Madness ➮ Harry Styles AU

C5

Harry

I was not an artist.

But with her small hands overlapping my own, lapping around a  certain ball-pointed pen, and her head arched right against mine, that was the least of my concerns.

And yes, I was a crap at drawing. I'm pretty sure I would manage to screw up a paint-by-number. Yet, she was scooted so far off to the side that she was practically sitting on my lap and for the sake of just that, I was trying not to get too excited, if you know what I mean. 

"You know," she said, her tongue caught between two sets of teeth. "I never believed in that 'let the pencil guide you' kind of bullshit."

I looked at her, eyes trained on a piece of parchment. "Really?"

"Yeah."

She guided my hand across the paper, creating a bold and thin stripe of dark ink, vaguely imitating the curvature of a small feather.

"I mean, like, what could a pencil tell you, that you don't already know yourself?" She sighed, like it was the stigma of her problems. "I don't think you should just draw, and then figure out what it is... I think you should start off on how you want it to feel."

I nodded, but didn't completely understand. "How do you do that?"

Ashley smiled; faintly, but brightly, then took her own paper off her lap, just so she could scoot even closer to me.

"Well, if you want your picture to feel happy, then your lines should be soft, and bubbly, and lightweight. And if you want it to feel scary, then your strokes should be bold, and sharp." She said.

"What if I can't decide how.. how I want it to feel?" I said hesitantly, looking straight at her, and perhaps speaking more about something else than I was about art.

She stopped and mimicked my gaze. "Then draw how you feel."

And I just started at her, because to pinpoint exactly how I felt was just as accurate as throwing darts blindfolded. That was one of the things about living, I thought, that you could never really be one thing.

But I just breathed out an "okay", and looked back down at my canvas. And she smiled and brought her attention back to hers.

"I think people are so obsessed with art and what it's supposed to look like," The girl spoke once more. "That they forget art really isn't about looking at all, it's about feeling." She continued, and I couldn't decide if she was speaking to me, or no one in particular. "Because if it doesn't make you feel something... then what's it worth?"

Her words clung to me; hanging in the air like an empty noose. I decided then that she understood;  that she understood me and what I meant when I said I didn't know what to feel.

But now, it's all becoming much clearer.

I didn't respond, however. I didn't feel like anything I said could top that, not like it was a competition or whatever, it was just, I knew my response would be awkward and stupid, because, well, I'm me, so I just nodded.

My gaze was averted back towards my paper, which was stark white, blending into the room like black paint on black paint.

Slowly and unsurely, I began to build upon my etchings, just as cautiously as someone who couldn't draw, which was precisely what I was, after all. And upon the dark curve already drawn, I drew more, branching out like inky antlers off an ash deer. My strokes were sharp, but subtle and thin. I'd like to say that was because I was adding upon the ambience of my picture, but it was just pitifully that I hadn't the slightest clue what I was doing.