Falling Into Shadows

Red marks began to form as I pulled the black hair tie around my wrist every five seconds, compelling it to make contact with my wrist.

I couldn’t believe that I was hungry again when I already ate a mini plain bagel (72) with strawberry jam (45) this morning. I even ate a garden salad (110) for dinner last night and didn’t purge any of it. I made sure that I didn’t skip any meals so far, but my stomach didn’t seem to be satisfied with any of the food I ate.

“How can you possibly be thinking about food again when you’re making yourself become even fatter than you already are, you repulsive girl.”

She was right. I shouldn’t be thinking about food right now because I would be running further away from the finishing line and closer towards the starting line. I couldn’t go back to the start when it was barely the fourth day of the competition. And I wouldn’tsuccumb to the shadows that tempted me with food.

I also should be trying to finish the pop quiz Mr. Wilson decided to give us and overlook the fact that lunch was in less than three hours. I suddenly regretted not paying attention to yesterday’s lesson on how to prove that two triangles were congruent because I couldn’t seem to remember all of the triangle congruence theorems. He would also most likely realize that I hadn’t been paying attention in his class for the past few days—which was indisputably true, but I didn’t want him to know that it was—after he would finish grading my quiz.

I didn’t see the point in proving that two triangles were congruent to each other when they looked the same in the given diagram. I wasn’t planning to major in mathematics in college, and I was sure that drawing triangles was something that every art major should be able to do, even if they didn’t look the same in their drawings.

I twirled my pencil absentmindedly as I tried to recall the theorems, but my brain didn’t seem to function properly, or perhaps my short attention span in this class was to blame for my lack of concentration. Either way, I was undoubtedly going to fail this quiz.

Kayleigh already finished taking the quiz fifteen minutes ago, and she was reading a tattered paperback book, while she waited for the last ten minutes of class to elapse. I thought she was quite proficient in Geometry because she often raised her hand in class and answered all of Mr. Wilson’s endless math questions. She was probably an English prodigy as well because our English teacher, Mrs. Leahy, would occasionally read her essays to the class and praise her willingness to learn, while everyone else in her class would fall asleep during her lessons.

I suddenly wanted to switch places with her because she seemed to be academically perfect, which was something my parents had always expected of me until they saw my last few report cards. She was also lovely with her chestnut brown hair that cascaded down her face in soft curls. She looked as if she walked out of a magazine print without trying to look gorgeous. And that was something that I could never accomplish.

The bell suddenly rang and startled me in the process. I quickly wrote down any theorem I could remember and handed my quiz to Mr. Wilson before I bolted out of the classroom. I didn’t even have time to say goodbye to Kayleigh, for I knew that my History teacher, Mr. Sterling, did not tolerate lateness. His classroom was on the third floor, and I had only five minutes to run up two flights of stairs and find his classroom.

Nothing interesting happened in History. Mr. Sterling droned on about the French revolution as I pretended to take notes in his class and continued to pull my black hair tie. The marks began to become a bit redder than before, but I didn’t mind the cadmium red that slightly tainted my wrist, for I thought it made a nice contrast between the light shade of red and my pale canvas.

Chemistry was boring as well. Mr. Evans handed out lab packets, which consisted of new labs we were going to perform, various worksheets, and passages we would all have to read over the weekend. He assigned the class to do a lab based on identifying metals by the color it emitted after it was heated, and told us that a lab report would be due on Monday.

Lunch finally began, and I was surprised to see Lindsey sitting at our table with the rest of our friends.

“Hey, Lindsey, why weren’t you here yesterday?” I asked as I sat next to her.

“I was sick, but I’m feeling much better than yesterday. I caught the cold from my annoying little brother, but at least I was able to miss school for a day. I also found out that I didn’t miss anything important during my absence, so I’m not worried about it,” she replied optimistically, smiling. Lindsey always managed to find the bright side of things, even when she had found out that her mother had to undergo surgery after a nearly fatal car crash. She had known that the car accident wasn’t something she should take lightly, but she had thought that there wasn’t any point in moping around the hospital for days, while her father and brother were trying to cope with it. Lindsey had thought that her optimism would save her family, and in some ways, she was right in the end because her mother survived.

“I’m glad that you’re all right now. I felt lonely when you weren’t here yesterday. Savannah was occupied with her homework, and Jessica and Peyton were engaged in a conversation I couldn’t care less about.”

She grinned, as she never took off her gaze from her crossword puzzle. Lindsey was always addicted to those, and I wasn’t surprised that she would often carry a pocket sized crossword book. She even enjoyed learning new vocabulary words; therefore, it was easy for her to memorize all of those ridiculous SAT words we needed to memorize for next year. “Were they gossiping again?”

“Yeah, they probably were, but I’m not sure because I tried to drown out their chatter. You know of my dislike for gossip, especially ones that are false.” I pulled my hair tie a couple of more times before I left it alone, for my wrist was becoming noticeably red again.

“I think dislike would be an understatement, but yes, I do know about that.” She looked up from her crossword puzzle and turned towards Jessica. “Hey, Jess, what’s today’s tip?”

“Well, tip number four is inspired by Annabelle. After all, I’ve seen her do it all the time,” Jessica said.

I glanced at her quizzically. “What have you seen me do?”

“You’re always pulling a hair tie on your wrist for some strange reason, but your habit seems to be contagious because I started to do it with my rubber band during English. I noticed that it was distracting me from my hunger, and I don’t know why you pull your hair tie, but I thought that it would be a great method to overlook the thought of food easily. So tip number four is to pull on your hair tie when you’re feeling hungry during class.”

Well, that tip certainly wasn’t going to be very helpful if I tended to do it all the time, but I was glad that I was able to inspire one of her tips. I was just hoping that her next tip would be the slightest bit more helpful to me.

The bell rang as we all left the cafeteria to go to our next class. I quickly rushed to the art room, so I could choose my favorite filbert brush to paint with before anyone else could claim it as theirs. The brush was easily disguisable from the other ones, for I had written my initials in permanent marker below the ferrule of the brush when Mrs. Silver wasn’t looking in my direction.

I searched through the bucket of paintbrushes and saw that no one had taken it, making me smile with delight. I grabbed the rest of the art materials I needed and set up my easel, so I could continue painting the parts of my drawing that were still in charcoal.

I blended various shades of gray with white or black acrylic paint before I dipped my brush into the muddled pool of hopes and dreams. I transferred the paint onto the canvas and watched as charcoal began to disappear with each careful stroke of the brush.

“That’s a beautiful painting, Annabelle. The black and white contrast is striking, and the shadows are very prominent. Are there any specific reasons for painting five bay leaves?” Mrs. Silver asked, startling me, while she smiled in satisfaction.

“Thank you, Mrs. Silver,” I said hesitantly, knowing that she didn’t truly mean it, for she was only trying to raise my self-confidence in art. The painting wasn’t beautiful, for I didn’t paint the shadows well, and the shading could have been better. “Well, I’ve always enjoyed painting leaves, but I’ve never drawn bay leaves before. I remember learning that aromatic bay leaves can be an herbal remedy that alleviates headaches, and I thought it would be interesting to paint them, for they symbolize healing. I don’t have a reason for drawing five of them though. I just thought that the painting would look better with five leaves because it would fill up more space on the canvas.”

“I see. Well, you painted it very well, and you should consider submitting it for next year’s art exhibition.”

“Thank you. I don’t think that I’m quite finished painting it yet because something seems to be missing in it. I think I should shade the corners a bit more, but perhaps I’ll consider submitting it for the art show,” I said, lying about the last part. There wasn’t any point in submitting it for the art show when I completed it because it wouldn’t be featured in the show. There were so many amazing artists at my school, and their artwork would clearly outshine mine. I didn’t want to cope with rejection, so I was going to make my finished painting collect dust as it lay in my room.

I didn’t know why the painting was bothering me for some reason, but I felt as if the picture wasn’t complete yet. I could intensify the shading a bit more or deepen the shadows of the leaves, but one simple mistake could easily ruin the whole painting, and I definitely didn’t want to start over.

I gazed at the various shades of gray and white on my paint pallet and swirled the slate gray and white paint together aimlessly. I watched as the bluish-gray color became lighter, but I knew that blending colors wasn’t going to enhance my painting.

The pallet suddenly flew out of my hand and onto the floor as someone bumped into me. The paint splattered the marble floor, and I knew that Mrs. Silver would be vexed if no one cleaned it up instantly.

“Annabelle, I’m sorry for knocking you over! I was just in a hurry to wash off my pallet that I didn’t even think about watching where I was walking. And please don’t be mad, but I may have accidentally splattered red paint onto your canvas,” Savannah said timidly, biting her lip in worry.

I looked up from the ground and saw that there was indeed red paint on my painting. The cadmium red tainted the lonely bay leaf in the corner, making it look as if it was bleeding. I picked up my filbert paintbrush and smoothed out the small blotch of paint, making it blend in more with the leaf’s shadow.

I smiled in satisfaction. “It’s fine, Savannah. I think you may have just helped me finish my painting. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome?” She looked utterly confused, but she accepted my gratitude and went off to the sink to clean off her pallet.

I gazed back at my painting, and felt relieved that I had finally finished it. It wasn’t necessarily arduous to draw and paint, but I felt as if the whole process of painting it was rather complex than simple. After all, the painting consisted of more than just charcoal dust and acrylic paint.

It contained the scar I never meant to paint.