joking. "What the hell! Tell me everything right now!" she starts pacing my living room as I tell her everything that had happened. "That's crazy. The one time you decide to actually leave someone, that happens." she says, as she sits in the chair across from me. I shook my head in agreement. "So do you want to go get some food? This girl is starved and is in need of food." She rubs her stomach. I laugh "Yeah. Let's go get food."

For the next couple of weeks, I drowned myself in my art. Wanting to get some pieces together to show at an art gallery in hopes it's enough to be in a show. After I went into the foster system, I discovered I was actually good at it by doodling instead of listening in class. It became my therapy. I could express myself in a way I could never with my voice, and I didn't have to show anyone. I didn't have to see the judgment or hear the opinions of everyone that didn't mean anything to me. I escaped everything with my art, it gave me freedom as I grew wings and could leave just by picking up a pencil. When I graduated from high school, I knew my path was in the art industry, so I went to college for it, but somehow I ended off my mark of where I wanted to be. Money has a way of making you miss your mark. I didn't have the money to wait to see if people would buy my art or for it to take off. I got a job at an art gallery, doing the work no one else wanted to do. Making contracts with the artists, sending out invites to the top tier clients. Everyone wanted the floor or to find the next Van Gogh. I enjoyed it. Do not get me wrong. I loved learning how to attract the eye of people with art and what the majority of people were drawn too. But I still craved like a need and desire so deep in my bones to see my work on the white walls adding the color to the place, to see the reactions of the people that walk through that front door and see how they feel when they stare at my art, what I felt making the pieces. So here I am staring at five pieces. I have drowned my time in wondering if they are enough. I could ask Emma. But she is my best friend. Everything I create to her is worthy. That's when i decide to call the one person I haven't been brave enough to talk to again. I pick up my phone with paint dried hands and call May. It answers on the second ring. "Hello, this is May." "Hi May, this is Adaline, I don't know if you remem-" "OF course I remember! I've been waiting for you to call or to run into you again!" "Oh I'm sorry life has been kinda crazy for me." "No need to apologize I understand dear." "Would you like to come over and help me?" I asked quickly before I changed my mind, for some reason im sudden nervous about May seeing my art. "I would love too!" She responds without hesitation. "Okay awesome I'll send you my address." "DAN, I'm going to Adaline's to help her! Okay dear, send me your address, I am putting shoes on now." "Oh, you don't have to leave right away. If you were busy, it's nothing urgent." "Honey, I'm retired. I'm never busy." I other person I've ever had that jumped and came right as i asked is Emma. Something in me swells at how important she makes it seem. "Well, alright, I'll send a text to you." "I'll see you in a little bit! Bye bye". The line clicks off and I quickly send her my address. Now I wait.

What feels like forever passes as I wear a spot on my floor from pacing and waiting for May, and finally a knock echos through my apartment. My heart jumps into my throat as I move to open the door. I swing the door open. "Well look at you!" May pulls me into a hug before I respond. "Hi thank you so much for coming," I say to her hair as she hugs me tight. She smells like warm cookies. "Of course!" She steps in and looks around my apartment. "Now what do you need help with? Are we painting?" She asked as she took in my covered self. "Oh no, I was wanting you to tell me what you thought of my work." I said as I started walking towards a sliding metal door off by the front door. Just out of view when you step into the apartment thanks to the front door. "This is my office, it's a mess I have been working in here kinda nonstop." I pushed the door open and revealed a messy room with canvas painted and empty along the wall. A shelf covered in art supplies, then in the middle of the room on easels are my 5 pieces. Each one is a representation of life-changing emotions in my life. The first one to the left is a deep red with angry black, gray and white sharp lines along it and the black lines look as if to be bleeding. The second one is a indigo blue, swirling around on a dark gray canvas as if it has no clue of what direction in where to go. The third one is the only one with an actual picture. In the middle of the white canvas sits a charcoal drawn lotus that is blooming, with gold inner petals starting to be revealed and all the colors of a rainbow coming out of it reaching for the top of the canvas almost as if, I picked the color up off the floor of the sun shining through a stain glass window. The fourth one is more than one color. Red, purple and yellow are swirled onto the canvas with hints of orange throughout it, as if swimming in a body of water and looking up to the surface and that's what you see as the sun peaks into the water. The last one is covered in light and dark green, twisting around as if to be vines reaching to cover the canvas with hints of pink, lilac and blue peaking through those vines. I turned and looked at May to take in her reactions, and there she stood with her hand partly covering her opened mouth like she was trying to hold back a gasp. I look at her eyes that have tears in them. "Adaline" is all she says as she walks up to the pieces and stares at them, taking each one in as if to memorize each one. "These are beautiful..." she said so softly I almost didn't hear her. "You think so?" I ask as I take them in again feeling each emotion like I did when I painted them. "Yes they are incredible." She continued to stare at them, I took a sit on my stool and let her look at them as long as she wanted. When she finally turned to me, "I'm going to try to get them into an art gallery show. It will be the first one if I succeed.I just could not decide if they were worthy or not." I admit truthfully, I look down at my hands and pick at the dried paint. " Adaline, these are more than worthy. They deserve their own art show." She says as she walks over to me, and before I can say anything, she pulls me into another hug. Tears prick my eyes, so I squeeze them shut to not let any fall.