Moons, Stars & Fragile Hearts

I had been waiting for it.

I had been waiting eagerly for the day that I would finally introduce the outside world to my paintings. I had never thought of doing such a thing - always thought of painting as such a private experience between the creator and the canvas - until I saw the flier for Sheffield’s Finest, an art gallery that opened with new material every week.

What possessed me to walk home and pull out my darkest painting was beyond me. Yet, with some odd force controlling my body, I loaded the 20” x 24” canvas in the trunk of my car and drove to the art gallery. Before I knew it, I was shaking hands with the art curator of Sheffield’s Finest and driving home with an indescribable sense of accomplishment.

For a full week, my mind was crowded with thoughts about the opening on Friday. Would people like my painting? Would they understand the deeper meaning that I saw as I sat in my room, running the brush over the canvas with a dark passion? I doubted it. But I still wanted to see the all the strangers’ faces as they looked upon my work.

Then the day finally came around. And I couldn’t get myself to go at first. Dressed in an elegant mini dress that fit my body perfectly, my make up done flawlessly and my hair in a proper bun, I stood in my colorful painting room, staring at the ring of keys on a table. I had fifteen minutes to get to the art gallery.

Fifteen slowly turned into fourteen, then thirteen, twelve, eleven until I was left with ten minutes and the conclusion that if I didn’t go, my sense of accomplishment would just become something that I would ridicule myself over for years. With a wave of heated determination, I grabbed the keys and walked out of the small apartment that I rented with a friend. I made it to the art gallery in seven minutes.

The small room had a maze of walls covered with paintings, photographs and sketches. A couple sculptures stood out on their pedestals, tying the room together. It was easy to get intimidated in a room like this. It was a good thing I knew how to play off worry well.

I walked up to my painting, glancing around the room where other the other artists stood. No one looked completely comfortable in the silent room. It wasn’t until the art curator announced that the doors had opened that a noise was finally made.

A rush of roughly forty pairs of feet piled into the room. Some of the people walked up to a familiar face and began talking to them. Others slowly looked upon the gallery, letting their footsteps linger. I stood patiently in front of my painting, watching everyone’s body language until finally, an elderly woman came up to my painting and gave it one hard look.

“I like it,” She decided sternly, looking at me through her glasses. I simply stared back to her, unable to form words. She went on, filling in the gap in the conversation that I had left, “It reminds me of my youth, when I was dancer.”

I looked at my painting, taking in the dark colors and half of the body of the ballerina. It was supposed to represent fear of failing and never being whole because of worry; a constant, undying worry that you’d never succeed in becoming what you want in life and being satisfied, no matter how hard you tried. It wasn’t as one-dimensional as a mere dancer in a dark room.

Of course, I didn’t say that though. I glanced back at the woman and said sweetly, “Thank you.”

Throughout the next tiring hour, halfway through the night, I answered a few questions about why I used such dark colors and what inspired me to paint a ballerina. I gave the most honest response I could with a smile forced on my face.

I was growing restless, even with the crowd that was forming around my ‘dark, ominous’ art. I kept looking around to see that other artists had moved from their own work and were now admiring their surrounding, silent competition.

I sighed and finally decided to walk away from my little spot. My heels made surprisingly little noise as I passed by some paintings and sketches without even glancing at them. A small crowd had formed around a collage of pictures in the very back of the room. I waited for the crowd to slowly disperse before going up and looking at what seemed to be so interesting.

The collage of photos was mostly portraits of boys with too many tattoos and long hair. The occasional picture of scenery or inanimate objects seemed barely noticeable within all the faces. There were two people that often came up in the collage, though. One was of a boy with long, brown hair, lip piercings and many colorful tattoos. The other was of another boy with a gentle face, bright blue eyes and lighter brown, long hair.

Their faces were so distinct and captivating, it was hard to look away; especially at one photo in the middle of the whole mesh, where the tattooed boy stood shirtless, looking directly into the camera lens. I couldn’t tear my eyes away from it; maybe that’s why I didn’t notice I was being watched.

“Why stare at a photograph when yeh can look at the real thing?”

Reluctantly, I tore my brown eyes from the picture and looked up to see who was talking to me. A mirror image of what I had been staring at was smiling back at me, except now had on a shirt that read Drop Dead in gory graphics.

“Excuse me?” I questioned what he had said. Not bothering to let him reply, I gave him a dirty look before turning my attention back at the photographs, now of a picture of the blue eyed boy. The guy didn’t back off. Instead he stepped in front of my gaze and stuck out his hand.

“Oliver Sykes,” He said keeping that charming yet arrogant smile on his face. I glanced down at his hand before sighing and shaking it with my own. I didn’t respond to his name, instead pushed past him gently so I could continue to look at the photos that I hadn’t yet felt satisfied with. There was something missing. “Aren’ yeh goin’ teh tell me yeh name?”

“I wasn’t planning on it,” I muttered as I looked over a picture of Oliver. The picture was taken using the Fish Eye effect and he was wearing a shirt that read, ‘I’m Loosing My Fucking Mind.’ I hid a small smile.

“Well then,” Oliver snickered. I figured that this was the part where he stormed off to introduce himself to someone else in hopes for a better conversation, but instead he stood stubbornly right next to me.

“Who’s the photographer of these photos?” I asked eagerly, not letting my eyes meet his. It took me a minute to realize that Oliver wasn’t replying with words. When I looked up at him, he was pointing to my painting that now had only one person standing in front of it. I stared at the one person for a moment before glancing at Oliver, “Thank you.”

My heels, this time, clicked obnoxiously against the wood tile floor as I took confident strides towards the boy in front of my painting. The closer I got, though, the slower and more silent my footsteps became until I was finally right beside him.

He towered at least a good eight inches above me, yet he was the one to look down at me and blush. He shoved his hands into his pockets as he turned away and began walking in another direction. I watched him take a few steps, confused, before calling, “Hey!”

The boy turned around and looked me directly in the eyes. That’s when I noticed those familiar breathtaking blue eyes. I didn’t say anything as we stared at each other for a long moment. Finally, he broke it, asking, “Me?”

“Yeah,” I replied, walking up to him, “You’re the photographer for that collage, right?”

“Yeah,” He said simply, probably expecting me to elaborate on why I was asking. But I didn’t really explain, more like just bashed his work without any hesitation or emotion.

“Your collage is missing something.”

The boy looked down at me for what seemed like eternity. I couldn’t tell if he was hurt by my comment, enraged or just didn’t care. His face showed no emotion. I stared up at him, curious in what he had to say to defend himself.

When he finally did decide to speak, he asked a simple question, “Wha’ exactly is missin’?”

“Depth,” I criticized. “Then again, I don’t consider photography an art. You can’t have much depth out of taking a picture. It’s too one-dimensional. There’s nothing emotional and intriguing behind a photograph. What you see is what you get.”

Slowly, so very precariously, the photographer shrugged a little smile on his face. He returned by negative comment with, “Well sometimes people like to jus’ see wha’ they get. Sometimes they aren’ lookin’ for a hidden message underneath all the mysterious layers. But photography is very highly controversial, maybe that’s wha’ makes it an art; because yeh jus’ need a big imagination to fill in for those mysterious layers it lacks.”

I stared at his collage for a minute from across the room before smiling and look back at him. I let my hand fall in front of me for a handshake and said, “Leyla Taylor.”

“Tom Sykes,” He said respectfully, taking my hand in his. “So which piece of work is yehs?”

“Shadows, the ballerina painting,” I said, addressing my work with its proper title. Tom glanced over my head, towards the painting and nodded in an approving way.

“It’s nice. Usually ballerinas are painted to express freedom. Yehs seems too dark to be representing anythin’ positive,” He shared shyly, his hands retreating back into his pockets and a small blush returning to his pale cheeks.

Just as I was about to fully express what Shadows really was meant to be thought of as, Oliver quickly appeared by Tom’s side, interrupting me completely, “Tom, did yeh know she hates yeh collage?”

Tom’s face turned from a soft pink to a bright red in a matter of seconds. He rolled his eyes and snickered, “Yes, Olleh, we actually established tha’ already.” Tom turned to me with an apologetic smile and said, “Leyla, this is my older brother, Olleh. Olleh, this is Leyla.”

I made the quick mistake of talking just as Oliver did. His voice boomed over mine, practically yelling, “Leyla’s yeh name!” as I muttered, “Oh, we met.”

A little pause passed between the three of us before Tom decided to break it, “Oi, Olleh, uh, Leyla jus’ told me she’s the artis’ of tha’ painting over there,” he said, pointing to my painting. “Nice, isn’ it?”

Out of the corner of my eye, I watched Oliver glance over at my painting for a second before he shrugged and sneered sourly, “Teh be hones’, all these paintings suck. Yeh call this art? Oh, please. I have more artsy talent in my pinky finger than all these artists combined.”

Disgusted, I quickly snapped a response at him in the politest way I could, “That’s quite a bold statement. What makes you think you’re oh so damn talented?”

“I’m pretty much equivalent to Leonardo da Vinci.”

His arrogance was appalling. I was about to go off on him, sickened by his words, when Tom piped up, his brow furrowed, “Olleh, Leonardo da Vinci was an incredibly famous multitalented inventor in the fourteen hundreds. Yeh scream for a metal band.”

I erupted into a fit of giggles as Oliver glared at his little brother angrily.

“Aye, we’re bloody brilliant,” He scoffed as my laughter died down slowly, flipping his dark bangs out of his eyes.

“Hah, sure you are,” I snickered, rolling my eyes and crossing my arms over my chest. Oliver seemed unfazed, though. Instead, a sly smirk crossed over his pink lips before he shrugged nonchalantly.

“Don’ believe me? Jus’ come to our press release party on Sunday and see for yehself,” He said.

A million thoughts ran through my head. Was he being serious? Should I go? I had an Art History class early in the morning on Monday and already had plans to watch Jane Austen movies with my room mate. But as I stared into Oliver’s alluring, hazel eyes, the worries quickly vanished.

“Fine,” I agreed, a mischievous smirk taking over my plump, red lips. “I’ll go.”

And so it began.