by Ani San
Copyright 2013 © Ani San
All rights reserved
This novel is a work of fiction, and any resemblance to actual persons or events is completely coincidental.
For more information about the novel, please visit http://anipanisan.wordpress.com
Cover Design by Ani San
Breathe
By Ani San
She got chased, and tried to put up a fight.
She should have fought harder, cause the love almost killed her.
Chapter 1
To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.
- Oscar Wilde
You can sense it right away, the connection. Even if you only see from a distance, you can feel it. The emotions, the arousal, the thrill and the desire to hunt. When the eyes meet, the body extinguish signals unconsciously, which affect your blood, heart and breathe. The adrenaline rises, the pulse seems to explode outside the body, and you start to feel weightless. The gravity changes, and you are no longer pulled downward, but instead you are being drawn to that other person like a magnet. Everyone else around you disappear, every sound is quiet. Everything happens in that split second when your eyes meet. The whole world stops for one heartbeat. But when the eye contact is broken, so is the magic. And the room is suddenly as crowded as before, and every sound hits you back in full.
It was raining hard. The streets were filling up with water, and outside the city a thunderstorm was hitting the suburbs. The clouds over London had been heavy for days, saving themself so that everything could be dropped at once. Most of the people invited came before the outbreak. The less fortunate ran the short distance between the cab and the entrance. And then you had the socialites, which were escorted by private drivers under gigantic umbrellas. We had some of them. Maybe because the spring hadn’t had that many events, and this was just an excuse to get out. Or maybe because some of them genuine loved art. Some probably came because the main exhibitor was ‘up and rising.’ Kiro Sano (or Kevin Swanson which was his real name) has already had a spread in a trendy magazine, and the promotion there made him almost sold out before the exhibition. In fact, Mary-Ann, our agent/teacher had him make a couple of new ones just for this show. He had bitched some because of that, since we were being rated not on sales, but of quality. And he had a week to put together at least three new pieces to replace the ones he had sold. But his name dragged a lot of people to this student graduation exhibition.
I bet most of them came to see and be seen. The rumour was that a certain TV-star was attending. Not much of a rumour per says, since he is the brother of one of the artist graduating. We kind of expected him to come, and were quite excited about it. But following that rumour was the speculation of who else was coming. And everybody knew who Andrew Swanson’s best friend was.
Andrew Swanson was one of the first to arrive. The main hall was buzzing with people wanting to meet him and see him. Right now he was one of the hottest bad-guys on British television. He got more attention than the seven paintings surrounding the main hall. All of them Kiro’s paintings of course. Four other students had their graduation exhibition also, but their artworks were displayed in smaller rooms connecting the main hall. I was one of them. After two years at the Royal Collage of Art it was finally time for graduation. I wasn’t happy about it, I liked the university. School gave me a kind of purpose, and made me go out and interact with other people. Without it I was afraid of locking myself away from the world. Now I didn’t know where to go next. I hadn’t picture a life as an artist, not now, and not two years ago. The School had given me a reason to move to London, and I wasn’t ready to go home yet. Nothing was waiting in the cold north.
‘Sara, you look gorgeous!’ said a well-known voice behind me. I turned around and smiled to Alice, my best friend. Her short dark hair was spiky as usual, and she was wearing a gold tunic, which sparkled in the bright-lit room.
‘No, you look gorgeous!’ I answered, and we both laugh, since we both had helped each other get ready for the evening. She was holding two champagne glasses, and handed me one of them. Alice is half a foot lower than me, and would have easily disappeared in the crowed if it weren’t for that outgoing personality of hers. I had been depended on her since the day I arrived in London. In fact, she was the one who had met me at the airport and made sure I found my way around. She was the one who dragged me to parties and introduced me to everybody, and made me kind of sociable. I have a tendency to hide myself. Now we were standing by the wall not far from the entrance, eying the people that came through the door. Alice chattered about the clothes and hairstyles, some people were clearly overdressed for the occasion, and she had a few well-put words about some of them.
Alice is 27, four years my senior, but she didn’t always behave as such. I got a glimpse of myself in the reflection of the window, and wondered if she would have said the same about me if we didn’t know each other. My hair was rolled up in a loose knot, and chestnut curls hung framing my face. It wasn’t usually this curly, Alice had helped me make it so earlier. Around my neck I had a red necklace of small pearls, with a bronze plate as a pendant. The dress I was wearing was a little more revealing in the front than I normally liked. It was blood red with tiny strops. Two silver bands crossed above the waist, giving the dress a touch of ancient Greece. The dress was almost to the floor, and I was wearing high heels to avoid tripping in it. I might be overdressed, but I felt mighty fine.
‘Oh My God’, Alice exclaimed, and I automatically raised my eyes to the entrance. We were standing on an elevation that ran along the whole wall, so it was fairly easy to see who was coming and going. Kiro’s brother had made sure of the attendance of many high names, and I have already seen a couple from his TV-series. They were gathering together in clicks and gossiping, not paying that much attention to the paintings on the wall. It wasn’t one of them Alice had reacted to. It was to the couple that had just crossed the threshold into the hall. I had heard the rumour of course, we all had. That he might show. But we never believed that she would too. But then again, why not. Every newspaper and magazine always had a shoot of them together at different events. They always went together. They were the perfect couple. Movie star Christopher Petrelli and his wife Julia von Berg Petrelli. She had won awards for her last movie, The Pending. And he was almost as much on the top 10 list over ‘most sexy’ as she was. I had read somewhere that it was impossible to find a scandal on the couple. In an interview a paparazzi told how he had followed Christopher for three months in the hope of a story. When he finally shot a picture of Christopher with another girl, it turned out to be Petrelli’s sister. So he gave up and went to lie in a bush in Hollywood. You could make a fortune there just by climbing the right tree. The paparazzi in Britain were not as invasive as they were in the states, maybe because of what happened to princess Diana, but there were occasions when they climbed some trees here too. I couldn’t imagine living a life where every step you took was watched by huge camera lenses. But on this gathering, the only photographers allowed were the students from the journalism department. I had seen them earlier nervously snapping pictures of this and that, mostly the celebrity, secondary the exhibition. Now they were squeezed together besides the entrance to get the best angel to shoot the new arrivals.
At first, my eyes only focused on the woman. Julia von Berg Petrelli was more beautiful in real life than on the screen. Maybe not a fair comparison, in the last movie she played an overweight serial killer. I read in Elle that she had gained over 40 pounds to play the part, but only spent five weeks to get her figure back. The magazine had fresh pictures, and she looked fabulous. Alice was thinking the same thing.
‘Do you remember the article with the pictures, and how I said that they were probably overly retouched?’ Sh
e didn’t wait for an answer: ‘I guess I was wrong.’
Julia was wearing a white dress with a low cut (suddenly mine didn’t feel so bad anymore), and a split up the right thigh. Her golden hair was curly and cut sharp right above the shoulders. The makeup was sparkling gold, and she had the pose of a tall fairy. Or ice queen. I was so put back by her beauty that I didn’t see him at first. He was standing in her shadow, one arm around her waist, the other one locked in her hand. I saw her drop his hand to greet some of the people who came towards them. It seemed most of the room were drawn towards the entrance. It was as she dropped her husband’s arm that I noticed him. And my heart jumped a couple of times. I had seen him before of course, in magazines and movie screens. But this was different. I couldn’t take my eyes of him. All of him. His white shirt, which was open in the neckline. His jawline was masculine, his face had a light tan. His mouth was moist and smiling. The dark hair was shaggy, and I wonder how it felt to let my fingers glide through it. He was talking to several people as they slowly made their way into the hall. I followed his every move. I still couldn’t take my eyes of him.
Maybe he noticed, or maybe it was a coincident, but when my eyes moved to his they connected. He was standing about seven feet away, staring me straight in the eyes. Then he slowly started to move towards me, still surrounded by too many people. Our eyes still locked together. My pulse accelerated, my heart beat harder, struggling to move the blood racing through my body. My legs got weaker, the surroundings blurry, and every sound in the room disappeared. For just a few seconds the earth stopped moving. I felt drawn to him. He had dark eyes. They looked pondering, like he knew me, but not of me. It felt like he was looking into me, into my soul, and I felt exposed. But in a good way, I wanted him inside me. I welcomed him.
He was only a few feet away when the magic was broken, and he turned away. Someone had dragged him out of the connection, made him turn. Suddenly all the noise hit back in full, and the room seemed crowded again. I felt my face redden, as the heat of the body raced to my cheeks. It was Julia who snapped him out of it. His wife. Probably to introduce him to someone. I turned my eyes towards the floor. For a few moments I had forgotten about her. For a few moments I had forgotten about everybody else but him. And when she grabbed his hand, his wedding ring hand, it was a natural thing. Of course the magic was broken. It wasn’t real magic. It was a dream, and I needed a reality check.
‘Sara!’ Alice’s voice was demanding, and I try to focus, still feeling woozy. ‘Did you see, Sara? The Petrelli’s are here, both of them! Kiro said they might stop by, but I didn’t believe that. Ohmygod! They are here and they are real. I am going towards them to see if anyone I know can introduce me. Are you coming?’
She was already stepping down towards the floor. I shook my head, still too shaken to get any words out. I wished for more champagne in my glass.
‘Oh, you must come. This is a once in a lifetime opportunity. You have to! I’m going now, are you coming?’ She puts on her demanding face, the one she usually saves for the times when she thinks I need a push. Like when I am afraid to speak in front of class, or are to chicken to ask someone out, or when I have my dark days and lock myself up for days. Now Alice had the same fierce look that said ‘you are doing this, or else…’ It’s hard to say no to that face, so I nod slightly, although I don’t really mean it. I can’t go near them now. Not with all these feelings racing in my body. If I react like that just because of some eye contact, could you imaging my reaction to actually talking to him?
Alice walked away and assumed I would follow, but I leaned my back against the wall for support. The feelings I had, I hadn’t felt like that in years. I was probably just star struck, but still. My heart was racing.
After giving myself a couple of minutes, I started circulating the hall, walking slowly around without stopping to talk to anyone. I snapped a new glass of champagne from a passing waiter. All the while, my eyes flickered involuntary towards the centre where he was standing. Other people always surrounded him, and I see him smiling and chatting like a normal person. But he doesn’t look normal. He is too good looking to belong on earth. It’s ok when you see them on the big screen, because you know the movie isn’t real. Having him here seemed kind of wrong, like the reality wasn’t that real anymore. I tried to take my eyes of him. I tried to focus on the surroundings instead. The main hall was about 700 square feet, and held maybe 120 people. Most of them were talking to each other in small groups, only a few were standing in front of the paintings. I moved slowly around the room, trying not to look at him, finding it impossible not to. He was standing with his back to me, one hand in his pocket, and the other one busy shaking the hands of different people. Halfway around the room, when I could see his profile, he turned. Although the room was filled with a mass of heads, I could see him clearly. And then our eyes connected for a brief second before I looked down towards the floor. I could feel my cheeks redden again, as I was caught staring. But then I thought that he was probably used to people staring, so I raised my chin and kept walking, stealing glimpses all the same. He probably noticed, because the next time our eyes met, he smiled crookedly. That was enough to snap me out of it. I was behaving like a drooling teenager. Time to stop.
I was as far from the entrance you could get, and the room I had been assigned was close by. So I escaped there. My room wasn’t nearly as grand as the space Kiro had been assigned, but it was a nice space for my four pictures. The room was about 70 square feet, with white painted walls and a stone floor. The lighting was mainly focused on the paintings, which gave the room a gloomy, mystic look. I had chosen my most colourful paintings for this exhibition, all of them abstract with the nuance of blue, lilac and yellow. If you looked carefully, you might see the shape of a person in Melancholy, or a house in the picture Shelter. I also added some text to most of my pictures; phrases and quotes I found inspiring. The paintings were more about emotions than everything else.
There weren’t anybody else in my room, and I didn’t know how to feel about that. I was glad to be alone, the hall was too pressing with people. But then again, my pictures were here to be seen, and hopefully sold. Not for the money, I couldn’t care less about that. But selling would be a sort of acknowledgement, like what I did mattered.
The short hallway separating my room and the great hall was a small archway, just wide enough for two persons to pass at once. I went to stand in the opening facing the mass, trying not to look for him. I said hi to Peter, as he snapped a picture of me while passing. He had horn-rimmed glasses, and was dressed in a white shirt with a narrow black tie. He looked very much like a journalist, and even had a pencil behind his left ear. I went out with him once, after Alice dared me to. But after a night of awkward silence, neither one of us wanted to repeat the experience. I’m not much of a dater.
Alice was standing with Kiro and his brother Andrew. The TV-star. The whole thing was surreal. I had known Kiro for two years, and although he is kind of weird in a genius way, he always seemed like an ordinary human being. We all knew who his brother was, but he never made a big deal out of it. He was one of us.
I saw Mary-Ann standing with a couple in front of one of Kiro’s pictures, hopefully making a sale. Good to see someone actually interested in the paintings. My eyes keeps drifting, searching involuntary until I find him. He was still in the middle of the hall, his wife stands next to him, holding his arm. She is taller than him, I noted. But still, they looked good together. I felt a pinch of jealousy, not only because she was holding him, but also because they had something, they had each other.
I tried to look away, but my eyes kept returning to him. Maybe he noticed again, cause while I was standing there daydreaming, he turned toward me. I was so lost in my own thoughts that I forgot to look away. And when our eyes connect, I was consumed. My breath stopped, and I felt the hair on my body rise. There was an unfamiliar tingling down my spline as I watch him gaze at me, moving his eyes from my feet to my head. All the w
hile his mouth twitches with that crooked smile. I felt appalled. And maybe a little turned on. Maybe more than a little. His eyes had accessed my body, I could feel it in his stare. And he seemed pleased. Finally my eyes let go of him and move to the floor, and I feel the familiar burn, as my cheeks became firing red. I don’t know if he was still looking at me as I raise my eyes again. I turned my face in a different direction, to avoid any more confrontations while my mind contemplate what just happened. It is stupid to think that he was a accessing me, he was standing next to a sexbomb. Although, I did feel fine tonight. The dress fit perfect. It had taken me a long time to be comfortable with my own body again, I finally felt in control. Most of the time, anyway. I wonder what he was thinking. Not important, I argued myself. But he did seem pleased. This was getting me nowhere. I glanced over to Alice and found her with the same group. Kiro sees me, and motion me over. Desperate for a distraction, I leave my safe haven and goes among the swarm of people.
‘Sara, you have to meet my brother. Andrew, this is Sara from Norway. You must see her paintings, the lights and contrast are amazing. Her style is like an abstract combination of Franz Marc and Monet. And she adds a whole new dimension to them by adding text. You have to see them.’
I blushed lightly of his underserved praise and took Andrew’s hand while Kiro continued: ‘Vi had to cooperate on an assignment once, and although we had our disputes working together, the final product was amazing, wasn’t it, Sara?’
Andrew had taken my hand, not to shake it, but to kiss it gallantly like in old movies. In fact, I think I’ve seen one of his characters do it on TV. It was hard to find the voice to answer Kiro.
‘It turned out alright.’ I turned back to Andrew. ‘Your brother can be quite the challenge some times, but he is a genius. It is nice to meet you, Andrew.’ I smiled to him, half wondering why he doesn’t make me as star struck like his friend. After all, I was standing next to a man belonging on the TV screen.