Dried and Dying Roses (BWWM)

One: Windows

One

Many a doctrine is like a window pane. We see truth through it up, down, but it divides us from truth....

-Khalil Gibran

At the far end of Memorial Art Museum stood Isaline, positioned in front of the large painting personifying everything that had to do with darkness. She was obsessed with it; she always had been; but whenever someone asked why, she was never ready to give an intelligible answer besides shrugging and smiling that guilty smile of hers with a lift of her hands, "I just like it,"

She was biting at her nails then, inspecting the painting that seemed to have a deeper meaning than any of the others she had visited.

Isa always stopped at this one work of art. It was her favorite, by an unknown author who had dropped it off years before she was born at the Museum.

She loved the painting, she had come to see it since she was a child, spending all her free time in an art museum rather than playing with the peers that were within her age group.

The kids hadn't liked her back then, claiming she acted too much like a grown up, and wasn't fun because all she talked about was paintings, but as the years went by, they flocked to her because of her sagacious attitude, her calm and loving demeanor towards everyone.

People grew to love her, the neighborhood friends and family all calling her Sweetie or Sweetheart though she liked just Isa.

It was a shock to everyone when they learned about her interest in death, in darkness, the feelings the conveyed such a dark thing as an evil person's mind.

Everyone saw Isa as the type of person to be interested in helping orphaned children, saving injured animals, and she was just as any kind hearted person would be.

She knew she was different, that people thought it was weird that she would be interested in the things she was, and it made her feel bad, judged for being different.

"Sweetie, it's close to closing time," Bert Formal, one of the the Museum guards told her, leaning against the entrance.

She jumped, pulled out of her own mind, and smiled over her shoulder at the older man, who was her God Father along with her father's best friend,"I know Uncle Bert," She sighed wistfully as her eyes fell back onto the painting, "I just wish I could stay here all night,"

With one last heavy glance at the painting, Isa shook her head, letting her God Father walk her to the entrance, that gleam in her honey eyes as the hugged Bert before walking to her car.

There was a man there, watching the brown skinned woman approach her car, but when Isa smiled and him, she got nothing in response, that heavy silver gaze locking her in place.

The man was large, towering over her frame and casting a shadow over her body. He quirked an eyebrow at her, causing her breathing to hitch as she stared at him.

He was beautiful.

She blinked slowly, and when her eyes refocused, the mysterious stranger was nowhere to be seen.

Isa frowned, looking around her before shrugging and climbing into her car, the man forgotten for the time being.

The ride home was silent, Isa wasn't in the mood to listen to any music as she made her way home, tapping her fingers against therm steering wheel as she made her almost daily commute from the Museum to her three bedroom home.

She didn't have to work, Isa was a wealthy woman at twenty five, owning the large bookstore in the middle of Mardix, the city in whixh she lived in.Reading was another passion of Isa's though not as prominent as the other.

Sweetie's Bookstore was the most visited store in Mardix, by both children and adults. Sweetie was a big public figure, teaching both children and uneducated adults to read, introducing them to the world of fiction and nonfiction with an interest the people had only saw in Isa.

She worked at her bookstore with three more employees, for the full day before going home most of the time.

Her parents were very proud of the woman their youngest child had become.

When she climbed out her car and exited the garage through the exit right off the kitchen, she was greeted with the sight of her two older siblings, Isaac and Matthias standing in the kitchen, their large bodies dominating her top of the line kitchen.

Matthias, being the oldest sibling at thirty two spoke first, his eyes that matched his sister's shining in protectiveness, "Isaline, it's ten o'clock." He stated as he walked forward, pulling his five feet, three inch tall baby sister in his arms, pressing his lips to her temple.

"I know," She smiled as Issac embraced her in the same fashion, "I just left the Museum."

Isaac scoffed, running his hand over his close cut hair, his darker brown skin shining under the kitchen light, "We know where you were. You seem to have forgotten that you invited us over for dinner."

With a slap delivered to her own forehead by herself, Isa cursed under her breath, "Shit. I forgot guys. I-"

Delaney, better known as Del, and Isaline's sister in-law and wife to Isaac waddled into the kitchen, smiling broadly as she walked to the oven amd pulled out Isa's favorite, her homemade squash casserole followed by a large chicken and asparagus, and placed them all on the counter, conscious of Isa's heavy, hungry gaze.

Del turned around, resting her hand on her lower back as she smiled at Isa, "I figured you would forget. I had you covered, sis."

A sigh of relief left Isa as she scolded herself for forgetting the Ford's family tradition of sibling night which was a way to attempt to keep the family ties strong. So far it had worked.

After dinner, everyone was situated in the living room watching TV when it hit midnight.

Isa was alseep against Matthias' s shoulder, snoring quietly while Isaac rubbed his seven month pregnant wife's belly, feeling for their son when it was silently and unanimously decided it was time to go home as they all had work in the morning.

Matthias picked up the younger sibling, putting her in her queen sized bed, then shaking his head at the all black bedroom, with red accents and bloody, gory, and just all together dark paintings that added up to thousands of dollars that made up his younger sister's most private area before they locked up and left.

Isa felt eyes on her late that night, and it shook her from her dreams, making her sit up, then glance around her room as fear trickled down her spine.

Just when she was about to shake off her feeling as a fluke, she fell onto her back, flipping to her right side and glancing out the window to meet those same silver eyes she had seen earlier that day.

She was frozen in fear, eyes locked on the peffect stranger's before he disappeared again, leaving her shivering in fear on her bed, staring after the man she had only seen once before.

Isa didn't sleep for the rest of that night, staring out her window, wauting for the man to return so that she could do something, even if that something was to just stare at him in complete and utter awe.

The man was perfect after all, and Isa was a woman.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

A/N: Hey guys, yes I am starting ANOTHER story. Please give me feedback and I'm sorry its so short, but my first chaoter or so usually is.

Isa is pronounced "Ee-suh" and Mattias "Muh-tay-us"