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"I have the paints."
The shout from upstairs was my calling to freedom. I crumbled it up and stuffed it into my bag, skidding across the floor and scurrying past Garrett.
"We'll be up here painting."
The look of disappointment watched over his soft features like a wave upon shore.
I turned around and gave him my best fake smile. The one that makes me not seem uncomfortable.
Crooked shiny picture frames decorated the cream hallways. Most of them were old pictures of Garrett. I slowed down to scan each of them as I went by. Garrett in some sort of soccer game when he was like 8, Garrett flashing a huge gummy smile while holding a baby tooth he had just lost. His ragged teeth were growing crowded on the bottom. Finally, his baby pictures. He looked absolutely adorable with his chubby cheeks and dimples. I didn't know it was possible, but his hair was even blonder in the pictures.
"Rhiannon?"
Austin's fresh face appeared at the top of the staircase. I ran up the remaining steps to meet him. I felt like I was chasing after him, like a dog to a bone or an animal to it's prey.
"He actually has quite the amount of paint. I didn't think the kid was this artistic. But, I'm not surprised. He's loaded inside and out with everything else, why not some useless acrylics in the back of the laundry closet to top it off?"
He opened a random white door and shoved his arms shoulder-deep into the wooden shelves. They pulled out with little tubes of acrylic paint in many distinct colors. Some of them were rolled up a bit, the color of paint dried in crusty clumps on the lid. He went back in to retrieve a packaged-set of brushes. The same colors of tubes that seemed to have been used at least once stained the bristles of certain brushes.
"I'm impressed." I muttered, suddenly feeling the awkward tension that was lurking beneath our interactions.
I let him lead us to Garrett's room. He let me go in first and smiled, shutting the door behind us.
"So how do you want to do this?"
He pursed his lips into a small smile. I shrugged and flopped down onto Garrett's fresh linen sheets.
I knew the part I was dreading was coming up.
"Uh, you might have to..."
His body weight put pressure on the side of the bed, causing mine to tilt a bit. I knew what he was saying, no matter how hard he was stuttering.
My arms gripped the hem of my shirt and I pulled it halfway over my head, stopping at my bra. The cold air hit my back and goosebumps erupted all over my skin. Garrett kept his room freezing cold. I remembered the color of the back of my bra was dark blue, which for some reason made me embarrassed. My hands shakily unclipped the back. The straps slumped over into the pillowey pile of fabric that was my shirt, both shielding my breasts.
Now that the painfully awkward deed was done, I strained my neck and looked back at Austin. He seemed to be busy mixing paint colors on his wrist, trying them out like swatches. His cheeks were flushing pink. Every movement he made seemed to be huge and quick, just like his breath. Although his eyes never made contact with my back. It was making him obviously uncomfortable.
Paint hitting my back felt like he was drawing on me with icicles. The bristles tickled me and danced all over my skin in a swirling manner. Arctic Monkeys increased volume into my ears. He put it on his phone and set it by my face. At least we didn't need to talk.
"What are you painting?" My soft voice bellowed.
"Surprise."
I relaxed even more into the sheets. The feeling was more familiar and comfortable. It was putting me to sleep, the only thing keeping me awake was the fact that I had my shirt off in front of a boy I barely knew.
"Okay I'm done."
His voice an alarm setting off my body into a jolt of energy.
I held my shirt and bra up to my chest and crawled up from the bed. Our eyes locked a minute while I adjusted my arms. My feet took me away from the moment and in front of the hallway mirror. The colors and details soaked into my vision. His art was completely another dimension. He had painted my back to where it looked like stained glass. It was one of the windows you had in a traditional white church, one that took you away in the middle of a boring lesson. But it wasn't a typical bible story or symbol, it was me painted as an angel. It was the best painting I had ever seen and it was on my skin. My heart heated up.
"This looks so sick Austin!"
I pushed out a shaky breath. My best efforts to push out my enthusiasm didn't seem to sound so real and honest in my head.
He stepped out of the room and let his reflection meet me in the mirror. Both of us watched eachother's movements. His fingerprints were stained with paint.
"What's your biggest insecurity?" His face scrunched and unscrunched from a serious expression. It took me a second to notice that he had found a clear plastic jug filled with chocolate milk. He lifted it to his face and tilted his neck back to take a huge gulp of it.
That was a random question. Did he mean it offensively?? Maybe I'm just paranoid.
I couldn't seem to pluck a thought from the files of my brain. I knew my flaws of course. They were constantly being pointed out by my worst critic- myself. But today I wasn't insecure about them. There's a difference. He made me forget about them, like them even. Maybe because he makes me realize nobody is going to care how you look if you are having a good conversation. I spent too much time evaluating my looks to where I couldn't even get a personality out of myself.
"Dunno. You?"
I could picture him giving out a wise sentence, or replying the same as me. He taught me that lesson after all.
"Well I could be more buff. My hair seems to always be greasy as fuck," He chuckled silently at himself as if he were pathetic. I didn't laugh back. It was serious to me. How could he hate himself? His head swiveled my way to stare. The corners of his smile tucked away into a frown. He turned back to the reflection looking back at him.
"I could go on. But I could understand why you don't have any. You're practically perfect." Austin's tongue pushed past his lips to wet them.
"I'm far from it, trust me."
"But isn't that a cycle that were all expectant to hear? The one who everyone thinks might as well be a doll don't think they're perfect. When it's obvious that they are."
He dropped his back to the ground like a bodybuilder giving the last rep on a heavy weight. The wall felt like sandpaper against my back when I did the same, plopping my body right beside his. My fingers almost accidentally let go of my shirt. We had both gotten over the fact that I was braless. I was pretty comfortable around him now that the feeling of something burning and the adrenaline rushes were gone. I guess I thought it was pretty daring to be with him alone- besides whatever Garrett was doing downstairs. Both of our eyes gazed down the dark abyss of staircase. It was kind of creepy, but that didn't bother me at all.
"I guess when we are all stuck in our own bodies we get pretty tired of them."
That was a good response. I never thought about it that way until I had randomly blurted it out, as if I wasn't thinking out of my own brain.
"Yeah, we know ourselves too well."
From the way his voice sounded, it felt like he had already beat me to the punch in looking for those thoughts himself.
Careful not to reveal anything, I slipped my shirt back on. I didn't bother putting on the bra, throwing it to the side.
He laughed a little bit. He could go from thinking deeper than I ever have to living like a kid. That's what we are- kids.
"Well, that was exhilarating,"
His knees met the carpet to push himself back onto his feet. His shoulders leaned over the side of the wall and he shouted down the side of the dark staircase.
"Garrett, you ok bud?"
The voice bounced down like a frisbee and came back in Garrett's low tone.
"I'm fine. Just waiting." Groggy, it was. He sounded nearly sick. Sick of waiting probably.
I stared at the clock's glass reflection from the wall. I could barely make out the time, but I knew it had been getting pretty late from the curfew his parents were going to supposedly be home at.
Austin glanced back at it too. He ran down the stairs to resume his long distance conversation with an annoyed Garrett. I was more or less it suspecting it was him and not Austin who wrote those notes, because right after I read it he immediately flashed his knowledge of poetry. Here we were now, he was trying to make it extra obvious that he was annoyed. Maybe he just felt left out. The thing that I don't want to admit to myself is that I'd feel the same way, so why blame him?
Their voices were muffled behind my deep thoughts. I was wasting time with myself when I could be spending it with them. I had my whole life to myself, and I was finally getting close enough to share my thoughts with someone. My body took control like a robot in response. You can tell that I'm quite lazy, the loud padding of my feet going down the stairs being loud enough to make them stop talking. They both looked up from the couch and to me. Their blank stares were awkward and their eyes were filled with nothing evident.
"What's up?"
I reached the last step and jumped off of it to meet them. I cannonballed onto the squishy soft cushions and made their bodies fly up momentarily before landing with thuds. I remembered that I wasn't wearing a bra when I felt my boobs fly up with them. My arms crossed over me as a shield.
"Since you two were having a hell of a time up there, it's already near time for you to go."
His sarcasm was blatantly evident, face, tone, and all. Usually it seemed like he was a happy-go-lucky person when he talked to me. This was the first I had ever seen of him being rude in a comment that mentioned me. I guess we were all getting to know each other as well as ourselves tonight.
Austin bit back at him.
"Well you could have came up and watched. Nothing PG-13. Just an art lesson."
Garrett smiled angrily and turned to me.
"See," His hands motioned slowly with his speaking.
"This is why I can't stand more than 2 seconds with a smartass."
I tried bringing my attention to somewhere else, like the TV screen that was now blue because we hadn't changed the input.
"Alright, calm down guys."
I remained as neutral sounding as possible to show that I wasn't a side-taker.
"Just go. I have stuff to do."
Garrett snapped a chord in my heart with his short response. I hated people to be mad at me. But he seemed mad in general.
"Gladly." Austin propped up and grabbed his keys off of the dining room table. He left in a flash, leaving me alone scared with Garrett, who was now steaming with anger and impatience.
His low kept face gave a threatening glare.
"I, uh, left some stuff upstairs."
I ran up the endless amount of steps as quickly as I could and snatched my bra. I hid it under my shirt as I ran back down and plucked my keys from the dining room table. I grabbed my bag and my shoes.
He was already invested in cleaning up the kitchen. His back kept turned to me.
"See you later." I quietly whispered, almost sounding like I was talking to myself.
The grass felt soft and wet beneath my socks. It left the bottom of my feet soggy and gross. I crammed my feet into my shoes so I could hurry up and clip on my bra. It wasn't until I had already finished and slumped my bag over my shoulder when I finally saw Austin's car still parked in the same place. He was behind the tinted windows, laughing so hard he was wheezing. You could practically hear it from Canada.
I ran to his car and let him roll the windows down.
"I thought you left you asshole."
It was hard to keep serious when he found something hilarious. His laugh was so contagious I started to giggle myself.
He let it die down a bit before talking.
"Meet me at Rosewood park."
Rosewood park was a shitty, run down place with dead grass and broken plastic slides. Did he mean another park or was he being serious?
"Wait, you know what Rosewood park looks like, right?"
He gave me a weirded out look.
"Of course I do, I grew up going there daily."
He finally got my thoughts.
"Ohh, yeah. I know it's a little broken. But at least we'd be alone."
"Okay. I guess I'll see you there."
The Darth Vader keychain chimed and flung around when he turned his keys and pulled out of the driveway, leaving me alone to watch him drive off.
I got into my dad's car and followed him there since I wasn't really spot on on the location. Austin was a weird kid, asking me to meet him at a park in the deserted part of town in the early night. But this only made me like him more.