Planes

Hurt

Lucy led me down the hallway toward the garage. It felt like an eternity before we reached the heavy white wooden door. Lucy placed a small hand on the dark handle and then turned to me. Her emerald eyes are filled with mischief and worry. She crouches down low and motions me to come forward. The whole thing feels like we're on a secret mission and we're about to enter a top-secret room that is filled with all kinds of government secrets.

"What I am about to show you..." Lucy says in a loud whisper, "Is really just a garage full of paintings and art supplies." She says in a normal voice standing up and laughing at me. I shake my head and scoff at her.

"You should've seen your face." Lucy says and lightly giggles. She opens the garage and its pitch black. Lucy pads softly into the dark and flips a light switch and the room is flooded with neon artificial white light. The garage floor is covered with a giant tarp and has every color of paint splashed everywhere. Anywhere you look you can see an unfinished painting, or a blank canvas. I stroll into the room, trapped in awe. There's so much to look at and I feel like I have so little time. I turn my head and see the painting up on the easel and all she has painted upon this canvas so far is a pair of very beautiful blue-green eyes. The lashes don't look like they belong to a woman. They're too natural and not covered in that black crap ladies put on.

"Oh! Don't look at that one!" Lucy shouts and comes running over and standing in front of the painting. Her face is scarlet and she looks like a little red ant. I laugh at her.

"Well why not?" I ask, "Its not like it's a bad painting. Its quite beautiful actually." Lucy rolls her eyes at my words and an expression crosses her face that I can't quite read. This painting is so confusing. I just decide to move on. I turn to where she was standing and notice a small painting covered up, by some other paintings. It's just a small corner of blobbed of blue that I can see, but it's so little that it peaks my curiosity.

"What's this?" I ask not tearing my gaze away from the tiny blue spot. I start to head toward it when Lucy steps in front of me again. This time she puts her small hands on the middle of my chest and pushes. I stop dead in my tracks and stare at her, her messy bun, hair falling in her face. I can see the flood of emotions on her face, but they're all so jumbled that it's hard to tell what she is feeling.

"You've seen enough. It's time for you to leave." She says pushing harder on my chest. I want to know what this painting is. If I don't find out it's going to bug me forever. I grab her small wrists and hold them in one of my own hands. Her skin is soft and my heart pounds a little harder at the contact. I push her arms away and she's so shocked she doesn't respond. I place my hands on her hips and pick her up and set her gently out of the way. My heart is pounding now and it's taking all my self-control not to pick her up again and spin her around. I quickly head towards the painting and Lucy has recovered and is now trying to get me to stop. I reach the painting and pull it out from behind the others. I see it and fully understand now why she didn't want me to see it.

It is absolutely hideous. It's just a mess of blue paint and the occasional splash of yellow.

"Oh, I get it now." I say laughing. I look away from the awful painting and look at Lucy. She's standing in front of me arms crossed and anger written all over her freckled face. I laugh harder and look back at the painting.

"This is just terrible, awful. It looks like a four year old did this with their eyes shut." I continue. The small painting just utterly hideous compared to her other amazing works of art. I look back up and am surprised. I expected Lucy to laugh and explain to me that this is just one of her first pieces of art. Instead when I look back to her she is a mess. Tears streaming down her face. Frightened I drop the painting and rush up to her. I scoop her in my arms gently as not to hurt her.

"Lucy I didn't mean to hurt you." She cries harder for a second and then starts screaming into my chest and hitting me. My heart pounds hard against my chest and I can't figure out what I did wrong. She pushes herself away from me hard and her small face is red and drenched in tears. She goes over to the small painting and picks it up still crying.

"I think you should leave." She says angrily crying. I feel so lost so helpless. I walk back close to her and try to take the painting from her hands.

"Honestly its not that bad, I was just joking." I state apologetically. She doesn't let go of the painting and tugs back on it. She gives me a look like let go of it or I'll kill you. I let go as not to upset her anymore. The thing I misjudged the most is the ratio of my strength to hers. It may have felt like she wasn't pulling hard, but she was. I watched as she tumbled backwards and fell right on to the small blue painting. There was this sick ripping sound and Lucy's eyes went wide in terror.

The small painting now had a large hole in the middle of it. It was ripped beyond repair. My heart flew into my throat and I knew as Lucy moved herself onto her knees and started clutching the painting to her chest that I was about to get it. I started to back track and headed towards the garage door. I was spewing apologies. Lucy stood and grabbed a handful of the nearest paintbrushes and turned to me. Her face was full of hatred and tears streaming from her beautiful green eyes. It pulled on my heart to see her like this.

"You," she said her body shaking with rage. "Imbecile!" she screams and throws one of the paintbrushes at my head. It hits hard and pain shoots through me. I open the door quickly and grab my bag as fast as I can. Daniel is awake now and looks sleepy and panicked at the end of the hall. I ran towards him and Lucy emerged from the garage, fuming. A paintbrush rushed past my head and I saw it hit the ground in front of me. She screamed loudly and Danny rushed past me. I turned to see him scoop Lucy up, She is sobbing so hard and still trying to throw paintbrushes at me. Daniel runs with her into what I assumed was her room to calm her down. It was at this moment that I decided to see myself out. What had I done?