"I love you. With all my heart. To the end of the ocean and back."
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FEATURED BY @StoriesUndiscovered
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Missy is a promising student of art, drawing wherever she goes. She is just as talented as quiet and she seems too indifferent to care...
Evie's lashes fluttered. I knew she would open her eyes.
I was a coward who could not face her. I moved away, letting go of her hand, my feelings and my love. I covered her in sheets as she tried to catch my eyes and returned to the canvas I no longer had any interest for.
I stripped the drenched underwear, trying not to feel shame. I fell in the covers, my stomach, on her legs, brush between my teeth and tubes in my hands. As if it didn't mean anything. As if I was only doing what I was meant to be.
Being a friend.
Evie cleared her throat.
You don't like paint, she told me.
She knew. I knew.
I've grown, I confessed, smiling.
I could feel her smile too. I tried painting over and over, think layers magically structuring the canvas with paint that was everything but smooth.
Have I told you about our semester's assignment, I asked her.
No, she told me, leaning closer.
Her hair cast a shadow over the top edge of the canvas and her scent drowned out the heavy, characteristic paint smell.
We are supposed to make art out of the inizio of our art, I told her.
A start, hmm... I don't think there was one. You have always been drawing.
There was a beginning, my love, I told her with a small chuckle.
Really, she smiled at me.
Yes, I told her.
Tell me, she thought.
It's a surprise, I told her.
Sun warming our backs. Strokes of an almost dry brush mixed with her calm breathing. One would think that she is sleeping. But I knew she was peace all over.
If you got this assignment, what would you do, Evie, I asked her.
I would write a song about my mom, she said.
I understood. She knew, I understood. I still believe the world would rather pity the soul of a child, corrupted so early on, than hate it. She didn't.
You miss her still, I told her.
Yes.
Do you feel bad still, I asked.
I don't think there will be a 'not anymore' , she told me.
They'd understand.
Evie shook her head, as I knew she would.
No... Only you do, Missy, she murmured with sadness weighing her voice.
We paused. The birds chirped, flying from a branch to another, leaves fell into piles of auburn gold, the river behind the glass door flowed and flowed despite our hearts stoping. Sorrow embracing them in a tearful hug.
She'd be thankful to you, Evie. And even now, she'd be proud of you.
My words seemed to touch her like wind on a late spring night.
Yes, she agreed in her head.
I felt it. In her relaxing shoulders. In her eyes which had closed for only a second longer. In the wrinkles around her mouth, smoothing as if my thumb had ran over them. In the way her brows lowered and her hands swept her hair behind her ear.
Maybe you'd be able to hear it too. In her silence. Soft breaths. And the song of birds that seemed to own Evie's melody.
I felt her gate as the lines curved under the brush and the paint flowed just as softly as her hair.
Paint me, she whispered.
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