The New American Dream

Part Four: Amsterdam | Chapter Thirty-Two

"Have you been sitting in that spot for the past three hours?" I heard Cassie ask me in disbelief.

This time I wasn't buried as deeply in my thoughts as the last time, still I had not heard her enter. She had been in Jace' hotel room with him, they had probably watched TV. I had asked for some privacy to be able to draw some more.

My back was turned to the door and I was sitting cross-legged in front of the floor length windows, sketchpad in my lap and the pencil still on the page. "Huh?" I asked as I looked up and turned around.

"Have. You. Moved. At. All. In. The. Past. Three. Hours?" Cassie asked again, this time emphasizing every single word.

"I moved my hand if that counts," I admitted.

"It doesn't," Cassie said deadpan. "Ever single day you surprise me," she sighed and plopped down on her bed, face first. "I wish I could just focus on something for hours on end."

"Yeah, hyperfocus isn't always a good thing," I told her, now stretching out my legs. They must have fallen asleep some time ago but I hadn't noticed, now I was plagued with the agonizing pins and needles under the surface of my skin. I deserved that, fair enough.

"What have you been drawing anyway?" Cassie asked, looking back up, her eyes squinting at my page.

I was too far away for her to actually see much. "The trains station below," I told her.

"Don't tell me that took you three hours."

"Well, it's kinda hard to draw the trains properly if they keep moving!" I said angrily in the direction of the trains zooming past below.

"And now she's yelling at trains..." Cassie mumbled absentmindedly. "Alright, give that to me. I want to look and you need a break," she commanded, stretching her arm out for my sketchpad.

I got to my feet, which was truthfully not as easy with the pins and needles still under my skin, crossed the short distance between me and the bed and plopped down next to Cassie, handing her my sketchpad.

I heard her shuffle through the pages, letting out some sounds every now and then.

"Hey, that's me and Jace!" she cheered when she evidently had gotten to my drawing from this morning.

"Yup," I only agreed, staring at the ceiling.

"Allie, have you ever thought about selling these as prints?" Cassie asked and turned to the last page, to the drawing I had just done.

"I'm not Maison," I said with a hint of amusement.

As I have mentioned before, Homesick Soldier's drummer and youngest sibling was a great artist. His artworks decorated their albums and their merchandise, he had his own online shop where he sold his prints and his own merchandise, including drawing supplies of which I owned quite a few.

"Yeah, you're right. This is even better."

I gasped and sat up. "How dare you?"

To me Maison's art was everything. The detail he put into it was unreal, I wished I knew how his mind functioned.

Cassie started laughing. "Yes, I know. He's like your biggest inspiration or something, but this is seriously better in my opinion. He only ever draws buildings. Buildings here, buildings there. And while I do recognize his artistic talent—" she held up a finger to silence my protest attempts "—I just think you have more variety. You draw literally anything that you come across, not just a variation of the same thing over and over."

"Well, he doesn't just draw buildings, first of all. There are different pieces as well, there was a ship once and for the album art he also drew different things,"