Broken Souls (Souls #1)

Chapter 26 - Destiny

I was too late. He had grown tired of waiting for me to come around. I can't really blame him though. If I were in his position I would have given up on waiting for him. I push my way into my house, run up to my room and dump my bag onto the floor. My art supplies roll out of my bag. Pencils, markers, pencil crayons and watercolour tubes. They make my think of art class. Then the art project that I am supposed to work on. And lastly, Matthews. Matthews. I need to stop thinking about him. I need to block him from my mind. Forget about him, because he surely has forgotten about me. That much is obvious. The image of beautiful Jasmine leaning in the doorway floods into my mind and envy pricks inside me.

The tears have not come as yet, but I know that when they do it would not be pretty. I look out the window and consider burning out my emotions by doing laps or kicking the football. My body moves to my bedroom door, but instead of walking out of it I bend down and grab my bag and the littered art supplies. I don't know what I am doing. My hands are not connected to my brain at the moment and are moving for themselves. A pencil is in my hand before I know it and a paper is laid on the desk. I am sitting on the chair and my hand holding the pencil begins to move, filling the page with pencil strokes. After thirty minutes I drop the pencil and stare at the drawing I have created.

I was right. My hands were not connected to my brain. They were connected to my heart.

On the center of the page is a girl with her knees drawn up to her chin. Her arms are wrapped around her legs, and it seems as if she is trying to keep herself together. Wisps of hair outline the girl's delicate face and her chin rests upon her knees. Around her is a field of what seems to be wheat. The wheat stands well over two inches above her head. No clouds fill the sky and I don't add any. For some reason I like the emptiness. Maybe because that's how I feel at the moment - empty, bare, vacant.

I bring my gaze back to the girl and focus on her wide eyes - eyes that seem to reflect loss. A feeling hits me in my gut and I know that without a doubt this is what I was looking for for the art project.

I reach into my pencil case and pull out a black and blue coloured pencil. I use the black to outline the girl's eyes with thick eyelashes, and then colour in the large pupil in each eye which is cast downward. Afterward, I pick up the blue colouring pencil, sharpen it and start colouring the iris. I mix in different shades of blues inside her eyes and when I am satisfied I begin working on the rest of the drawing. The middle ground - the wheat - is a mixture of washed out shades of browns and yellows with a hint of light green. For the background, I shaded it a blue-grey. The girl is dressed in something gauzy and flowing. I coloured the cloths peach and tan - nothing spectacular. But, her eyes are what draws you in. I can't stop staring at them. They are the darkest hue of royal blue and they dominate the entire page. Her eyes seem to hold back the demons which she is fighting inside and for a second, instead of a random girl on the page I see me. I'm the girl with the sad, wide, blue eyes.

I'm the broken soul.

I tuck the loose sheet of paper into my art book and shove it into my bag. I sit on the chair and tip my head back, praying for the tears to not spill out of my eyes, but they do. They stream down my face, leak down my chin and drip onto my top. I make no sound as I cry.

All I can see is the broken soul in the picture.

Me.