Member-only story
A new girl. A shy girl. A girl looking to change, blossom, grow. Can she do it on her own?
Most likely not, but with a little help she will understand the power of the Amazing Barto…
Written by Rebecca Milton
Published by AmorBooks
“I want to paint you,” Barto said to me one day as I walked up the front steps heading into our building. “You are like an angel tossed out of heaven and sent to buy groceries.”
I had moved into the building a year and a half ago and Barto was the first person I met. He lived across the hall from me. The building was in a supposedly bad side of town and the rent was incredibly cheap.
I lived, as did Barto and all the tenants, in large loft spaces. Each floor of the seven story building was divided into two apartments. Barto and I shared the top floor. The side of town was not bad at all and I was very happy there. I had met Barto that first day in the same manner as I did the day he said he wanted to paint me. I was walking up the steps, he was sitting on the steps smoking his pipe. I dropped a bag and some oranges fell out, he picked them up and handed them to me, but he kept one.
“I’m keeping this,” he said, “not out of malice or hunger, but because I loved the way it fell from the bag. I…
