Page 46 of In Somnis

I started drawing on walls instead. At least the walls notice.

They don’t love you, but they notice.

The graffiti started small. A tag here, a tag there, just to see if anyone looked. They didn’t, so I made them bigger and brighter. I started going out at night to the abandoned mill on the edge of town, where the walls were blank, and nobody cared what I did to them. I filled them up.

Still do.

What I can’t write, because writing was always the hard part, I can draw. I can say it in colors instead of sentences. Words feel like a test I never studied for. It’s like there’s a right way to line them up, a right way to sound, and I never quite get there. They slip, come out wrong, or not at all, but paint doesn’t care if you’re smart. Lines don’t judge. A wall doesn’t ask you to explain yourself.

You just put something down, and it’s there.

With a spray can in my hand, I don’t have to be understood. I just am.

Jasper hasn’t learned yet that his efforts are fruitless, and he may never. Maybe her Alzheimer’s diagnosis makes it easier, somehow, because he can tell himself she’d see him if she could, instead of facing the truth that she never would have.

My heart squeezes every time I watch him try, anyway.

Mabel catches my eye over their heads and gives me a small, knowing smile. Her locs, now mostly gray, are pulled back in a scarf. She and Mom have been best friends since childhood, and while she’s technically my boss and not my family, she’s the reason we’re still standing. If there’s anyone I owe my spine to, it’s her.

“What do you think, Sera?” She pats Mom’s arm gently. “Want to have another tea?”

“Tea would be great, thank you.” Mom is now staring at Jasper’s cards as if they are windows instead of cardboard.

Jasper lights up again, launching into a ramble about spreads and meanings while Mabel and I slip into the kitchen.

She reaches for the kettle and one of those disgusting herbal blends she insists are good for the nerves, while I lean against the counter and take another gulp of lemonade.

“So,” she says after a beat, keeping her voice mild. “When were you going to tell me about the chef quitting?”

I choke, nearly sending lemonade up my nose. “Right… now,” I lie once I can talk again. “I was just waiting for the perfect moment. You know, soft lighting, romantic music⁠—”

“Boy.”

“Maybe some candles⁠—”

“Nevan.”

I sigh. “Okay, I was hoping to fix it before you found out and killed me.”

“You know I see everything in that inn, right? Because it’s mine, even if you forget that sometimes. I know that the radiator in Room 6 is noisy and Table 7 has a wobble.”

I look down at my sneakers. The left one has a hole near the toe where the fabric has finally given up. Perfect. Even with dragging my ass to the logging company after every shift at the inn, I can’t afford to replace them. Not when I’m paying Mabel rent for the cottage, buying groceries, putting money aside for Jasper’s future, and paying Mom’s medical bills.

“I fixed the radiator yesterday,” I mutter. “I bled it and checked the pressure valve. Should be good now. And I fixed Table 7 this morning. Just needed the leg shimmed properly.”

She studies me, then steps closer and brushes a strand of hair out of my face like she’s done since I was small enough to stand under her elbow.

Now I’m so tall she has to rise onto her tiptoes to reach me.

“You’re good at that, you know.”

“At fixing things?” I shrug. “Yeah, I guess.”

“At taking care of people. At keeping this place running.” She steps back. “But you can ask for help, Nevan. You don’t have to carry the whole inn on your shoulders.”

There’s an unspoken, “And I don’t think you can,” tucked beneath her tone, and it stings that old, raw place in me.

Mabel thinks she knows all, but she has no idea how much I see that she doesn’t. The table and the radiator were only two things in a never-ending list. No one knows those rooms, those pipes, those squeaky floorboards better than I do. I’ve patched half the place myself with nothing but duct tape and YouTube.