Free The Other Side of Envy: The Ghost Bird Series: #8 (The Academy) by C. L. Stone

stepped outside. My eyes drifted from him, to the room around us.
    There was a large dresser pressed up against one wall, and on top of it a collection of brushes, a large jewelry box, the front piece open to reveal dozens of different earrings, all crystals in different colors. There was a table against another wall, with one side covered in notebooks and folded clothes. On the other side was a collection of glass vials, some corked and some open and clean. Some had liquid in them in various colors.
    All of the walls, nearly every inch, were covered in a painted mural depicting a forest grove. There was a doe hiding behind one of the trees, songbirds in the branches, and a calm pool, the shadows of fish under the surface.
    So real. I wanted to reach out and touch the leaves, the water, the animals. I felt if I moved, I’d scare the birds. It was a quiet, serene world in his bedroom.
    His twin-sized bed was pressed along to the wall, under three windows, bare and showing the real South Carolina forest outside. The windows faced East so morning light filtered in. The mural and the trees blended into one another, so the rest of the room look like it was set within the trees.
    It was all perfect, except for one section of the room where the wall was white, where the mural was incomplete.
    Gabriel dropped my book bag onto the floor by the dresser. “Will you stop gawking? Shit. Now I want to paint over it all.”
    I spun on him. “Why in the world would you do that?” I didn’t mean to sound so shocked, but I was scared to death that he would.
    “Because it doesn’t look right,” he said.
    I gaped. “What do you mean it doesn’t look right?”
    “It’s a bunch of trees. It’s boring. And I can’t figure out how I want to finish. There’s no centerpiece.” He pointed to the barren section of white wall. “It’s like the tenth mural I’ve done and I can never figure out what to put here.”
    “What did you have in mind when you started?” I asked.
    Ten murals? How much did he paint? No wonder he was so good at it.
    Gabriel shoved his fingers through the blond locks in his hair. “Shit, I don’t know. I just start painting and the next thing I know, it’s almost done.”
    “I like it,” I said quietly.
    His cheeks tinted and he lifted his gaze to meet mine. “You do?”
    I couldn’t believe he’d think it was terrible. I sought out flaws but found none, save that it was still incomplete. “I’m jealous. Do you think Nathan would want his room painted like this?” I didn’t want to ask Gabriel to do work, or impose on Nathan to paint his bedroom without asking him first. Still, I’d love a bedroom mural.
    His lips twisted. “Don’t be a tease.”
    “I’m not! I’d want a forest in my room. With birds and deer...”
    “I can’t. Nathan wanted me to do his wall once, but Kota said I had to think of the resale value. I told him it was bullshit since we could paint over it, but he also said Nathan’s dad wouldn’t like it.” He lifted at his hand, brushing a fingertip over his eyebrow. “Maybe I could now that his dad is halfway around the globe, but Nathan would probably want a gross zombie.”
    “Maybe we could ask?” Then I clamped my lips shut. I liked the idea of painting, but they were Nathan’s walls. Gabriel was right that Nathan might want a scary zombie. Then I’d never sleep.
    He sat on the bed, leaning back on his hands and nudging his toe into the carpet. “It’s best I don’t. I’ll fuck it up and then you’d end up with a shitty mural.”
    I sat down next to him on the bed. I studied the trees, the way the light worked through the real window and how it blended so well. “Your forest is perfect.”
    “It’s not finished.”
    “Not yet,” I said. “Paint a big tree. Or two. Remember the two big oak trees in the woods behind Kota’s house?”
    “The one with all the nettle around it?” he asked.
    I nodded. “Yeah. That was pretty, wasn’t it?”
    He sighed,