Nevermore

Chapter 27

N I C H O L A S

The weeks went by, and yet nobody seemed able to forget the incidents of that October night; of the police cars parked outside the dormitory building, of John Carter in handcuffs, and the police dragging him away as he yelled that he was innocent.

Every newspaper in the city had written about it; the music teacher who had murdered one of his students at Berrington University, pushing her off her window and making it look like it was a suicide. This was pretty much the only thing people knew, the rest of the details nothing but a haze of rumors and made-up stories.

As October gave its place to November, more and more students started buying the Scriptores paper, because they all knew that the five editors of the paper had something to do with the arrest of John Carter. And so, they bought their paper every week, in hopes of finding a new detail hidden somewhere in there.

Nicholas heard somewhere that John Carter's first hearing was taking place in a week, and a part of him was glad they hadn't been asked to be present at the court yet.

     After Carter had been arrested, Nicholas could feel a heavy burden being lifted off his shoulders, and he wanted to spend the rest of his year in peace, catching up with his studies and, if he got the chance, ask out a certain girl with pale eyes and long blonde hair.

He had been practicing what he wanted to tell Eve all day, but he still felt slightly nervous as he walked up toward her dorm on that beautiful Saturday morning, inviting her to go to his favorite museum together, and his joy was unimaginable when she said yes.

The weather was wonderful for taking a walk around town, but the museum was so far that they had to take cab. Nicholas had come to this museum many times before, because art could always fill the void inside him.

    It thrilled him to walk amongst the wide marble halls with their high ceilings and tall windows, because when he looked around him, he would not only see paintings or sculptures; but he could also see the artists that had once sat behind these arts for months, pouring their hearts and souls upon the canvas, or carving out the angels from the hard stones.

"Oh, look at this one!" Eve rushed toward one of the paintings of an angelic woman, her chest bare and her wings wide with splendor. "She looks so... free."

"This other one is one of my favorites," said Nicholas, moving a little further down and pointing up at a painting, which showed a woman laying down in a pond, surrounded by water lilies and flowers.

Eve smiled as she observed the painting, her eyes devouring it in both awe and agony. "Sometimes I wish I'd been a woman in a painting... life would've been much easier that way. Being human is hard." She let out a small chuckle, watching the painting dreamily.

Eve then glanced at Nicholas as they stood side-by-side, facing the painting. There was a playful glimmer in her eyes as she smiled at him. The very same smile that could enflame desire and peace in him by turn.

Wordlessly, Eve raised her hand for him to take, never for a second letting her gaze wander away from his eyes as he held onto her hand. With that, she led the way down the hall, their hands laced together as they absorbed the sea of art around them.

They soon reached the section where the sculptures had been displayed; a room full of fallen angels, of nameless heroes, of Greek Gods who were cursed to live their eternity in this hall.

"Is it just me, or does that one look a bit like you?" Nicholas said jokingly, pointing at the sculpture of a girl who was sitting on a what looked like a rock, her long hair falling behind her and her hands up in the air in a graceful manner.