Waiting For Us [COMPLETED]

chapter 42 - bestest friend

Talia:

"I don't think I'm doing this right."

I look up from my paint to find Grayson mixing his own paints into a very lovely shade of...brown—literally the exact color of shit. My brows furrow when I remember that I tasked him with painting the basketball for our artwork. Orange. I'm pretty sure a basketball is famously orange.

It's been three weeks since everything occurred.

One week following the funeral was tough, for both Grayson and myself. Our time spent together consisted of small conversations that appeared periodically throughout long expanses of silence. Sometimes, I would get him to smile just for a second, but then his face turned serious and distant. In those moments, we would do what Grayson and I vowed—to take comfort and care of the other when was required. I made sure to wrap him tight in my arms until I could feel him relax.

There was one time when we tried to watch a movie, which resulted in him falling asleep in my lap. Exhaustion overtook him from everything his body and mind was putting him through, so I let him sleep. And sleep. And sleep. He woke up sixteen hours later, sprawled out on my bed on his stomach like a starfish. Grayson was very confused by what happened, but by the way I saw him get out of bed—shoulders back, head held high—I knew he was getting better.

And then he actually did get better.

Now, exactly eight days until graduation, we are scrambling to finish our semester-long art project. We have completed two of the art pieces, but two more must be done—one from Grayson's favorite place, and one from mine.

We decided on connecting each piece of art work with the other, all centered around hands, oddly enough. The first one shows two hands—one male, one female—holding up the brochure to the National Gallery of Art. The drawing consists of only straight lines to make up the hands and paper, giving the work a modern style. We painted this one with acrylic paint to heighten the sharpness.

The one we work on now is from Grayson's favorite place: the basketball court by his house. This time, it's two hands holding a basketball, also to be painted with acrylic. The hands are shaded and drawn with charcoal and pencil in order to make the basketball pop. Surprisingly, that was Grayson's idea.

The third doesn't have much to do with the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The only indication is the fake, elaborate frame I painted along the border of the watercolor canvas. Within the frame is a recreation of Michelangelo's Creation of Adam painting on the Sistine Chapel ceiling. It's only a partial recreation, because just the hands are visible, reaching out to each other.

For the fourth and final painting, we allowed the hands to finally touch.

When Grayson and I were in art class one day, I reminded him that we still needed to visit his second favorite place to complete the project. He informed me we had already been there. The playground of our old elementary school is one of Grayson's favorite places, simply because it is where he met me. I kissed him the next time we were alone. A lot. Him saying those kinds of things makes my heart go all weird.