Vanilla

Chapter 42

"Dani." Lauren wrapped her arms around my neck, she smiled up at me. "Let's stop by the pizza place on the way to my house."

"Okay, just don't tell Melanin, she'll feel butt hurt."

"But that's our friend." Lauren giggles, walking away from me.

I followed close behind her. "Well, our friend can eat pizza with Lexie."

"Are you jealous that she's spending more time with Lexie than you?"

"Not at all, that means she can rant about her frustrations with Lexie instead."

"That's not a very nice thing to say."

"Who said I was trying to be nice?"

~

"Dani..." Lauren groans, pointing to the empty rack of canvas. "They don't have my eight by ten canvases."

"I think the store down the street has them," I said, eyeing the empty rack.

Lauren groans. "I'll get it later then."

I walk over to the art organizers with Lauren. I examined the swivel cart, while Lauren looked at the huge desk one. "They have it in white, black, grey, and other neon colors. Should I get one?"

Lauren's lips curl up to form a smile. "You're going to go back into doing art?"

"I'm thinking about it." I feel the knob of the drawers.

Lauren nodded. "Thinking is better than never."

I stare at the organizer for a moment before looking back at her. "Why do you think I should go back to doing art? Because I used to have good pieces or something?"

"Because you were good at reflecting your mood onto the canvas perfectly." Lauren shifts her gaze to the other parts of the store. "One thing you loved to draw was a dove falling into this black ocean. I never knew why you drew it a lot, but you did-I figured it was because you wanted to perfect it. But you drew it the same way every time."

"What was my reason then?" I asked.

"That love and peace are sometimes overpowered or just mysterious when you don't know what you're falling into. You said that you wanted peace, silence, and an escape from reality. So you drew that dove falling into the black ocean to represent your mood, then you drew it again giving it a different meaning saying that love is mysterious. Each time you drew that painting, it looked the same, but each one had a different meaning despite the similarities."

"That sounds like me alright." my eyes scanned the store for anything else I wanted. "Did I paint or draw anything else?"

"A snake moving through a garden of lavenders, while a huge yellow sun shines down on it."

"What did that one mean?"

Lauren picks up a sketch pad and puts it in her basket. "The snake represented healing, the lavenders represented healing as well, and the yellow sun represented hope. 'I hope that a snake will bring me my healing one day' is what you told me."

"I was one broken kid." I chuckled.

Lauren sighed. "You were in the midst of being picked on, and you were dealing with your mother's death. Everyone that knew you understood why you painted them." Lauren picked up a pack of charcoal pencils. "The day you put down the brush, you didn't know that'll be your last day using it."

"What was your first painting reflecting your mood?" I asked her, watching her use her index finger to search for something on the shelves.

"A sheep looking down into a pink waterfall." Lauren found what she was looking for-matte paint. "Not much of a good start, huh?"