Prismatic

He looked up not paying attention to the class. His gripped a pencil in his hands.   He created lines with his pencil and shaded them in with ease gracefully constructing a face. He looked back at his figure. The figure? Well that was was a different story. It wasnt a mere figure but more like a person.   That persons name was luna peterson also known as the Wilnhelm highs most popular girl in school. The most complex girl in school you could even say. But she wasn't always like that. She used to be easy to read like like a book but that didn't intrigue many. So wanting to branch out she stopped saying hi in the hallways to art geek James Colton. She stopped sticking up for him when people made fun of him. And she started drinking beer and reading mystery novels no one knew the name of. She started smoking ciggerettes and started keeping secrets. And even back when she was boring or plain: James still adored her. She didn't know him well but he didn't care. He worshipped everything she did how she walked even when no one else did. James captured her messy blonde bun with pen shading in parts with pencil. He captured her emerald green eyes and her skinny legs and that pink dress she wore often. He captured the way it flowed and and the ripples in the fabric.
"Mr. Colton I think it would do you well to spend less time drawing and more time focusing." the history teacher said to him glancing at the sheet of paper before James stowed it away in his backpack.
And she turned around for a second or maybe he was imagining it but he was pretty sure that she did. He wished she would drink in his every feature like she did. He wished she would look at his dark brown hair and his blue eyes and she wished she would stare at his raspberry colored lips and want hers to touch them...but that wouldn't happen because she whirled  turned back around facing the teacher.

James suffered through the whole day of class then walked home. His mom ignored him and so did his dad. They were reading a paper upside down just so they didnt have to talk to their son. His mom was smoking a ciggerette and drinking black coffee. He walked down to the basement he called it his art studio.  It wasn't anything special , really. Spiderwebs laced the corners of the wall cracked concrete flooring was covered with various paintings. Colors splashed the white canvas james signature swirling at the end of the piece like smoke. James  took out a paint brush dipped it in watercolor and pressed it against a blank canvas. He painted her. That was all he could paint he had tried many times before. He picked up a shade of yellow and mixed it with water painting her hair. Then he drew her eyes which looked like green serpants that encircled the waterline of her eyes. He didn't draw her body as though he thought it would be unnecessary. He drew her holding a ciggerette in between her index finger and her thumb. The grey haze of smoke bled off the page.  After a hours of adding details he was done. So he put it away. Then he walked upstairs his parent had gone from reading an upside down paper to watching a TV they didn't even turn on. His mom had just about finished the packet of ciggeretes and was drinking black coffee which was surely spiked with vodka. No one ever knew why James mother was so unhappy why she drank her sorrows away why she hated her son. And as for James father? He just followed suit of James mother. At  a very young age James had vowed to never be like them. Because the way he looked at it they were already dead.

And after doing homework James went to bed. He stared as his ceiling. He kept staring and staring and not blinking until his vision became quite blurry. He tossed around in his bed. He made a resolution to himself that night : he would ask Luna on a date tomorrow. Maybe he did it because he  didn't want to end up like his parents.  Maybe he just wanted to find love. No one ever knew especially not james.

After getting up and walking to school he smiled a little confidence in his mind. Then when he really saw her his heart skipped a beat. It thumped fell over. Bile rose to his throat. His face turned green. But he didn't do it. Puke I mean. He just stood there trying ti regain his lost confidence as she walked by him to get to her locker. She was wearing a flowy white off the shoulder top paired with sunglasses and and a suede skirt. She narrowed her eyes at me probably lyrics wondering why I was standing so close to her.
"Hey........  Luna I was wondering if you wanted to go see a movie with me this week... I'm james colton uhm we went through the first grade and up together..." he said. And it wasn't awful what he said really. He did stumble over a few words and his face did beam red but it wasn't horrible. She looked at him it almost looked like a look of pity. She pulled her sunglasses to her forehead.
She sighed.
"No I don't want to go to a movie with you. Your a freak James your a freak you always have been you've always been obsessed with drawing and your always staring .. at me it's weird I didn't like you in first grade and I don't like you now. " She said loudly. One of her friends came over and she might have been making fun of James roo. But he was too numb too heae. His ears were ringing it was like a bomb had gone off in his ears.  He ran . He ran out the doors. He ran out of school. He ran through through the streets. He ran home. He ran to the art studio. It all seemed so stupid he thought to himself the drawing.and her words echos through his mind.
"Your a freak." She said over over and over in his mind unable to press pause. He slammed his hands over his hears but it didn't stop.  He grabbed his paintings of her he ripped the canvas . He bashed another. He tore a picture. He threw another one against the floor he stomped on the last one. He sat on the steps his head in his hands. He was such such a loser he thought to himself. He was obsessing ovet this girl for years and years who would never like him back.
Sitting there with crushed paintings and crushed dreams he felt like his parents. And he wanted to die.

But of course he didnt. He wasn't one of those sad kids who finally ended it. He wasn't found dangling in the air with a rope tied around his neck. He wasn't found with an empty bottle of pills. He lived on. It was hard. And he didn't like it. But he did. He stopped obsessing about her. He stopped drawing her. He stopped imagining their life together. Living was hard. It was difficult. But he did it.