The Eyes Of An Artist

Chapter 16

On Tuesday it rained. I hate umbrellas so my body got soaked with the endless drops that fell from the sky when I came back from the university.
When I arrived my father was speaking to the cleaning lady, his voice turned softer when he spoke to her and he treated her in a way that made me feel angry at him. It looked like he was flirting with her usually. My mom deserved better than him but she loved him somehow. I hated him and nothing could change what I felt towards him.
- Someone just arrived - I heard him say from the kitchen. I felt disgust towards him, it seemed like he was trying to hide something.
- Oh it's Hannah - he said, with a melancholic tone.
One of the motivations for me to finish my carreer was to get a job, leave the apartment and never see him again.

His eyes were like dark stones with no emotion and his movements were usually sharp and aggressive. It was hard to be around him, hard to see him. I preffered loneliness instead of him always. When I was younger he hit me a couple times using his fists. He left brusies on my legs and he didn't apologise after years. What the hell did I do to have him as a father? Bad luck I guess...

My mother's eyes were different. When she looked at me I felt loved, this infinite love lived in her eyes. She would take care of me, listen to me, hold me. My mom meant the world to me and I was capable of giving my life for her. But my father was just the man who gave me life and a life that felt heavy when he treated me like less than the rest of the people at my home. 
I saw many things in his eyes: rejection, disgust and this need to leave. He couldn't hold eye contact with me for a long time unless he was mad at me or saying shit to me. If he was angry he would hold his gaze and I could feel the cruelty behind this action. I felt that he had this plesure in hurting my feelings.

Once we spoke to eachother and I told him that I didn't want to be his friend, I just wanted a healthy relationship with him. He said he would try but I could see it in him, he couldn't change his way of seeing me either, it was broken, our relationship was broken and I didn't mind until he was agressive with me.

I didn't tell Tom these things usually. He already had a bad relationship with his dad and me telling him that I had a tough relationship with my father wasn't going to help. Or maybe I just didn't feel like talking about it at all.

When I got home I cried. Tears just fell from my eyes and my body felt weak. I didn't know where these feelings were coming from, they would just appear and hurt until they didn't hurt anymore.
I slept and it felt a little depressing but the day was so grey and I was feeling so sad that my body needed it. And so I slept and slept until I heard my phone ringing. It was Tom but I didn't pick it up, I let it ring because I didn't feel like talking to anyone.
At night I woke up and started sketching what I felt. I'd give shapes and colours to my emotions. Drawing felt like validating what I held inside of me.
I drew bodies and faces for a while. The human anatomy had always impressed me and I had always found so much beauty in the simetry of bodies.
Then I wrote something short but it felt good to write. It said: today all I saw walking on the streets were shadows covered in rain. Am I one of those shadows? What makes me so different from them? Or, in the end, aren't we all shadows of what we show to the world?

The next day felt just like the day before. This monotony started to invade life. I didn't know why I felt that way but it wouldn't go away. I felt like everything was something that I had to do and that I hd become this slave that did things. I was a slave to the university, expectations, presure that I felt from my parents. I felt sometimes like I didn't do things because I really wanted to do them, I did them because I had to. Nothing felt like a choice at that moment, the only thing that felt like a choice was painting.

I went to the class and saw the girls. Evelyn looked at me as if I had surprised her when I arrived. Maybe she thought I wasn't going to go to the class. I still hadn't told her about the pregnancy test because I was afraid to speak to her.
- Hey, did you see the rain yesterday? - was the first thing she said.
- Yeah, I felt it also - I answered.
She smiled a little bit and then she said,
- Look - pointing at the paper where she was drawing.
I saw an empty city sketched in pencil, lonely streets with no cars in them and rain falling. That was her drawing.
- You'll paint it? - I asked.
- Yeah, not good enough to paint? - she asked grabbing the jar with paint brushes.
- Oh it's good enough to not paint... I mean, it's perfect like that - I said.
- What does it make you feel? Since you see it as something that's finished - she said without looking at me and concentrated on putting paint on a little plate beside her.
- It makes me feel...sadness - I said. And she looked at me. She just held her eyes on mine and I felt this warmth in my chest and how it spread all over my body in seconds.
- Well, that's intresting - she said and then she smiled at me with her lips.
- Hannah, want to sit and start? - said Beatrice bothering in a funny way.
- Yeah, sorry - I said going back to my spot.

I had finished the painting of the tree already and I wanted to draw a woman. I thought to myself that women had a beautiful bodies but I felt a little shy and I didn't want to draw her naked even though it tempted me.
I drew her wearing a dress and sitting on a hill. Her hair was tied in a messy bun and her hands were resting on the grass. Even though she wasn't very well dressed and her hair wasn't perfectly combed, she seemed beautiful to me like that, natural.

Beatrice barely helped me with the sketch.
- You're getting good at this Hann - she said. And I felt so happy! Finally I did something that I felt like doing and it went well. I didn't paint it that class.
I wanted to walk with Evelyn this time and I waited for her to come with me but she was talking to Heather about something. I heard that she mentioned a guy's name something like Jason.

Finally she came to where I was and she looked at me,
- We going? - she said cheerfull.
- No - I said kidding. She laughed and I thought to myself that she had a nice laugh, it was a real kind of laugh.