Combustion

nebula: seven

You were not impressed by the assignment until you realized it was a group project. That seemed to lift your spirits. I am sure that you found the subject interesting at first, but after spending over a month on Antigone, your motivation was not anti-gone. (Sorry for the double negative. No apologies for the pun.)

We were to record a five minute Antigone. Aaron had decided it should take place at your house. You complained, because you liked his house better. Eventually though, you were forced to agree because, according to Aaron's words, your house was more palace-like. I don't think you were happy about it.

At this point, your only goal was to make this ancient Greek tragedy a hilarious modern comedy. I was pretty excited, because I was also growing weary of the play. One can only handle so much gloom and horribly timed deaths before getting a little bored.

I'd like to say that the whole thing was a success except for my terrible acting. I thought it was funny, and I loved the way your quick wit and my corny humor mixed together. In fact, I think our comedic content pushed the video to over five minutes long.

I could tell you about the puns or the knock-knock jokes or the probably inappropriate slurs thrown at the blind prophet, but I'm sure you remember most of the funny parts considering you were the one to come up with them. I will admit that I still sometimes watch the video on YouTube. You made an excellent Antigone. It would just be like you to defy the law despite the consequences. You would do what you had deemed as correct and run with the feeling until trouble caught up to you. And you had a way of causing distress like you were reminding all of us we were still alive and remarkable.

I could keep reminiscing about your performance, but I'm sure you understand how I feel about it and how I feel about about you, so I'll spare you the cheesiness this one time.

Rather, I want to talk about your house and how it was difficult to say that it was a nice one. I don't know if you noticed. It wasn't that your house wasn't nice, because Aaron was right, it was like a palace. The walls were painted cream, and the lighting was just dark enough to let off an aura of sophistication. There was a grand piano in the main hall, which you said you rarely played.

It was the very definition of a nice house, but it wasn't nice in the way that you were. Where were the messy paintings? There should have been half-finished projects in the corners of the room. I thought there might have been a swarm of sloppily written assignments scattered across one of the tables. Everything was orderly to the point of suffocation, and it did not seem like a house you would live in. It was stuffy and refined. It had a traditional color scheme. Pretentious photographs in black frames lined the pale walls. Your eyes did not look good in this lighting. The house made your hair look unkempt, too natural to be there.

It was a palace. You were not a princess.

"I love your house so much," Aaron sighed.

You chewed the inside of your lip, and it was clear to me that you didn't like the house. I also thought that it was obvious you felt guilty for not liking the extravagances. "It's a house for people who like things, not people who like ideas." You looked around. "I'm too immature for this place," you said, your eyes faraway.

You shook your head, and the smile returned. It didn't look weird in your house, or anywhere for that matter. Wild things are not so easily captured. "Let's just go up to my room and brainstorm some ideas for this comedy." You didn't wait for us to answer. Instead, you blazed your way up the stairs, sure that we would follow.

Your feet pattered on the carpet as we followed you down the hallway. We entered your room, and I immediately began to feel more comfortable. I could feel you strongly in your bedroom. These four walls felt like a home. It differed from the rest of the building because it actually possessed spirit. You had bled into the floorboards and stained the walls. There was an adventure in everything.

There was clothes spilling out of half-closed dresser drawers. A blanket had fallen off of your bed, and two more were atop it. Each was a different color. There was a stack of books, each with a bookmark tabbed somewhere in the pages, on a side table beside your bed. A lamp was somehow balanced at its summit. There was a single glow-in-the-dark star hanging from your ceiling.The corners of your room housed CD's and DVD's. Your walls were plastered with photos and posters and paintings. I wanted to look at all of them, but I didn't know where to look first.

Your desk was an even greater disaster area, because the mess was confined to a much smaller space. There were crumpled papers on the floor. Notebooks were open to your most recent scribbles. Pens and pencils littered the surface. Textbooks were open to random pages. Somehow, there was still room for a ceramic mug to pose dangerously among the cacophony.

I wanted to stay in the room forever, because I could feel you everywhere. I wanted to see what you saw the first thing in the morning and the last thing at night. I wanted to see where you'd stash a new painting or how you managed to work  despite the mess on your desk. The room was alive, and it breathed your essence. Everything looked freshly messy, like you had picked up after yourself only to be outrageously inspired again. I had a feeling nothing fell the same way twice.

"Your room is always such a mess. Especially compared to the rest of the house," Aaron said, not for the first time, I assumed.

You looked at him, your eyes fierce in this lighting. I could see electricity ripping through them. You opened your mouth to say something: that it wasn't a mess and that it was simply creative. Or maybe you would tell him that you have more interesting things to do than pick up after yourself in this one room of the house.

But I knew that you were a person of creative destruction. This was the room you could rage in. This was the room you could paint in or dance in or think in. This was the room where you were not out of place. This was the place to fan the flames and rebel quietly. This room was you, and it hurt to call it a mess. It was disorderly, sure, but not in a way of uncaring. It was messy in a way that mattered.

"I think it's nicer than the rest." I spoke before you could.

You locked eyes with me. The star was floating above your head, and when you nodded in agreement, the whole room smiled with you. I did not feel like ever leaving.

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not edited because i had to rewrite this instead of rereading. thanks wattpad ilysm!!!!!!!!!