Chris Evans One Shots

Paint Me A Birmingham - Cole Turner

**COLE POV**

I had just left the United States Botanical Gardens in Washington DC where I had been working for the last year. I had gone to college in Birmingham Alabama and even worked down at their botanical garden in the research department of all the new flowers and crossed seedlings that would come in. 

I got in my jeep to go home, same thing I did everyday now for the past year. Ever since I ruined everything in Birmingham and came home.

Majoring in agriculture and minoring in history was supposed to get me the job I wanted in Alabama in the botanical gardens that was just a block away from the elementary school where she taught...

We met our freshman year of college at a freshman mixer and hit it off instantly. We were inseparable from that night. I'd wait for her outside her classes, we studied together, did everything together up to the point of sophomore year moving into an apartment together.

We talked about our future. I would work near the school, we would get a house on the edge of town. I would have all the plants and a garden like I always wanted. We talked about getting a dog and even how many kids we wanted. Everything was planned, everything was perfect...until it wasn't.

We graduated, we got our dream jobs. We were still in our small apartment but that never bothered Callie, she said as long as we were together, she was happy. I came home a year after getting the job at the botanical gardens or Birmingham and told Callie I was offered a job at the United States Botanical Gardens. Much better opportunity for me, for us. Callie couldn't leave her school, she loved it where she was. She told me I had to do what was best for me...

So, I left Birmingham...

That was the last time I saw Callie, well at least in person. Her face plagued my dreams every night. I left her standing at the door to our apartment building crying as I drove away.

As I was driving, I looked at saw the farmers market and street fair was open again. I knew my sister and dad would be there with herbs, fruit and the honey from our beehives. I stopped and parked the car.

I got out and started walking. I saw a man painting and selling tons of paintings.

"These are amazing." I said seeing a few ocean scenes.

"Thank you." The artist said. "I don't just do oceans. For $20 I'll paint anything if you have something in mind..." he said and I shook my head.

"Not at the moment." I said and went to walk away.

I took a few steps away and stopped.

"Actually..." I said turning around and walking back to the painter. He looked up at me.

"What can I do for you?" He asked as he took out a blank canvas.

"Could you paint me a Birmingham? Make it look just the way I planned. A little house on the edge of town. Porch going all the way around. Put my girl there in the front yard swing. In a cotton dress, make it early spring. For a while, she'll be mine again" I explained he just looked at me but nodded seeming to sense what I wanted.

"That's very specific." He huffed a laugh dipping his brush in paint and getting started.

"It was the dream once." I said.

"Dream that didn't come true?" He asked and I shook my head.

"Nope, life got in the way, and I made a stupid choice." I said and he half nodded. He was painting and I just thought back to Callie, I wondered what she was doing now...where she was...was she with someone...was she happy? A lot of questions.

"What should this girl look like?" He asked.

I pulled a picture of Callie from my wallet I still kept with me, and he smiled seeing her.

"She is beautiful."

"Yeah, she is." I said smiling at the picture.

The painter looked up at me. "Son, just where in this picture would you like to be?"

I sighed, not even thinking I had a choice to be in it, but the answer was simple. "If there's any way you can, could you paint me back into her arms again?"

He gave a small smile and nodded.

He informed me he would have the painting done in about an hour and I nodded.

I went and walked the market and picked up a few things after visiting with my dad and sister as well. I got back to painter, and he handed me the canvas. He captured Callie perfectly and I was there beside her on the porch swing like envisioned.

"Thank you." I said and he smiled. "It's just how I imagined." I said and he smiled. I paid him and then headed home.

Once home I took the picture inside and looked for a place to put it, right above the fireplace seemed to be perfect.

I stood back from the painting once it was hung and sighed.

"I got us the dream Callie, even if it is just a painting." I said out loud and then sighed. "I'm sorry I couldn't do it for real." I said.

〰〰〰〰

I was working out in the garden a few days after I got the painting. I was cataloging growth on an exotic plant we got a few days ago and planted.

"Okay everyone, stay in a group. We are here to learn about plants and their life source not just here to have a good time!" I heard a female voice say and I noticed it was a fieldtrip from a school, I saw it on the schedule in the breakroom today.

The group rounded the corner, and the teacher was talking, I looked up to make sure I was out of there way and that's when her eyes caught mine.

"Callie?" I blurted out.

"Cole..." My name sounded so painful coming from her mouth. 

We just stood there looking at one another.

She was here, not just in my painting, she was actually here...