Her Colors

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a/n: the chapters in this story are quite long but i think that would change as the story goes. i hope you guys will enjoy this first chapter.

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Ever since Marina was a young girl, she knew she had that artistic instinct in her. She did not know how or when she knew but she just did.

Everyday, she had her small petite hand wrapped around a pencil or a crayon. There was not a single day without her having to draw some of her favorite things.

She liked to draw the flowers her father grew in their front yard. Most of the time, she would profess her whole day on trying to get the right shade or color of a daisy, her father's favorite flower in his yard.

Of course, Marina was only five years old and not everything she drew was what she had pictured in the first place.

Her brother, Francis, would tease her every once in a while, stating that her drawings were very abstract but Marina disliked this comment knowing that she did not intend her flower drawings to be remarked as abstract.

But despite the sly criticisms, her mother would still praise her artworks and frame them around the house. Her brother protested a lot about it, thinking that his mother was being silly but later on decided to just live with it... even if an evil grotesque-looking daffodil hung on his bedroom wall.

Marina's mother believed that she was a child prodigy and pointed out how her five year old daughter had the ability to get the exact color of a certain flower she is copying. She had said this not because she didn't want to hurt the girl's feelings but because it was true. And she was right.

By the time Marina turned seven, her flower phase had passed. She finally decided to set the bars higher for herself and tried doing portraits of women, which she did not find as easy as drawing flower petals.

First of all, there were a lot of things wrong with her portraits. The lips always crooked into an awful grin, the chin grew longer and pointier than the usual, the ears looked like a monkey's, the nose would either be too narrow or too round, and lastly, every finished portrait would resemble a cyclops. And nobody wants a cyclopped version of themselves, do they?

Admittedly, Marina had some concerns with the position of the eyes. She hated how they make her portraits more disproportioned than they already are and so, she had the audacity to draw only one eye just to save her from having to stress over at how terrible her portraits looked.

At eight, Marina had discovered the magic of guidelines. She practised non-stop until she fully mastered how to draw a symmetrical and proportionally accurate face and this time, with two eyes.

By then, even her father began to acknowledge her abilities and because of that, Marina knew she was making the right steps.

Many might think Marina was the kind of girl who'd be too busy to even go to the neighborhood playground and make some playmates. She might have thought of it maybe once or twice, but that did not stop her from having friends, Marina liked them but maybe not as much as drawing.

When Marina reached middle school, she slowed down on arts for a while and spent the rest of her time being an almost-teenager. But she still drew a lot, especially at school during Ms. Galvin's class.

The amount of sketches and doodles that overflowed the back of her notebook almost got her in trouble.

Math class was just about to end and Mr. Ishikawa was asking for everyone to leave their notebooks on his desk so he can check them later. Marina was one of the last few kids inside the room who passed their notebooks. The remaining kids lined up and it was her turn.