oh how
beautiful your
happy little
soul is
"You must be Parker." Riley pointed at my brother. He giggled while a wide grin spread across his face. He stepped aside and let her walk through the door.
Once she got through the door he was practically glued to her hip. "Why yes, I am." His giggles became louder and red rushed to his cheeks.
"So you're the boy that I can't stop thinking about." I heard Riley say.
"I am!" He screeched. He ran to his room and shut his door. He was probably overwhelmed in his own little mind and was trying to think of his next move.
Riley walked up to the other side of the counter and leaned forward. "Quite a brother you have." She commented.
I laughed a bit and answered her back. "Indeed."
I scrubbed the dished harder and slower to try and avoid looking up at her. She stated going on and on about something with Maya. They were barely talking anymore but she was trying to reconnect with her and it wasn't going too well.
After what felt like forever I ran out of dishes. I dried off my hands and sat down at my kitchen counter. Riley followed behind me and sat across from me.
She started to grab her art materials out of her bag. Her color spectrum was a wide range of dark grays and blacks with small bottles of dark blue purple. Our assignment was to paint yourself and your partner in one picture doing something that you love. The teacher tried to partner up people who knew each other on a deeper and more personal level so that the painting would be deep and meaningful.
Our plan was to paint two separate pictures and then put them next to each other to create a whole piece. It showed our individuality as artists coming together to make one big picture. Our views in life were totally different so it would make the painting even more dynamic then we originally planned.
I reached over for my paints and picked out colors a little more vibrant then hers. "Your color scheme is interesting." I commented. She was trying to pick out which brush she would use first. She laid down a sheet of paper to make sure that the table wouldn't get paint stained on it.
"Just trying to paint what I feel." She said smoothly. Riley picked out her first color which as the color that I presumed that she would grab. Of course, it was the darkest shade of black that she had. Who knew that there were different shades of black.
She looked up for a brief second and looked a my color scheme. "You're color scheme is very vibrant."
She looked back down after a few minutes and fixated her attention on her painting. "Yeah, I kind of wanted to step outside of my comfort zone."
"Stepping out of your comfort zone?" She questioned.
"Yeah, I mean if I was painting how I feel the painting would't pop or anything. I wanted to contrast your painting." I tried to reason
"So what would you paint with?" Riley kept trying to pick and pry at my feelings.
I knew what I wanted to paint with since the teacher first mentioned the assignment but I tied to her anyways. It was to hard to tell her my whole idea behind my painting without revealing things about myself that I didn't want her or didn't need her to know.
"Blacks and whites with a hint of pink." I answered.
Her face scrunched up as she started painting. After she got a good rhythm going she went back to asking me questions. "Pink? What's the pink for? It has to be something very meaningful to you if wanted to use it for one of your colors.
Truthfully, the pink was for my mom. She had been fighting for so long that it became a part of my life. It was something that I wanted to let go of but something that didn't want to let go of me.
"It's complicated." I decided to reply. I didn't feel like explaining my mothers whole story now. Complicated was an understatement.
She snickered. "Lucas Friar, complicated? I couldn't imagine what complicated is like for you."
I shook my head a little. "You have no idea." I muttered softly as I picked out my final colors.
"What?" She flinched.
"Nothing." I was quick to respond. We sat together quietly for a few minutes before Riley started to fill the gaps or awkward silence.
"So about your original color scheme, why don't you do that. I can use my blues and purples as my off set colors and you can use a dark pink to balance out all of the clouds of darkness." She suggested.
I snapped out of all of my thoughts and tried to process what she was saying. "Yeah, sure."
Riley smiled and continued on her painting. Parker would pop his head out every couple minutes and try to grab Riley's attention. Whenever she would look at him he would squeal and hid in his room.
For majority of the time we would sit in silence. First of all, it was kind of awkward for us to talk like normal humans. We could barely keep up a twenty minute conversation let alone a whole day.
I guess that I should just put our whole past behind. No matter how many times I said I would get over her I could never stick to my word. It seemed impossible. I guess I just had to accept the fact that we would never get together. Yeah, she would always be my first- well whatever we are or were.
"Hey, is it okay if Auggie comes over later. My parents needed a sitter and I'm here." She asked.
"Yeah, I miss him." I truly did. Whenever I was at Riley's house he would always want to play toys or pirate with him. He reminded me of Parker so much which was probably why I got along with him so well.
"And he misses you." Riley said. "He missed when you would come over and when you would play pirates. You always let him win and I never do which is probably why he likes you so much."
I laughed. "Yeah, he's like you. He doesn't like to loose."
"I guess he is like me. I mean I miss you too." Riley said slowly as if I was ready to flip out or something.
"You what?" I chocked out.
"I miss talking to you. As much as it hurt to be around you I do miss those talks that we had." She admitted.
"Talking with you was my favorite thing in the world before everything became so-"
"Complicated. Everything became so complicated." She finished my sentence.
I sighed. "But that's in the past. We've tried out being every relationship in the book."
She nodded her head in agreement. "I think that the universe is trying to tell us something. Maybe we don't belong together as much as everyone else use to think. We need to think with our heads instead of our hearts and I know that it will be awkward at first but maybe we should just try being friends."
As much as it pained me, I couldn't think of one reason why anything that she was saying was wrong. It was kind of hard to debate with someone who had a flawless logic.
I nodded back. "Yeah, maybe we should."
