{WATTYS 2021/2022 SHORTLIST}{Editor's Pick} {Featured Story}
One girl. Two boys. An impossible choice.
Stella LaFever, a theatre student from California, can't wait to spend a summer in Newport, Rhode Island, with her best friend. She is in despera...
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Spencer was lost in colors and lines.
The world and its complications fell away when he was drawing. Creating pictures from the images inside his head always brought him to a meditative state.
A sip of cold water. A layer of color. A step back. Then the process repeated until the picture inside Spencer's mind was transposed on the canvas. He'd done it a million times.
But, this painting wasn't an assignment for class or a piece of commissioned art. No. This was an image that had been living inside his head ever since kissing Stella's fingertips.
A thorny rose held between delicate hands. The blossom shy, the grip tight. The sky dark and dotted with a thousand stars.
His thin brush touched water than paint before he committed a vibrant shade of red to paper.
Spencer sucked in a sharp breath and held it, concentrating as the color bled.
The next hour might have passed in a minute. He couldn't stop thinking about her or about being in love with her.
What are you doing to me, Stella? He had asked on top of the roof—strands of her hair floating in the breeze.
The same thing you're doing to me.
Had anyone ever said something more perfect?
The same thing you're doing to me.
Could Stella know what she was doing to him? Spencer liked to imagine she could. After all the years and all the walls he'd put up around his heart, after all the easy smiles he'd traded for meaningless sex. None of it mattered anymore.
She was it. Spencer was sure of it. He wanted to spend the rest of his life making her laugh.
"I wish I'd met you years ago," Spencer whispered to the pair of watercolor hands in front of him. "How different would my life be?"
His lip was between his teeth, pondering, when the door chime sounded. His attention reluctantly drifting from the painting to the back of his studio.
"What do you what?" Spencer called over his shoulder. Thinking it must be Turner.
A few soft steps sounded on polished concrete. Then her voice came. "How about a kiss?"
A kiss? He knew by the look on her face that wasn't all she wanted.
The paintbrush in his hand hit the floor, splattering little bits of blood red paint over the ground. He hadn't been expecting her.
