Monochrome: 14

Kieran sat in his vacant apartment, sketching furiously on his pad of paper. He sat on the cold wood floor, the apartment lit only by the sunlight shining through the windows. The sky was white with clouds, and it rained faintly. The buzzer hummed at his door. He put his sketchbook down and went to answer it.

“Hey,” the girl at the door said. “It’s been a while.”

“Yeah,” Kieran answered. He welcomed her in.

She was almost as tall as Kieran, with sandy blonde hair and red eyes (a case of ocular albinism). Comparatively, she was much younger. She brought in a bag of groceries.

“You never have enough food here,” she said, unpacking the bag on the counter.

“Thanks.”

Kieran walked over and helped her put the groceries away. Afterwards, he sat against the wall, and the girl sat at the counter.

“…how are you doing?” Kieran asked.

“Better. What about you?”

“I don’t know,” Kieran said.

“You said you wanted to talk about something. That’s rare,” the girl said, opening a bottle of juice.

“Yeah… I guess,” he replied.

“So… what’s going on?” she asked.

“I… don’t know,” Kieran muttered.

“Bzzt. No repeat answers.”

Kieran sat quietly, for a moment. He stood up and walked over to his sketchbook, picking it up. He handed it to the girl.

“Here.”

She stared at him with a confused look on her face, and took the pad. She flipped through the pages slowly.

“Is this…?”

“Yes. There’s more…” he said, leading her to the storage closet. He slid open the door and turned the light on. He pulled out canvases from the racks.

“…goddamn.”

“I… don’t really know what to make of this,” Kieran said.

“I can see why. When did this all start…?”

“About four or five months ago. Not sure. I had more, but… I got rid of it.”

She looked at him. His eyes were narrow and his mouth was frowning, slightly.

“He doesn’t know, does he?”

“No.”

“You’re not going to tell him.”

“No… I’m not.”

She paused, and asked, “Do you want to talk about it?”

“I don’t know, Devlin.”