Read Paint Me Beautiful for Free Online

illuminate a pair of twin beds that come up out of the floor like they've just grown from the tree itself. There are two benches, built the same way. All the furniture is fluid, connected to the floor and walls, shaped with careful hands and time.
    “ Wow,” I say as Emmett grunts and pulls himself up beside me.
    “ Nice, huh?” he asks and offers no explanation. “Come on, the best views are over here.” The ceiling is low so we crawl across the smooth wooden floor on our hands and knees, navigating through pine needles and small twigs. It's pretty obvious that nobody's been here in awhile but that once this place was well loved. It's a bit sad in a way.
    “ Come here often?” I ask although I already know the answer to that question.
    “ Not anymore,” Emmett tells me as he pauses next to another glassless window and points out at the horizon. “Look.” I crawl up beside him and grab the edges of the wood, thrusting my head and shoulders out before I even take in the pale, white wisps of far off mountain peaks. I want to be empty and weightless. I want to drop from this window and rise into the sky like a cloud, let the wind blow me away. I want to be so light upon my feet that even Mother Earth herself questions if I walk on her back.
    “ Beautiful,” I say, stretching out just a bit more, taking in the plump, shapely form of the moon who has no shame at her size, her curves. Once a month though, she changes into that tiny sliver of lunette, that itty-bitty slice of beauty that doesn't need substance to be pretty.
    “ Whoa there,” Emmett says, gripping my upper arm firmly. The shiny fabric of the jacket rustles as I turn my head to look at him. “Careful. One of my cousins actually fell from this very spot once.”
    “ Did he die?” I ask, hating the sound of my own voice. What kind of question is that to ask someone I've just met? He's just shown me his world; I should be respectful. Emmett pulls me gently inside the window and sits back, wrapping his arms around his knees.
    “ Nope,” he says, but he isn't smiling when he says this. “He can't walk without help though. He used to be in a wheelchair, but he's stubborn as hell, so now he uses a cane.” I sit back, too, and lean against the wall behind me. I can still see out the window, still take in the rolling blanket of trees and the cover of darkness that suits me so well tonight.
    “ Is that why you stopped coming here?” I ask him, keeping my gaze on the view and away from Emmett's face. It's suddenly just struck me how incredibly intimate this moment is, like it should be shared between people with history, not people who've just met.
    “ Nah,” Emmett says, and from the corner of my eye I can see that he's adjusting his beanie again. “When we started outgrowing the beds, when we didn't even fit on the floor in our sleeping bags anymore, that's when we stopped coming.” He pauses. “Though I think our minds outgrew the space before our bodies really did, you know?” I don't, but I don't say anything. I stay quiet for awhile. It's cold up here, colder than it was down below it seems and I shiver, wrapping my arms around myself to still my tired body. Emmett clears his throat. “I know we just met and all, but is there something you want to talk about? You seem a bit down.” My head snaps over to his face. In this light, I can see the slightest hint of stubble on his chin.
    “ I'm fine,” I lie, wondering what it is that's wrong with me exactly. Am I consumed by desire? Am I too single-minded about the path my life should take? I don't have any answers, so I just shrug off the implications in his question and my own. “What about you? This seems like the sort of place someone would go to escape or to run away.”
    “ Yeah, I guess so, but that's okay every once in awhile, isn't it?”
    “ This is the weirdest first date I've ever been on,” I blurt. Emmett smiles.
    “ Same here.”
    “ Then why did you bring me up