Yellow (editing)

Magenta-Covered Wonders

"Is your mom okay with me coming over?" I asked.

"My mom... well, she's okay with anything, actually. As long as you're not one of those guys at school that try to get with every pretty girl. Which you're not. Finnegan..." she grunted and pushed the door open harshly, "... you're better than that, I really hope so. Sorry, by the way. I meant Finn." I laughed mockingly and she scoffed, but eventually laughed along with me. Once we stepped into her house, I suddenly stopped shivering (I hadn't even noticed that I was shivering before) and a sweet undefinable smell floated to me. It didn't smell like flowers. It didn't smell like a garden. It didn't smell like a bakery either. It just smelled like a house, and I guess that was the amazing thing about it.

I suspected that Orenda May Castellano's house would've been like an amusement park, with flowers everywhere, lining the walls, just bursting with joy. But no, it didn't have a golf course in the middle of the living room, it didn't have mellifluous music playing from all-around speakers, it was a normal – a hella normal – house, and she was a normal person. She was a person. Just as I was a person; terribly ordinary and not at all fascinating. Instead there was something different about Orenda; I just couldn't put my finger on it.

"I like your house," I told her. She laughed.

"It's as boring as houses get. I'm just glad it's not my old one. My old one smelled like lasagna."

"That was some good lasagna."

"Stop with the lustful thinking," she teased.

We proceeded walking in after I had kicked my shoes off and hung my jacket onto the wobbly coat hanger. Their floor was covered in a thick carpet; much like the one I dug my fingers in at their old house many Christmases ago.

            "Remember when I said we're painting today?" She asked me, and we sat down on what seemed to be a couch, covered in a thin throw.

            "Uh huh."

            "C'mon then." I heard the smile in her voice, and also the slight suggestion that we were going on an adventure, in some way.

But we really didn't. She just grabbed my hand and I let go of my white cane immediately, setting it on the couch. We got up and started walking down stairs (which is, strangely, new to me because I've lived in a bungalow all my life and stairs weren't really my thing) and eventually arrived in a basement, I think, that smelled like wood and maybe even cardboard.

            "It's my art room. I'm usually here, if you ever need to find me and talk to me or something."

            "I'll keep that in mind."

The floorboards creaked underneath my feet and we ambled over to a corner, where it smelled like paint paint paint paint and guess what? Paint. I turned around carefully but still ended up bumping into what seemed to be a canvas, but I never really determined the actual name of the thing-I-happened-to-bump-into.   

            "It's not safe for me to be here, I'll break stuff," I reminded her as I bumped into the paintbrush she was holding, and the weird feeling of paint lingered on my arm.

            "I don't mind if you break stuff, Finnegan. I like it when you're here, so obviously I wouldn't let you go."

I smiled, and then she said, "here's your paintbrush, and here's your palette and um I'll give you this sheet of paper okay?" She handed all those things to me, and then directed me towards the paper as I tried my very best not to flip the palette over.

"What do I paint?" I asked.

"Anything."

"Anything?"