The Mechanic

-Chapter Twelve-

Location: Central

"Femi?" I ask, biting the inside of my cheek.

"Stop talking," she says. I can hear the crooked brushing of her fingers across a fold of rough paper. She's sketching me. She asked me earlier if I would let her sketch me, and I agreed. The look on her face was enough to make the argument die in my throat.

I don't know exactly what she's sketching, or why. But I'm assuming that it has a lot to do with my tattoo, and even more to do with the raven in her soul.

Just assumptions, here. Goosebumps break out along my bare torso.

"Stop moving," she mumbles, and I turn my head around.

"Who are you to tell me what to do?"

She doesn't seem to like my joking. Her head snaps up, and she looks irritated.

"Stop talking. Turn around."

And I do. She made me answer my own question, as playful as I meant it to be. So I guess I get to listen to her. Because she's herself, and I have to listen to her... because she's herself.

"Could you please stop shivering?" I can hear her biting her tongue against the major number of other complaints I'm sure she's dying to loose.

"Would you like me to stop breathing, too?"

"If that would make you sit still, sure."

And she isn't joking.

I stop shivering.

"Almost done?"

"Please don't talk. It makes sketching you so much harder."

"You can't even see my face. How does it make it harder?"

"Stop talking," is all she says.

So I do. For a while, anyway.

She's been short all day, like she's running hard away from something in her mind. She's working her way away from a sickening thought, a monster in her mind.

Turning my head around for the briefest of moments, I see it in her eyes that are turned toward the paper in her lap.

The monster.

"It eats you alive, doesn't it?"

"What?" she asks, not looking up. She has her tongue sticking out in steady concentration, like that will make me believe that she isn't the least bit bothered.

"Your mind."

"Oh yes," she says quickly, gaze darting up. "It does. But in very small, irregular slices."

"Today?"

She shrugs. "Today." For a moment her eyes trail over my face, down my shoulders. "Now turn back around. I'm almost done, I promise."

Her "almost done" turns into ten minutes.

"You can move, now," she sighs, folding the paper with my picture on it up into a tidy rectangle. "I'm sorry I made you stay there, but I needed that."

I offer a smile, pulling my shirt over my head. "It doesn't bother me. You've seen me pretty bad. I don't have anything to hide."

"That isn't what I mean," she says. "I've never cared. You've always looked good. It's that... I needed the raven. Just for bit, you see? It's a nice thing to look at."

Honestly, I don't see. But I nod, because I can see how hard it is for her to try to explain. She can't manage her thoughts, she can't manage her words. They're like putty in her hands, but too much. They leak over and run through, melting and spilling until they're a mess at her feet.