Trust | 3 |

Chapter Fifty-Seven

A few years after my meeting with Ada and we were doing well. We hadn't seen each other again, but every now and then would message back and forth on Facebook. It was a pretty good relationship.

The photo was framed the second I returned, and it now sits happily on my desk. Or, it's supposed to sit there. I brought it up to Tony the other day to show him and Morgan but forgot it there.

I figured I'd come back to grab it in a couple days. For now, they can enjoy it. Plus I don't feel the need to get it right away.

Natasha was excited to hear all about it, and told me about her sister. She was gone- one of the dusted, it seems- but they sounded like a great pair of sisters. There was a part of me that was jealous, but I knew that their lives weren't any better than mine, they just got out a little bit earlier than I did.

The buzz of my phone pulled me from my thoughts and I checked to see what it was.

Nat: pbj?

Rey: Absolutely

I sat up and slipped my phone into the back pocket of my jeans as I walked out to the kitchen. When I walked in, Nat had her hands in front of her face, holding back tears. "Are you okay?" I asked quietly, coming over to sit next to her.

She looked over at me and smiled. "Yeah... it's just hard sometimes," she said, ending her sentence with a quiet sigh. "Here, take half."

I did as told and took the half closer to me. We were quiet as we first started eating, but I could still see the sadness all over Nat's face. Looking away, I saw the table held another sandwich. "Who's that for?" I asked, then took a decent bite of my peanut butter and jelly goodness.

"Probably for me." I looked up and saw Steve leaning on the doorframe. "I was gonna cook dinner, but you seem miserable enough. No point in me making it worse."

A small smile was able to make its way to my face and I glanced at Nat to see she had one, too. She looked over at Steve and I saw her hiding away the emotions. "You here to do your laundry?"

"And to see a friend. Or two." The relationship you had with Steve was interesting. It had only gotten better in more recent years. It may have mostly been due to the fact that he had lost a lot of close friends.

Everyone did.

"Clearly your friends are fine," Nat replied. She had leaned back in her chair and was focused on the wall in front of her.

Steve fidgeted with something in his hands and I decided I was going to step away, give these two their moment. I didn't say anything, just grabbed my sandwich half and gave them each a small smile. They had more history they needed to talk about.

Back in my room, I finished the sandwich and laid on toy bed. The ceiling was no longer interesting to me. At a point in time it was, there were so many grooves that could be overlooked in a glance. Grooves I had studied to death.

In fact, the whole room had been studied to death. I knew of every single imperfection (there were only a few) and could recreate every paint stroke.

Nat tried to get me to read more. I could never find something I wanted to read. We tried several genres, I just couldn't connect with the characters.

I thought about painting. Or maybe that was something my bored brain came up with when staring at the plain ceiling above me. I could be like one of those Renaissance artists people always talk about.

The room was dark when I heard someone hurrying down the hall towards my room. I was sitting up by the time they made it to my door, not even bothering to knock. It was Nat's face that came into my sight.

"We have an idea."