"You do realise that you're the first person here right?"

"Whaaaaaat....? When did this place get so unpopular?" I say with probably not the most charming smile.

"Aneesa, it's quarter to 11." deadpans while unlocking the glass door. "We're not even open yet." She informs me and I laugh shyly, shamelessly going in before her. Leema is probably the best, most punctual employee here and I say that not only because she's the only one her I see when I come this early but because she never gives me dirty looks for being greedy with the benches.

Bloody Judgemental damp carpets.

"I come to see you!" I tell her and she rolls her eyes.

"What? You're beautiful, you have shiny hair!" She scoffs and flips her long, curly brown hair. "You have soft looking caramel brown skin, and awesome dentition." I tell her and she smiles widely.

"I did win best smile in my final year prom at the academy." She says and I nod enthusiastically. "You're probably the most annoying person ever." She says with an airy laugh. "And you don't even realize that you're here before the security do you?"

"It's not my fault that Jon has no bloody concern for punctualit—"

I feel a sudden draft signifying that the door is open. He's here.

"Oh, hello Jon! Looking beautifully sharp today." I say, trying not to cringe at how high my voice sounded.

He rolls his eyes at me and grumbles incoherently, taking off his black coat and goes to the storage room to hang it.

I must also add that leema is probably the most tolerant person I've ever met but unfortunately I can't say the same for Jon.

He continues grumbling all the way back to his post in front of the door with his security's cap on to complete his uniform, which would be hard to tell if I couldn't hear him, seeing as his salt and pepper moustache is fluffy enough to not let you see any slight mouth movements.

"No one gets him cussing the way you do aneesa." Maya says with a loud laugh.

"How'd you know he's cussing?" I ask her, genuinely curious.

"Oh, once you get used to his encounters with the drunk blokes your ears learn to pick it up." She says and walks to the front desk desk.

"Oh, and I hope you know that you're helping with the lights and heaters since you're so keen to be here to early." She tells me and I groan. This is the second time she's made me do this and I can't tell you how many light switches there are in this whole gallery.

"Where's the other employees?" I groan but it just gets a laugh out of her.

"Well seeing as you're so enthusiastic about being here so early and you're such a pain in all our arses..."

I groan once more for good measure.
"Dirty extortionists."

—

"Is this seat tak—"

"Yes."

"Well wh—"

"Best friend."

"Whe"

"Bathroom."

He's quiet for a moment so I close my book, right at the moment Percy is almost stabbed by bastard Luke, and look at him.

He has a number two face. The one they tend to have after the confusion but before they realise I'm lying because let's be honest, they all know I'm lying some of them are just more gutsy than the others.

His eyes are narrowed and he's looking back and forth between me and all the space of the bench covered by my personal items.

I showcase a toothy grin. "Bathroom emergency."

He frowns one last time and just leaves, probably deciding that it's probably better not to sit next to the crazy ass girl that would come to the art gallery to read a book anyway.

I have to say, I can't blame him.

"And here is one of our most popular sculptures," leema's voice catches my attention and I turn to see her several paces away in front of a huge brass sculpture that's even taller than her. "It was made by a Norwegian mixed media artist and sculptor, known his restraint that you can always notice when observing his amazingly refined art pieces, it was probably one of..."

Leema has this amazing way of talking and capturing your attention that you can just never miss. There's something just so enthralling about her voice and how confidently she speaks and I can't tell whether she developed it from years of working here or if she was born with it.

I probably have the worst attention span but she's manage to capture me too, along with the small crowd in front of her, listening attentively and taking pictures of the huge sculpture.

It must've been really hard to get it in here as it's probably higher than 2 metres and made out of brass. It's a dynamic structure that's supposed to resemble a woman under a cloth so you wouldn't see her face besides a faint outline of her facial features and the feminine silhouette. It's a hard piece to understand because if you don't look at it the right angle you'd never even tell it's supposed to resemble a person. Honestly, I didn't know either until Leema told me.

But if you look at it correctly it's look like a woman struggling to find her way under a cloth that seems to have no opening.

It really was one of the most popular pieces and had everyone that came in here was somehow always drawn to it, so much so that in every time ne of the tours they did here they always ended with this piece and the observers would linger even after leema or one of the other consultants were done.

"And with that, I announce the end of this exhibition tour, I hope you all have a good day." Leema says to them with a huge smile and somehow, you could tell that she loved her job and it filled her heart every day.

And now is the best part of my day here, the part where Leema is done, not realizing that she put so much heart into a tour some employees hated leading, that somehow, she made even the most small minded people enjoy art and it managed to amaze everyone that witnessed it.

They all start clapping and she laughs, looking at her feet shyly and says many thanks.

I join in clapping and whooping and she laughs even louder and thanks them again before leaving them to walk towards me.

"You need to stop flattering me, this wasn't a performance you know!" She says and sits with me, snatching my hands to stop me clapping.

"What?! Do you even know how good you were?!"

"I mustn't have been that good." She says, beaming.

"Trust me you were." I assure her, mirroring her smile.

"And don't think I saw you from over there." She changes her tone and I know that I'm about to receive a scolding.

"What? I didn't do anything!" I turn the defensive notch to seven.

"You've been scaring people away again!" She says while shaking her head.

"No!" I lie. "He changed his mind and decided he wanted to sit elsewhere..."

"I told you you can't do that!" She squeezes my hand tightly even though I try to wring them away but she squeezes them even more. "The manager will have my arse if he knows You're doing this on my time."

"He won't know!"

That manager is probably the most bloody scary man I've ever seen in my life. I don't blame her for treating me so awfully.

"Five people could sit here!"

"Five is French for me!" I cry out.

"No it's not!" She says angrily and I laugh by mistake which earns me a painful pinch and earns her a loud ' shit, ouch!'

I really should stop coming where I'm unjustly punished.

-🌸-

Alright. So the picture I attached is a sculpture made by this American sculptor Paige Bradley. I generally hate statues because they give me the creeps but I love her sculptures because they're brass and they're just so dynamic.

Anyway, her sculptures are the inspiration for the one I mentioned in the chapter.