Discovered by My Stepbrother

I finished unpacking, putting my two small cases of clothes away in the huge closet while getting used to the idea that this was going to be home for the next few months. I wish I’d known in advance so I could have at least packed appropriately.

Looking out at my little patio, I wondered if Austin would let me stay longer than that? Since it turned out that it was actually kinda fun to hang out with him, and with Mom and Dad abandoning me 3,000 miles from home without so much as running it by me first I wasn’t exactly feeling like going back to live with them.

I pulled my laptop out of it’s case and headed back to the room that Austin had had turned into a home office. I pushed the door open and found myself in the mother of all man caves.

“Holy shiiiiiit.” I let out an appreciative whistle. Austin turned around to look at me as if he had no clue what I might be referring to.

The room was a decent size for the overall size of the house, but still not very big. I walked in and found myself standing behind a soft leather couch that faced a giant flat screen TV— “How big is that thing?”

“That’s what she said…ba duh dump!” Austin turned back around to face the giant monitor. He was holding his game controls in his hands, but he’d been playing with the sound muted. He laughed at his joke and paused his game. When I didn’t respond, he turned back to face me again and this time laughed at my open jaw. “It’s 130 inches. I had it custom made for the wall. It was the biggest I could put in here without warping the image.” His eyes fell on the puny little 15 inch folded laptop that I had cradled in my arms like a baby.

“You wanna plug that in?” He asked.

I snapped out of my stupor. The flat screen dominated the wall and made the room look like a private movie theater. I didn’t know they could make TVs that big. “Yeah.” I looked around at the desk with the computer equipment on it and my heart took flight at the sight of the big screen monitors. “I was hoping I could use your monitor?” I asked hesitantly.

I knew this was Austin’s “office” and he needed all the computer equipment for his work, but I was hoping I wouldn’t have to spend the rest of the summer working on my laptop. It’s so much easier to work on a bigger screen.

Austin was already at the computer, moving his personal stuff and reaching for my laptop. Soon he had it all connected and was powering up my system. I was still mesmerized by the giant wall of colored lights. It amazed me that at that size, the resolution still looked perfect. I was about to ask if that had been custom made too when I caught Austin staring at my monitor.

He was so intent on what he was seeing that I rushed to his side, worried that I’d left something open that might be incriminating. Until I realized I didn’t have anything incriminating on my computer.

I had to move in close behind him to see what he was seeing. I could smell his special blend of soap and cologne and Austin and I could feel the heat coming off of him as I stood just behind him, close enough to rest my cheek against his arm.

I stood on my tippy toes for a good look at the screen that was tilted back far so that it was in his line of sight.

All I saw was my wallpaper image.

It was one of my favorites, a dark night sky scene that shattered into thousands of smaller fragments as though it had been nothing more than a snow globe that had been hit with a hammer. Each piece of shattered sky showed the concave reflection of a girl’s face. It was the same girl in each piece, but each face showed a different expression. The pieces stretched out like they were exploding away from the viewer, infinitely into space awash in deep hues of purple and blue.

But that didn’t explain Austin’s fixation.

I looked up at him quizzically, “Is something wrong?” Austin knows so much about computers, all I really know is how to create my art. My stomach dropped and churned. If something was wrong with my computer, I could lose a lot of original work that I hadn’t been able to back up yet.

“Where’d you find this picture?” Austin asked without looking away from it.

“It’s mine.” I thought the duh was sufficiently implied by my tone.

Austin turned his head to look down at me, “Yours?” He sounded like he genuinely did not understand the meaning.

I sighed maybe a little more dramatically than was necessary. I certainly hadn’t spent any of the last few years following any of his goings on— I hadn’t even recognized him when I first saw him— so I guess it wasn’t surprising that he hadn’t been paying attention to me either. But still. It’s my art. It’s like, the only thing I have going for me in the whole world.

“Mine.” I repeated with more emphasis on the possessive and less implied duh, “I did it. That’s my work.”

Was that admiration that I saw creep into his gaze? Something new moved into his stormy gray eyes, something that made my inner places go all warm and wet again. “This is your artwork? Do you have any more?”

I was glad for an excuse to move out from under his eyes, I sat down at the desk and pulled up the file with the new works and flipped through them.

Austin watched the images scroll across my small screen and then he reached over and turned on one of the 32 inch monitors he’d just connected to my laptop. I continued to scroll through the scenes: reds and oranges with winding ribbons through space, deep indigos for the creepy forest one, a collection of browns for a piece featuring random shoes on a tree of life theme.

Suddenly he reached for a remote and there were my images! In full uber-high def on that ginormous flat screen wall.

Even I had to stop and gawk at that. I’d never seen my work blown up that big before. It was awesome. Not “awesome” like people say “awesome” all the time, but awesome. As in I was just staring at my own art with my mouth hanging open like I’d never seen it before.