Something Gained

Chapter 2

The next morning, when I awoke to find the sun's warmth gently caressing my skin, I no longer felt the urge to hide under my covers to hide from its light. Today I felt refreshed. I smiled and, for the first time in a long time, it was a broad and genuine smile that reached the corners of my lips. Yesterday had been less than productive with its majority being dedicated to filling in Roxie with every mortifying detail of my secret outdoor fling with my mystery man. It had elicited many screams and whoops and, in general, a lot of sounds that were probably more appropriate for a high school football match than for our apartment, but never the less, the overall reaction seemed positive. She was happy that I was no longer wallowing in my bed and that seeing Zack hadn't caused me to revert into a deep depression. Come to think of it. So was I. I could focus on the things that were important again and, right now, that meant getting ready for tomorrow's meeting at the gallery. I threw myself out of bed and straight in front of my desk. Pencil in hand, I started to go back to detailing yesterday's sketch of an unknown male. I had cast aside my decision about colour and had instead chosen to keep my drawing completely black and white, making each feature bolder and more striking. I began working on the highlighted sections. Along the bridge of the nose, the forehead, the chin, working my way down across the top of the chest and then slowly down to the forearms, casting just the right amount of light onto an otherwise shady character. I couldn't help but note that even this character from my imagination couldn't quite match up to the memory of my sexy stranger. I shook away the thought. Men were the last thing I needed to be thinking about right now. Especially men who appear seemingly at the right time and know how to do all those little things like...

No. Focus. Concentrate Cassie. There was only one man I needed to focus on in the immediate future and that was Mr Shaw. He was going to be a new investor for the gallery. Or at least I hoped he would be. We needed to bringing in more clientele, promoting our artists and our talent. Mr Shaw was coming to the gallery tomorrow morning to view the space, the displays and also the advertising for that month for which I was partly responsible. I had to get it right. I wondered what he would be like. His name made him seem so formal, so serious, and although those were qualities that you would want in a potential business partner, I still hoped that he would be kind and gentle enough to appreciate what we were trying to do. At the very least, I hoped he had a true love of art. It had become increasingly rare to find interested associates that were involved in creativity and not just the money. I understood. Afterall, art was a big business but everything had to start somewhere.

As I finished up the last few touches of my sketch, I hoped that at the very least it would do. With the sketch finished, I moved on to more pressing issues like the fact that I hadn't eaten a decent meal in more time than I would care to admit. I didn't feel like cooking, but as I looked down at my pjamas and looked up at my disheveled hair, I decided that venturing outside wasn't the best option either. Thank God for the invention of ordering in, I thought. I retrieved my phone from under my pillow and smiled as I read the top notification. "Morning sleepy head, so proud of you for making a change the past few days!" ~ Roxie

It seemed silly, but it was little things like that that kept us both going and it was what our friendship was built on. I placed an order from my local cafe for one large breakfast, one extra round of toast, no mushrooms. Ugh mushrooms. One little taste of those vile things and a whole meal could be thrown in the bin. Expected delivery time? Forty minutes. Nice. Plenty of time for me to take a quick shower, I thought.

I turned off my hair dryer just in time to hear the soft tapping on my front door and before I could even open it, I could already smell the heavenly scent of big mamas. I greeted the delivery driver, thanked him and then, when I was sure he was out of sight, I shut the door excitedly and hurried into my kitchen to plate up the food. There really was nothing quite like big mamas cooking. Even if big mama did turn out to be a fifty-four-year old man named Earl. After devouring the whole breakfast, I was pretty stuffed. I washed everything down with a pint of apple juice and headed back to my desk to finish prepping for tomorrow's meeting. The rest of the day flew by once I found my rhythm of scanning, copying and filing and before long it was time to pack everything into my binder and head to bed.

There was nothing left to do now but present everything to Mr Shaw tomorrow alongside Kerry, my boss, and hope that he liked what we had to offer him.

I grabbed a glass from the side and poured myself an ice cold water from the fridge. I downed half the glass before deciding to take the rest with me to bed along with the remainder of the bottle. The day had been productive and I hadn’t felt like I’d wasted it or anything and yet my body just wasn’t feeling the level of fatigue it needed to drift into my much needed sleep for the next day. I lay there in silence, staring into the dark, trying to pin point any part of my ceiling. I tried to find a focal point, something for my eyes to latch onto so I could concentrate on it and maybe distract myself enough to sleep. Still, I lay there. I sighed. Why could I never be well rested for the important things? Maybe it was stress, I told myself. Maybe it was latent anger from everything with Zack. At this point I wasn’t even sure I was angry with him. More like with myself, the fact I didn’t spot the signs sooner or the fact that I let hit happen at all. Although it wasn’t like he asked for my permission with his lying, cheating ass. Nope. Him. Definitely still angry with him. I sighed again, this time louder than the first and I realised it was a mixture of everything. My head and my heart were fighting for the right to function in their own right without being impacted by the other or by other contributing factors. I turned to face my window and stared at the edges of my curtains where the seams met the moonlight and the two danced together in perfect parallel. Sometimes I felt like the moon, alone and misunderstood, shrouded in mystery with room for everyone to have an opinion. I just wished I had the same light, the same luminous beam that even in darkness can light the way in the most beautifully calming sense. I on the other hand felt all too dull. More like the sawdust from freshly cut wood, delicate but beige and most importantly uninteresting. The product that gets discarded or left at the work bench unnoticed or simply ignored. The only time I ever felt like I was seen was through my work and even then it wasn’t like it had a big name tag attached, it was printed and promoted through the gallery. I was a wallflower. A stand alone daisy in a field of otherwise beguiling blossoms. I didn’t feel particularly ugly but i wasn’t winning any awards. All in all I was average in everything but my work and, as I allowed my eyelids to fall shut, I hoped that that would be enough for our gallery and for Mr shaw.