I helped Spencer set up his stuff in his new room. Books, certificates, and everything. It ended up looking really good and very sophisticated. After we were done, I just sat there, playing with my fingers.
“Hey, Em, are you going to be alright?”
“Yeah. I think I’ll go paint.”
“You never told me what you paint.”
“I guess sometime you’ll have to come see.” I said and smiled. I bounced down the stairs and grabbed a cup of water. I headed back upstairs and shut the doors to my sunroom studio. I pulled my stool and my easel to the center of the room, under the sky light.
I grabbed my acrylic paints and set them down on a small cart next to my easel. I began working away at the easel, making careful strokes and perfecting any mistakes. I sat back and took it in.
I’d done other paintings before, which I hung up on my white walls. I always though white made them pop.
Cali always loved when I painted. She’s the only reason I do it anymore. I did two things for her after she died, painting was one of them. This painting was of the beach Cali and I always visited. Most of my paintings were inspired by Cali. Her cat, her favorite flowers, our treehouse, our matching tattoos.
She had ‘Emmy’ tattooed on her left wrist and I had ‘Cali’ tattooed on my right wrist. I had two doves added to her name after the incident.
I put away my stool and easel and put the painting on my desk to dry. I spread out a sheet on the floor, under the lights. I jogged back into my room to get my phone and headphones. As soon as I got back into my studio, I grabbed a pencil and my sketchpad, sat down on the sheet, and began to sketch.
say I love you when you’re not listening
That was Cali’s favorite line. She never had the best tendency to tell people she loved them. She was always the type that you’d hear talking to herself. It wasn’t a bad type of talking to yourself. It was more like she was analyzing people, herself even.
I sat and sketched. People, places. It didn’t matter.
“Wow.” Reid says as he entered the room. “I watched you as you sketched. You’re really good.”
“Thanks.” I said as I took out one of the ear buds. Spencer walked over to the painting of mine and Cali’s wrists.
“Who’s this?”
“Me and Cali.” I said as I pushed my sleeve up to reveal the tattoo that I’m usually forced to cover at work.
“I bet she was a wonderful person.”
“She was.”
“Was she anything like you?”
“Spitting image. Except she had brown eyes. Kind of like yours.”
“What did she do, like profession-wise?”
“She was training to be a teacher. She really loved children. You would have liked her.”
“I like her sister.” He said as he kissed my cheek and went back downstairs.
