With Luke finally wrapping up his explanation, the students were finally able to focus on the task that lays ahead of them: making a self-portrait with any material they could find, but instead of drawing or sculpting themselves, they have to make something that represents them. This could be done through creating something with a rough texture or a smooth texture. Or drawing something really chaotic, or maybe something that is very neat and organized.
Clementine didn't really know what she should do for this. She knows that if she got herself some clay, she would only end making various amounts of differently shaped penises. She wasn't really a fan of painting, because the one time she did she'd gotten paint on her fingers, which then made its way onto the keys of her piano. Even though it was very easily avoidable, she was still stubborn enough to never want to give it a try again. Sophie is, obviously, drawing something using her own set of pencils, rather than the ones the school provided. Clementine looks at her drawing briefly, and it already looks more stunning that anything she could even create an image of in her head. Louis is just mindlessly scribbling lines on his piece of paper as he sings the lyrics to one of his own songs. And then Clementine's gaze falls to Violet.
Being assisted by Luke, Violet was trying her hand on sand art. Luke had laid something on the blonde's table that reminded Clementine of an iPad, except it was around five times bigger. The 'screen' of the tablet emitted a very bright, white light and on top of it he had sprinkled a decent amount of sand. As soon as their teacher left Violet's side, she started gently caressing the sand with an immense amount of concentration.
Violet closes herself off from the world around her and gets completely lost in shaping the sand the way she wishes it to be. She feels the minuscule, individual grains of sand brush lightly against her skin, each one seeming to tickle her on their own accord. The gentle touch of the grit sends shivers down her spine, which makes her relax into a stupefying trance. She hears the laughing and chattering of the kids around her become more faint and muffled as she inhales deeply through her nose. She starts rubbing small circles with her fingers, the sand snaking around them as she does so. Moving them along the tablet, the blonde hears the very light scrunching of the small grains against the plastic. Savoring every second of peace away from the shitty world around her, she leans back for a moment to really enjoy the moment in its fullest. Picking up the sound of someone approaching her on her left, Violet decides to pull out of her ecstasy and she turns her head towards the nearing footsteps.
"Do you mind if I join you? I know you were very engrossed, but I asked Luke for one of those tablets and this is the only one they have," a voice very familiar to Violet asks.
Clementine sits down next to the blonde and awaits a response. While she wasn't sure if Violet would actually be okay with this, seeing as she still wasn't confident in the fact that they were on good terms, she still hoped that the blind girl would be okay with this.
"It's fine, I guess," Violet shrugs as she goes back to leisurely stirring the sand again. "Just take the left side and I'll take the right."
The air between the two girls remains noiseless for quite some time. Clementine didn't really know how to spark up any conversation with the new girl as they were currently both just absentmindedly doodling in the sand.
"So... what kind of music do you like?" the brunette asks, not really knowing anything else to talk about.
Please don't be country, please don't be country. Or Shawn Mendes. Fuck that guy.
"I-uh... I guess I'm into rock, mostly... Bands like My Chemical Romance and Motionless in White are my usual go-tos whenever I want to, you know... escape for a bit," Violet explains while continuing to focus on the sand in front of her.
Clementine is still slightly taken aback by the blonde's choice of music, even if her clothes do represent the genre of the two bands she just listed. She scans Violet's outfit, noting her black t-shirt with the logo of the emo band Never Lost, Never Forgotten plastered on the front. They are pretty well known in Virginia and it looked like the girl had actually managed to get her hands on a shirt sold during their Cesious Wires tour after that album had just been released. She was also rocking a pair of ripped, black jeans with a belt that has a silver skull as a buckle.
Not gonna lie, I really dig that look...
"That's cool. I'm not really into the entire emo scene myself, but I do listen to it sometimes. I'm more of a heavy metal girl, you know? Slipknot, Megadeth, but mostly Lamb of God. They're so fucking good," Clementine rambles. She could get lost talking about her favorite bands and why they were so good for hours on end.
"But... you play classical music on the piano?" Violet questions timidly.
Clementine shrugs, not realizing that her blonde companion can't actually see that. "I like that too. Plus you kinda have to when you play piano. But I play guitar as well."
"I used to play guitar back when I could see," Violet says, letting out a sad, disappointed sigh as she does so. "Maybe you can play for me someday? Just so I can sort of experience it again?"
The brunette focuses back on her sand drawing, looking around her for a second before doodling a penis into the sand. "Sure, I guess. Why is being blind preventing you from playing though? You could still feel around and just play that way, right? I sometimes play with my eyes closed as a practice routine."
"I know, and I tried. But it's so goddamn frustrating," Violet says with a pained expression on her face, her movements in the sand slowing down to almost a complete standstill.
Clementine stops drawing and looks over at the now melancholic blonde next to her. Feeling bad for the girl, she bumps her shoulder with her own to catch her attention.
"Look, if you really want to hear me play something that badly, Louis and I do this thing every Saturday for the younger kids here. Kinda like a concert of sorts. We mostly play piano, but I'd be down to bring my guitar down there. You're free to stop by if you don't have anything else keeping you busy," Clementine says nonchalantly, taking the opportunity to draw a stick figure on Violet's side of the sandy pad.
Violet tilts her head to the direction of Clementine's voice for a moment before dropping it back down to focus on her art once again.
"I'll uh.... I'll think about it. Thanks for the offer, Clementine," Violet responds softly after creating an outline of a bird in the sand.
"Don't mention it. And just so you know, you don't have to keep calling me by my full name if you don't want to," Clementine frowns lightly as she adjusts the brim of her baseball cap. "Most of my friends just call me Clem anyways," she finishes with a shrug.
I wish I had a cooler nickname though, like Boat God or something ...wait, I hate boats. Eh, maybe Clem isn't so bad after all.
Violet nods silently and continues to add details to her bird drawing. Adding the texture of the wings and the beak. The whole process piquing Clementine's interest, watching how much focus Violet was putting into the smallest of details, especially after starting off with just an outline. Watching her maneuver the sand in such an effortlessly graceful way as if she was put in a trance. Shaking her head for a moment before coming back down to earth.
"What about you? Any nicknames or anything you like being called?"
"Not really, most of the somewhat friendly names I was called weren't exactly things I'd like people to repeat," Violet grimaces at the thought of being called names for being an outsider, escalating even further when she became blind.
Clementine thinks to herself for a moment before snapping her fingers, garnering the attention of the now startled Violet. "Well, how about we just start out with Vi? We shortened my name, the least we could try is the same for you. Better than 'Mitch the Bitch.'" The two girls laugh at the last comment earning an eyebrow raise from Luke before he smiles and goes back to helping another student.
"Vi... I guess I kind of like that?" Violet says quietly, not wanting to admit to how much she actually loves the sound of it and how it rolled so smoothly of Clementine's tongue.
"You guess you like it?" Clementine inquires with a small snort.
Violet sighs and gives in. "Okay, I really like it. Is that what you wanted to hear?"
"Yup. I mean, I'm really amazing so it'd be weird if you didn't like something I made up for you," Clementine shrugs, now erasing the stick figure she'd doodled on Violet's side earlier and replacing it with a poorly drawn bird of her own. It sort of resembled a parakeet if she turned her head a certain way.
"Right..." Violet chuckles, shaking her head as she finishes adding the details to her bird.
Clementine is blown away by how much detail Violet was able to add to her bird without being able to see. From the way Violet's nose is scrunched up as she concentrates, she can tell that the blonde's hands seem to have a life of its own as soon as she enters her focused state of mind.
"Holy Hell dude, are you sure you haven't done this before?" Clementine asks, astonished by the graceful movements she bares witness to.
"I never said I have," Violet chuckles shyly. "But no, I haven't. This is my first time."
"Interesting choice of words," Clementine comments dryly, which makes Violet turn into a blushing, stuttering mess.
"W-What? No! I did not mean it like that," she murmurs as she plants her face into the palms of her hands, causing her face to become covered in grains of sand. She curses softly under her breath, both at the mess she made and at her reaction to Clementine's remark.
"Hm, I bet," Clementine smirks. "Here, let me get that for you," she added as she leans closer towards her new friend.
Clementine brushes her hands over Violet's cheeks to clean off the sand on her face, which results in the blonde turning an even deeper shade of scarlet. Clementine amusedly raises an eyebrow.
"Have you ever done it, though?" she asks casually.
Violet frowns. "Done what?"
"Taken a dick," Clementine adds nonchalantly, still wiping away at Violet's face. "Had a boyfriend, whatever."
It feels as if all the blood that VIolet has in her body rises to her face. She starts sweating lightly, making her skin feel all itchy as she's at a loss for words. "I... what. N-No, I haven--"
"LADIES! How are you two doing?" Louis cheerfully chimes in, crashing down onto the seat next to Violet, startling her.
"Good, we were just talking about dicks," Clementine answers as she wipes the last remaining grain of sand of the blind girl's face.
Violet shakes her head in a defense manner. "W-What? No, you were talking about dicks."
Louis grins humorously. "Dude, dicks are fun! There's no shame in talking about dicks."
"HEY! Stop that!" Brody says as she nears the table. She comes to a standstill, glaring at Louis and Clementine as she taps her foot on the ground impatiently. "It's obvious you're making her uncomfortable, so stop it! Those topics are stupid on its own, but when you're talking to someone you barely know it's even worse!"
"Right. Sorry, mom," Clementine quips playfully as she rolls her eyes.
"Apologize to her."
"What?"
"I said, apologize to her," Brody repeats sternly.
Clementine looks at her confused. "You're kidding, right?"
"I'm dead freaking serious," the auburn-haired girl says.
Clementine shakes her head slowly and raises her eyebrows, but she doesn't question it any further. She sighs and turns towards Violet. "Vi, I'm sorry for making you feel uncomfortable. I shouldn't have said those things without knowing if you were okay with talking about them. Please, will you forgive me?"
Now it's Violet's turn for her eyebrows to rise, but hers do in more of a confused manner rather than Clementine's defiant one. "Uh... you're forgiven?"
"Thanks," the brunette chuckles, trying not to burst out into laughter because of the unamused way Brody is glaring daggers at her.
"Did you just call her Vi? When did that happen?"
Clementine looks at Louis and sends a death glare his way, and he audibly gulps. "Uh... never mind. That's not what I came here. I came here to ask if Violet maybe wants to join us when we hang out tomorrow night. You know, since she seems to somewhat like us?"
"Since when are we hanging out tomorrow night?" Clementine asks.
"Since now," Louis shrugs.
Clementine imitates his motion, and Violet does the same thing.
I guess we're hanging out tomorrow...
A/N: We're sorry for the late update! I swear we'll get on a consistent update schedule at some point lol. Though this chapter was a bit shorter than what we usually do, I can tell you that the next chapter will be longer so we're looking forward to seeing what you all think! We just wanted to take a minute of your time and say that we can't thank you enough for all of your comments, votes, and overall support for our story! It really means the world to us and we're so happy and thrilled that you all have liked our story and have stuck by us with every update. We love you all to death :) -TG/Rijk