Wonder • Five Hargreeves

20

"Ill send you a painting when I get home. Keep in touch." She said simply and that was that. She left in her taxi cab.

Vanya stared blankly and then angrily. She didn't see it! She didn't get it! The only girl who ever cared about her was blinded by her own stupid love. Her life was just one pitfall after another.

Across the street was a seedy pawnshop. Glinting in the window was two comic books. Originals from the old days when the Umbrella Academy was the symbol of peace. The small children in their crisp uniforms, zooming around and saving the day.

A small Winnie stood out among the others. She always did- it used to bug Allison to no ends. The illustrations made her seem so lovely with exaggerated glowing white hair and paint stains across her uniform.

Always so loving.

Always so stupid.

She'd show Winnie what she couldn't see. Maybe if she knew... If they all knew... Vanya just needed to tell her story.

She walked across the street and into the pawnshop. The typewriter behind the aforementioned comics disappeared from sight.

"My name is Vanya Hargreeves and this is my story"

**

Winnie took a swig of whiskey and laughed joyously. Behind her, a party of college students waged. Loud with old music and electric with stolen words.

She stood in front of a giant canvas. Several people laid out on bean bags besides the canvas, having taken a break from the dancing to relax by the hostess.

A french boy to her left read from a book in his lap. Fresh from the store that day. "Extra Ordinary" by Vanya Hargreeves. He had to speak loudly to be heard over the music.

"We were our fathers creation. Family only in name... but not in fact." The boy read.

Winnie giggled again and stabbed a fat paint brush into a tub of scarlet paint. She stumbled over her bare feet as she stood, and swayed drunkenly even after she corrected herself.

"Is that true Winnie? You always paint your family so beautifully. It cant be true, can it?" A girl with a black bob asked as she observed the small girl rock with drunken elegance.

"Of course its true! Vanya never lies! I love her! I love her!" Winnie screamed backwards in glee.

She swiped across the canvas, leaving a dark red streak. She had chaos on her mind and destruction in her hands. She was going to create something terrible but oh, so beautiful.

The party cheered at her choice of such a bold move. She screamed along with them and continued her work, no longer tied to sober thoughts.

Someone should have stopped her. Someone should have noticed there was something wrong with throwing a basher after all of her secrets were just revealed to the world.

But she was just an ignorant little girl, right? So these strangers all laughed as she drunk herself into oblivion, creating beautiful pieces, and proclaiming her love despite its torture.

**

Five grinned despite himself as he read over the words, again and again and again. The fires still burned dangerously around him, but nothing could draw him from that book or his thoughts.