It starts like this: She's sitting across from you, and you're watching her like you may never see her again. You study her every detail in hopes of burning the shape of her lips and the curve of her face into your memory, but you know the minute that you look away, she will become a blurred outline of the girl you remembered. It's like you spent so much time painting this perfect picture of her, and the moment you step away, you plunge the canvas underwater, and the paint rises, and it falls apart. She's no longer perfect, and who are you kidding? You never were an artist, but like I said, it starts like this: She's sitting across from you, and you're sitting across from her, and you can't help thinking that she could be the next goddamn Picasso, but she would never pick up a brush or even attempt to mold clay into the shape of your jaw or the slope of your nose. You both know that memories fade and the paint will peel, but she'll forever be a mess of reds and yellows smeared across a blank wall in your mind, and you'll make her a glorified fucking masterpiece while you're still an empty sheet of paper with no potential and no desire to be filled.
So take a deep breath because it ends like this: You'll look down at your hands, and they'll be covered with the colors that she was, and she'll stand up, and she will walk away from you, and her hands will be clean. And it's not her fault that she never wanted to paint, and it's not your fault that you don't have a damned clue how to hold a brush. Some things just are, and with her, you are not
