Smoke & Mirrors
Fine
I honestly can’t imagine how it would feel to walk into a room full of people and not feel the roof collapsing on me.
The smell of art hit me, like a drug, a drug made of oil based paints. I knew a lot of people who found the smell offensive, but they just didn't understand. I sat my bag onto my favorite art table, it was in the middle of six others, it had smaller stools surrounding it and the top was bathed with dry paints and pencil marks. It told a story, as if the other premature artists that had created on top of its surface left those marks as if to say “Hey, I was here, I exist.”
The other members of the art club were already there and working on their pieces, boards and canvases were spread out in front of them. We were working on a project for Mr.Olliston's girlfriend, she was an architect working on a design for a new academy opening and she needed art work from actual students to use as decoration for it. Only a few of the art club students were sleeted but others still wanted something to do so that they felt useful, at least that was what I got out of it.
“Tara, did you bring that small brush today?” Riley, my best friend, walked up to me smiling brightly like she usually did. Riley Hale was, like I mentioned, my best friend and had been since we were practically toddlers. She was the kind of girl every girl wanted to be, beautiful, intelligent, and fierce yet sweet at the same time. I was always envious of her, she was the epitome of perfection. Long dark brown hair, brown eyes, tan skin almost as if she were some form of Hispanic or Hawaiian, she was only about an inch shorter than I and had an amazing body, and an even more amazing face.
I dug through my bag and pulled out a paintbrush with a small tip, it was her favorite. I had tried to give it to her at one point but she insisted that she didn't want it, that she'd be okay just borrowing it when she needed to. I gave it to her without a word.
“Thanks, oh I was wondering if you wanted to go to the movies tonight to see Jurassic World. Wyatt is taking me and I thought it'd be cool if you came with,” Riley always invited me out to do things, I only showed up about thirty percent of the time and Wyatt was usually the reason I didn't. Wyatt was her boyfriend, they'd been dating for about two years, he was the classic popular boy. Attractive, charismatic, and well-known. He was supposedly 'in absolute love' with Riley. It wasn't until recently I discovered how jealous I was of the relationship, but it wasn't until even more recently I became unsure of who I was more jealous of, her or, well, him.
“I'll ask my parents if I can, what time?” usually whenever I said I'd ask my parents I never did and would say they said no, I know it wasn't honest but I wasn't the type who liked to go out with my friends all the time. It wasn't them, it was me. How cliché is that?
I never did show up for the movie, I figured neither of them would miss me. I never received a text, call or anything so I assumed they were better off without me. My mother and father weren't home, they were having a date night and by date night I mean they went to go get hammered at a local bar. It was around 9:30 P.M. I was laying in my bed, door shut, lights off, my laptop laying on my lower abdomen. I had facebook pulled up, as I scrolled down there was rainbows and confederate flags everywhere. Almost as if the confederate army was having a war against skittles.
I could spend my whole life pointing at the poison of the conservative, republican, Christian right. Or I could look at myself and see the most homophobic person I’ve ever known was me at 15 years old. In the past two years I've felt different, I felt something inside of me growing but I was scared it felt like something that shouldn't be there. I knew if I told my mother she'd make it out to be a disease, but it couldn't be.
I prayed silently to a God that I wasn't sure in anymore that I was going to be fine. Fine is the suckiest word, it never tells the truth. It was a Friday night and I was all alone with my thoughts and a social media death trap. Was fine ever a word I could use in it's exact definition?
The smell of art hit me, like a drug, a drug made of oil based paints. I knew a lot of people who found the smell offensive, but they just didn't understand. I sat my bag onto my favorite art table, it was in the middle of six others, it had smaller stools surrounding it and the top was bathed with dry paints and pencil marks. It told a story, as if the other premature artists that had created on top of its surface left those marks as if to say “Hey, I was here, I exist.”
The other members of the art club were already there and working on their pieces, boards and canvases were spread out in front of them. We were working on a project for Mr.Olliston's girlfriend, she was an architect working on a design for a new academy opening and she needed art work from actual students to use as decoration for it. Only a few of the art club students were sleeted but others still wanted something to do so that they felt useful, at least that was what I got out of it.
“Tara, did you bring that small brush today?” Riley, my best friend, walked up to me smiling brightly like she usually did. Riley Hale was, like I mentioned, my best friend and had been since we were practically toddlers. She was the kind of girl every girl wanted to be, beautiful, intelligent, and fierce yet sweet at the same time. I was always envious of her, she was the epitome of perfection. Long dark brown hair, brown eyes, tan skin almost as if she were some form of Hispanic or Hawaiian, she was only about an inch shorter than I and had an amazing body, and an even more amazing face.
I dug through my bag and pulled out a paintbrush with a small tip, it was her favorite. I had tried to give it to her at one point but she insisted that she didn't want it, that she'd be okay just borrowing it when she needed to. I gave it to her without a word.
“Thanks, oh I was wondering if you wanted to go to the movies tonight to see Jurassic World. Wyatt is taking me and I thought it'd be cool if you came with,” Riley always invited me out to do things, I only showed up about thirty percent of the time and Wyatt was usually the reason I didn't. Wyatt was her boyfriend, they'd been dating for about two years, he was the classic popular boy. Attractive, charismatic, and well-known. He was supposedly 'in absolute love' with Riley. It wasn't until recently I discovered how jealous I was of the relationship, but it wasn't until even more recently I became unsure of who I was more jealous of, her or, well, him.
“I'll ask my parents if I can, what time?” usually whenever I said I'd ask my parents I never did and would say they said no, I know it wasn't honest but I wasn't the type who liked to go out with my friends all the time. It wasn't them, it was me. How cliché is that?
I never did show up for the movie, I figured neither of them would miss me. I never received a text, call or anything so I assumed they were better off without me. My mother and father weren't home, they were having a date night and by date night I mean they went to go get hammered at a local bar. It was around 9:30 P.M. I was laying in my bed, door shut, lights off, my laptop laying on my lower abdomen. I had facebook pulled up, as I scrolled down there was rainbows and confederate flags everywhere. Almost as if the confederate army was having a war against skittles.
I could spend my whole life pointing at the poison of the conservative, republican, Christian right. Or I could look at myself and see the most homophobic person I’ve ever known was me at 15 years old. In the past two years I've felt different, I felt something inside of me growing but I was scared it felt like something that shouldn't be there. I knew if I told my mother she'd make it out to be a disease, but it couldn't be.
I prayed silently to a God that I wasn't sure in anymore that I was going to be fine. Fine is the suckiest word, it never tells the truth. It was a Friday night and I was all alone with my thoughts and a social media death trap. Was fine ever a word I could use in it's exact definition?
♠ ♠ ♠
I'm having a lot of muse for this story