- two.
Watercolor Eyes - From "Euphoria" An HBO Original Series
ᴸᵃⁿᵃ ᴰᵉˡ ᴿᵉʸ
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My room is a mess. Over and over I tell myself I'm gonna clean tomorrow. At least just move the clothes off from the bed.
Then it's floor time, I'm sprawled on the rug, staring at the ceiling as my teeth grip a single stick of pocky. My phone dings and I know who it is. I don't answer. We had been talking while I was grocery shopping with my parents. He made me giggle. I hated it. And yet when I saw him for the first time in a year when I was in New York, I swore to myself that maybe I could never truly hate him. My feelings were mixed and I was conflicted.
The laptop also dings and I exhale. I refuse to check the grades I've been getting from half-assed homework being turned in from the hands of a mediocre high schooler whose only actual attribute is visuals and I can't even study what I want. At least for now, I hope.
It's February now and Valentine's Day was yesterday. It was fucking annoying. I hate Valentine's Day; have always hated Valentine's Day. Do we need a specific day to demonstrate affection or am I just a pretentious fuck? My classmates had had a picnic on campus. I was in charge of bringing the sheet to spread on the grass and sit but Miss Congeniality was fussy and bitched about a few speckles of sun, insulting me in the process.
But no biggie and no hard feelings, just a girl in my class who has the pride of a politician and the superiority complex of Walter White for the mere fact of being the eldest in our group, and she always has a tone with me. Funny, she was one of the first people to greet me on the first day of class and suddenly she's better than all of us.
Cunt.
But I don't really mind, I'm sat alone on a bench with a fry in my mouth like the pocky I eat when I feel dejected. Pretty when I cry blasts through my trusty earphones when I sit aside and watch the group interact without me. I don't like this, being left out, but at this point it's so usual it's not even a foreign feeling. And I hate self-pity, and I hate to nag and lament and deprecate myself and then do nothing about it but what is a foreign feeling, is trying to squeeze myself in and then say something ridiculous because I'm awkward, to then get weird looks and feel that lump in my throat.
The day wasn't at all bad, though. I had one class. Philosophy. It's a mixture of punctilious speech and dry jokes but the professor is genuinely creative and you can tell he likes to teach. I'm too dumb to understand half of the things he says, although I'm very interested. But also the way he enunciates causes you to understand every three words from ten he speaks.
I had a date after that class. It was great. She was great but I don't think we would match romantically; we're too alike. So friends is enough.
Some guy holding a notebook is standing awkwardly in front of us. He looks like a sim whose task has been canceled. Then he pushes his glasses up like a dork. Curly hair, tan skin, and a beard. I'd say he's in his early 20s, maybe a biology major, and every other conclusion I can get to as I judge him like a picture book by the colors like I forgot to read.
"Hello. Would any of you girls be interested in joining an art club?"
He says and my pupils dilate. I smile. My hands are greasy and they stink of chicken tenders but I sit up straight and wipe the grease on my black pants like the fucking idiot I am. My face has lit up and my smile is so wide at the sound of the word "art" being uttered, It looks like I get high on hydroponic weed.
The space is quiet, no one answers and I get so incredibly pissed off. Fuck all of you! some of you people are art majors. is there any ounce of passion or interest for the arts in your mundane, shallow, vapid lives? They all give him that stupid fucking judgy grin and I have to intervene because who if not me?
"I would!"
It comes out like a squeal. He turns to me, they all turn to me and I'm immediately embarrassed. I try to tone it down but fuck, I feel too hard and this deserves every one of those intense feelings. So what if I'm being judged? I'm happy.
And, yes, maybe I feel too hard but it seems contagious at times. The other girls are now considering it. Paula seems to be interested in it, too. Maybe being overly excited isn't always bad and now a few names are being written down in his notebook.
"We're recruiting people to learn arts but also to teach them. Anyone is welcome, but...we'd appreciate teachers"
Fuck. Teachers? Well, yes...I was an education major before I was an art major, I get that, yes. But teaching art? I'm good, yes...but not that good. Suddenly I'm perplexed, hesitant and unsure, diffident and unconfident. What happened?
"Teaching...I don't know if I'm good enough to teach"
I say softly, my body language sullen and now I look like the rest of them. Did I really think this was the right thing to do? Anxious, yes. Is it news? News to who?
"That's not true, Marie. You're really good, you should teach"
Paula encourages me and my pupils dilate once more. Hope is back. I squeal and take my tablet out. I wanna prove to him that I know how to draw. I show him the latest drawing I've done, which is the first one I've ever done seriously on my tablet, keeping in mind how new it still is. I go to the Sketchbook app.
My breath hitches a little when this guy kneels before me, his chin is to my lap as he looks at my drawing. His expression is flat and unimpressed and I feel like I've been shot. Damn, not even a bit of commotion, not even a raise of eyebrows.
"So you do know how to draw, huh"
He says. Maybe his tone was convincing but fuck man, why so dry? I feel disheartened.
But his eyes speak to me a little when they gleam that soft brown, a speckle of sunlight upon his left cheek. His eyes stay on mine for a small while and I blink and my lips are parted slightly but then I've snapped out of it and in writing my name and number on his notebook.
How strange it is to be something and yet be nothing at all.
