Chapter 9

 Monday and Tuesday flew by, but Tuesday afternoon brought some excitement. Like Mrs Dillinger promised, her and Joshua were moving in to a house on the street next to ours. Father had told me about it because he had passed on his way home. 

        I asked him could I go, and he said yes, he'd bring me over later. 

        I waited...and waited...and waited...and finally! Father said he would take me over.

        I practically ran to the car, and Father asked “Izzy, are you alright?”

        “Yes, Father. Now can we please go?” I admit it. I was in a bit of a rush.

        It seemed like forever until we got to the house when in all actuality it was about 2 minutes. 

        When I stepped out of the car, now calm and collected, Joshua yelled “Izzy!” and ran to me.

        He almost knocked me over as he grabbed me into his arms and squeezed. Really hard.

        “Uh...Joshua...I can't breath.” I choked out. He let me go.

        “Oh my god, I'm sorry.” We laughed together. “What're you doing here?” He asks.

        “I wanted to come help...” Lie. Oh my gosh, I'm such a liar. If only he knew I just wanted to-

        “Well, come on then!” He grabbed my hand and pulled me to the door. “There's two steps, be careful.” I stepped up slowly, and we stepped through the door. It had that old but new house smell. That doesn't make much sense, but that's what it smelled like.  

        He gave me a tour of the house, in which I remembered but wouldn't be able to do on my own.

        We were now upstairs, and if I remembered correctly, no one else was up here with us. 

        “This is my bedroom.” He said. “I know you can't see, but I want you to help me paint it. We're going to do it this weekend.”

        “What color are you painting it?” I ask. I know that when I do come this weekend, I'll convince him not to let me paint. I can't see. It would ruin the whole room. 

        “First I'm going to paint the whole thing white, it's an ugly shade of brown right now, then I'm going to take a dark blue and just...throw it all over the walls.” He laughed. “I'm still working out the throwing part with mom, but she'll let me. It'll be almost like Picasso himself came in here and painted my walls.”

        “Picasso.” I said. Picasso was Mom's favorite artist. She had said that she loved how he 'just let himself go and threw his emotions onto the canvas'. She apparently had several of his paintings in her studio. But none of us go in there anymore. 

        “Yeah, Picasso. It'll be cool.”

        “I bet it will. Mom loved Picasso.” I say.

        “Thats really cool.” He squeezes my hand reassuringly and that's when I realize that he hadn't let go of my hand the whole time I'd been here. I thought it was weird, the way our hands were just slightly cupped together, so I rotated my hand and interlaced my fingers through his.

        There was a pause, and then with a laugh Joshua said “I'm smiling.”