I was trying to find a new color for my room. My mom took me to one of those paint stores that have all the colors ever created, I loved it, I wonder if he would love it too, yes he would. He would look at all of the colors and find some way to blend them together and make a masterpiece. I shook my head trying to focus on the task at hand, now is not the time to be imagining things. But I couldn't stop creating his eyes. A beautiful green, or were they blue? Were they a mixture of the two? No, there was more to them than that. They had a certain depth to them. Like when you see a book and judge the size to see if you want to read it, and then looked at all those pages and said, ' Nah, I'll just put this back, I don't want to spend the rest of my life reading this.' His eyes held meaning, they held a purpose, they held a story that people would put down. Yes. That was the color of his eyes. I looked at the paint sample in my hand. Depth. That was it.
Now, what about his hair? I walked down the isle, was it an isle or was it a wall of paint samples? Well when I thought of an isle I thought of two walls of stuff on either side of me, and this was a...wow...was I seriously contemplating whether or not this was an isle or a wall? I laughed at myself, Blonde Moment.
"Focus" I told myself sternly.
Okay, what color would his hair be? Would it be black? Nah, all my characters had black hair. What about blonde? I laughed again; I was looking for a change in this character, but not a change THAT drastic. Hmmmmmm, this one was going to be different. No black hair, no blonde hair, definitely not a red head -long story...it will be explained later- what about a light brown? Nope, that's not it either. Huh, this guy was going to give me a hard time huh? I closed my eyes and let myself wander up and down the weird isle, wall thingamajig trusting my instincts as I created the character for my story. Then my feet stopped moving, I opened my eyes and saw the perfect color for his hair. It was a strange brown. Like his eyes, this color was complex. It was a really dark brown, but no where near black. But from far away you could be couldn't tell. It was like the sand on the beach, the sand that was wet anyway, but a little darker so it looked like mud but with the same flecks of color every now and then. Yes, Pursued. That was perfect.
Hmm...What next? Oh! Yes his skin. Yet again I let my instincts take over as my feet led me up and down the wall thing again. Then my hand reached up to one of the colors on the top right of me and I opened my eyes to see what color it had picked. Periwinkle. Yeah...no, sorry, he will not be blue. So since my instincts failed miserably. I used my eyes this time. Then I saw it, the perfect color, I reached for it, but another hand was heading for the same color. I looked over and saw a man around forty, with curly black hair pulled into a ponytail, and a 4'oclock shadow.
"I'm soh sohrryee! Grahb it first iee dohn't mind" He said in a strange accent.
"No it's okay, umm here" I reached up and grabbed two “Ta-da! Two birds with one stone!" I said and gave him a smile.
He smiled back, oh, gross! His teeth were nasty! They were yellow and looked like someone hadn't been a good boy and went to the dentist every few months!
“Thahnk yeeuw miss!" he looked at my hands "Soh wahtcha be paintn?"
"Oh these? They are for my cha...” I caught myself. “I mean they're for my room." I said blushing. God I hate it when I do that!
"And how many roohms you be paintin?" He asked in a joking tone.
"Oh, yeah, well I decided to... combine several of my very unique tastes...for my unique room” I said matching his tone.
"Oh iee see." He said with a gleam in his eye. "Soh doh youh know how to paint a room?"
"Umm....no." I said shyly, this guy was pretty funny "Do you mister smarts in your farts?" I said unable to stop myself. Shit. Now he's going to walk away thinking I'm some complete, disrespectful kid.
But he started laughing! "Smarts in meee farts!" He laughed so hard he started doubling over, I took a step toward him, great I said to myself first day in a new town and you start by killing someone! The guy started to calm down and stand straight, but his face was bright red, despite his tan skin, and was wiping his eyes. I pretended to glare at my inner voice, look he's fine so shut up! Then I imagined a little girl with my same dark brown hair, tan skin, and boring brown eyes, in a little blue dress whimpering, scooting back away from me. My younger version of myself. Aw Jesus. Hey I'm sorry. Then I realized that the guy was talking to me.
"Miss arre you alriggght?" He asked me with a worried tone that matched his face.
"Oh, yeah, sorry, just daydreaming." I said blushing, again. "So what did you say?"
"Ieee aasked if yeouw needed ant help with the paintin of yer room." He said, as the worried look changed to hopeful.
"Well, I guess so, I mean, I paint a lot anyways, and I thought that it couldn't be too much of a difference form painting on a canvas to painting a wall. I was kind of planning on letting my dad do the painting, but he’s at a conference in San Francisco." I said nonchalantly.
"Well ieee could help yeuw if you needed mee too" he said handing me his card.
"So your name is Gregorio? That's a good name." I said. “I’ll have to ask if we can hire you. I know my mom would say yes."
He looked at me with hopeful eyes "Of course! Iee could give you a good price!"
"Ok, well I will definitely call you Gregorio, it was nice meeting you." I said shaking his rough hand, I looked at him closely this time trying to decipher if he was trustworthy. Then I realized he was barely taller than me! And I'm hardly 5 feet tall! I had to bite my lip to keep from laughing.
"It was nice to meeet yeuw....miss?" He said with a questioning look
"Tarah, my name is Tarah Wendover."
"Tarah. Well give me a call when yer ready for me to help out with yer room!" He said giving me a slight wave as he walked away.
What was I trying to do again? Oh, yea find a color for his skin. Tantalize. That was the colo.A perfect tan that wasn't, which was wierd cause' I normally make my characters pale as snow. But this color looked like a strange gold.
"There we go" I said to myself.
"Tarah! There you are! I've been looking all over for you!" My mom came over. Lilah. Most people say I looked just like her. I mean sure we have the same hair, and eyes, but she was beautiful! Her skin is a beautiful golden brown that catches the light perfectly, and her lips are luscious and full, and she is also 5'11. Her and her perfectness. Grrrrrrr…
"Hey, mom I found some colors. I think they would look great." I said in a dull tone.
"Ooooh! They look great sweetheart! And, guess what?! I found a painter for your room! His name is..."
"Gregorio" I said interrupting her. "Yeah, I met him. He's a nice guy, got his card too." I said pulling the card out of my pocket and giving it to her.
"Yes, he is a nice man isn't he? Well we better get going. I'm sure your sister is freaking out in the van right now. She never likes to stay in one place for a long time." She said grabbing my hand and walking me to the door. God, it's so hard to hate my mom. I know it sounds cliché' but yeah I'm jealous of her. But she's always so nice, I can't be mad at her for a long time.
"Yeah, I bet she is!” I said, Kier hates being alone. I remember when we had stopped for a potty break and she said she was a big girl and she could go by herself. Yeah…that didn’t work out. As soon as she realized that she would be in the stall all by her lonesome, she started freaking out and hitting the sides of the stall trying to find a way out. We walked out of the paint store with our samples in hand. We looked at each other and smiled, sure enough, our little girl was screaming and crying silent tears from inside the van.
"My turn?" I asked. It was a joke betwen us, whenever Kier had one of her fits we had always joked that one mom wasn't enough and we had to take turns.
"Please? I have to get to the new place before the movers." she said pulling out her silver android from her large, black, leather purse. If you ask me, I don't know how she find anything in that pit of disappearing items. I mean seriously, one time I lost my new movie I rented, and six months later I found it at the bottom of that black hole! Not. Cool. I owed like, $74 to blockbuster!
"Shit!" she excalimed "We're going to be late!" she screamed and ran to the car, getting it started before I opened the sliding van door.
"Okay, hey where are we moving anyways?" I asked sliding into the van, closing the door, and trying to put on some movie for Kier to watch so she would stop crying. The buckled my seatbelt "I've been...distracted" distracted meaning writing. " The whole trip."
"Well it's certainly not like our house back in California. It's still has enough for all of us and maybe one extra." yeah, it wasn't just my sister, my parents and I. Nope not even close. I had one younger brother, Christian, who's 10. A younger sister named Weliah, she's 6, two twin older brothers, Jacob and Taran, they're 19 and away for college back home studying at Stanford. Then, I have another older brother, Schylur he was the eldest, he is 29, and lastly my other older sister, Eleana, she's 27. So our family is far from small. But Eleana and Schylur already have families of their own, Eleana lives in Texas, and my brother lives in New Mexico.
"Okay...but that still doesn't answer my question." I said in a concerned tone. Where the hell were we going?
"Well." She said in a sly tone. "It's a magical place called." she paused with her hand slightly in the air." Wait for it. Our destination!" She said turning around to revrse out of the parking lot, with a grin.
"Ha.Ha.Ha, you're a comedian." I said with sarcasm dripping off of every word.
"I know right!" she said in her high pitched, girly tone, while taking one hand and flipping her dark hair.
"Seriously. Where are we going?" I asked yet again.
"You'll see! Now just press play for your sister before she starts crying again." she said, now focused on getting on the interstate.
I sighed, unbuckled my seatbelt, and pressed play button on the bottom left side of the passenger seat of the van.
"Fine. But don't think I won't forget to ask you later when it's my turn to drive. And you tired and in need of a serious dose of caffine." I said climbing to the front seat.
She had just smiled. Then for a couple of hours we made small talk, smiling and laughing. Then we looked at each other, and said the magical word.
"Music." we said with a smile. Then she reached over and put in the Jessie J CD. Turning to our favorite song. We sang along with the lyrics.
"I stare at my reflection in the mirror..." We did this until the CD was over, dancing and singing to the songs that we knew, and even the ones we didn't. And that was the time I decided to go to the next CD for her. Then she reached over and stroked my streak of blonde in my hair. She always did this, I got it when I was struck by lightning when I was 10. Yeah, struck by lightning. People always ask where I got it done, and I always say 'it's called a lighning bolt.' hahaha you should see their faces! But it's all natural, but the fact that I survived isn't the thing that freaks me out. No, it was when I looked up from when I was on the ground and I saw seven shiny threads, like the threads that you make friendship bracelets out of, they were all different colors. So I grabbed them and after I was chacked out of the hospital, I made them into a bracelet. I've never taken it off ever since. Like the streak in my hair, it's a reminder of what happened to me.
"God I wish I had your streak." my mom said.
"Then stand with a spoon in the middle of a thunder storm" I replied. Then we looked at each other and laughed.
Then I remembered what I was doing. After I put the CD in, I put on the hood of my grey zip up, put in my jamaican colored skull candies, and fell asleep listneing to the final words of Nickleback, their words being more clear than ever.
So Far Away...
Playlist:
Who You Are-Jessie J
Far Away-Nickleback
Maybe-Sick puppies
Jar of Hearts-Christina Perri
Paramore (all of their songs)