TIME FOR A STORY - A GREY PAINTING

Hello there! This is the second instalment of my story. The first one was "The Dark Figure". So, click HERE and read part I before going on reading this post. Of course,  if you haven't done it yet or if you don't remember all the details. Enjoy!

She was on the train and looked out to the window. She tried to think about nothing but even when you think about anything you're literally thinking. Even though she  was  away, she believed she saw his shadow everywhere . She could not understand how he could have discovered her secret. She remembered the words that a person had  told her once: "what you hide the most is what shows more about yourself."

Although the wagon load was empty she felt all eyes on her. She was sure he knew. She was the kind of person who speaks very little about herself,  but at the same time she makes you understand everything. She had the extraordinary ability to understand others through a gesture. She knew when people were lying. She could feel it..  The more you try to hide the truth, the more it gets discovered. The truth is like that: it is visibly hidden  to all. No one knows how to tell perfect lies. When they lie, everybody has  a standard behaviour. It is in the nature of man. And in most cases, this behaviour is very similar in all of us.

Outside the window the landscape was always the same. A long landscape of white snow under a sky that was not a sky but a cloud of mist. There was no distinction between the sky and the earth; they were one. A gray-painting. It has been like this for weeks but it   has never rained. The train stopped. Jane could see everything but she actually saw  nothing. She kept thinking but   she did not know what else she could think about. Everything was real, he didn’t play at all and it wasn’t a joke. She thought how that trip to New York had changed not only her life, but even herself. She had taken  that trip to get away from everything and all she had was her  family. Jane had just finished her engineering studies, graduating with honors at the University of Boston

Instead of making her life more serene, her family had contributed to the contrary. Everything for her was an immense weight. She was the eldest of three children, and for this reason she had great responsibility. Although she was 25, she had a lot to tell. She had always been very reserved. She kept everything inside. But the last few years had made her extremely cold, almost insensitive.  Her parents separation and her mother’s cancer had made her adolescence hell. She had always been lost in her thoughts and when someone told her that she was above among the clouds, she replied she was not, that she was flying suspended by a parachute, because her mind was her parachute:  it only worked if it was opened. She loved reading and she was the kind of person who underlined phrases and she memorized them. When she was angry , she said, she wasn’t but involuntarily or not to create a cold distance from the others. She didn’t shout, she was not a vindictive person, but she kept you  away as she wanted to protect herself. It seems she couldn’t show any emotion but,  if you looked at her better, you could read in her eyes all she felt. She was like that: she was an open book written in a language only few knew.

 Detective Mark was in the car and he was going back home. He was thinking where he got wrong with that girl. He didn’t want to hurt her, only he wanted to help her because he knew the true story of her life, and because they had the same story.

ANGELA