Soul Mate

Chapter 17

Lily's P.O.V.

"You drew these?" Andy asks Vivi as we stand in front of her exhibit. She shyly looks at the floor, "yea, they aren't super good but..." Andy puts his hand out to stop her, "Vivian, NEVER do that. Never undermine your art, look around," Vivi does as he says before looking back at him, "you are the ONLY one with an exhibit that isn't a senior correct?" Vivi nods. "Clearly, your art spoke to your teacher, otherwise you wouldn't be here. AND, in case you haven't noticed, your exhibit is where people linger longest" She rolls her eyes at that. "You're just saying that" Andy looks my sister straight in the eyes, "No, I'm not. I'm gonna share something with you that not many people know, I haven't even told Lilly this yet," I look at him curious now, "I hate social events. I hate large crowds of people. When I am in situations like this I tend to look around a lot, out of nerves. But it has made me aware of how people are taking in the show. Every other exhibit people glance at the art, make a comment, and move on. YOUR exhibit makes them stop. They look at your work, they ponder, then they look at another piece and have the same process. Every person who has looked at your exhibit stood here for at LEAST 3 minutes." Vivi and I stood there taking in what he said. Andy just shared a huge part of himself with us to make my sister realize how special she is, and I love him for that. Wait? Did I just say I love him? Do I?

"May I have your attention!" yelled the art teacher from the podium, breaking me from my thoughts, "I wanted to thank everyone for coming to support our artists tonight. Every single one of them worked really hard on every piece here in the gym. We have four awards to give out tonight. We have three ribbons to give out and an art scholarship" Vivi stands there nervous, "I really want the 2nd place ribbon" Andy scoffs,  "Vivian, you are going to get first place." "That's impossible, that goes to the scholarship recipient, it has to go to a senior." Andy shrugged his shoulders and the art teacher began speaking again. "Our white ribbon for the person with the third amount of votes goes to Leslie Angler," a blonde girl with chunky glasses and braces walks up to the front to get her ribbon, "And for the first time ever our scholarship recipient is getting the red ribbon," shocked gasps echo through the gym, "will Penelope Fletcher please come to the stage." A red haired girl walks to the stage to accept her ribbon and art scholarship. When she walked off the stage the art teacher begins again, "This has been a year of firsts at the art show. We had a senior receive the scholarship in second place. The reason for that is because of another first," I look at Vivi as she says this and I know, in that moment, Andy was right, Vivi won, "Vivian Gutierrez, please come to the stage." My whole family and Andy applaud the loudest. Andy and I have to shove Vivi to get her moving, she slowly walks to the stage, I don't miss the dirty looks she gets from a few seniors, Penelope included. Once Vivi makes it to the stage the art teacher speaks more, "Vivian is a freshman here at Walter High School, she is the only underclassmen to have her art featured in the show in the thirty years we have had one. This show is exclusively for seniors to showcase their work that they have perfected over four years. However, Vivian's work at fifteen rivals that of her other peers, that I knew it had to be shown. So, Vivian, congratulations on earning the blue ribbon. Your art spoke to every judge and person in this room that voted in a way that couldn't be explained." And with that she gave Vivian a blue ribbon and sent her back to us...

Vivian's art:

Authors note: Yes these are all Google images. Fight me. :)