[Joey]
It was a boring, rainy New York City afternoon. Every afternoon looked exactly the same with all the people rushing through the streets, the yellow cabs honking their horns without any appropriate reason, and the buildings with so many ads blocking the beauty of the sky, leaving its expression to the people unnoticed. The sky would express itself with light from the sun, rain, thunder, and lightning from the clouds, and all kinds of weather phenomena- but it goes unnoticed, people don't bother to stop and think "the sky is such an amazing thing."
Joey stood there in her room, wishing that people would appreciate expression more. She grabbed her paintbrush and palette heading for her fresh new canvas. I need emotion, Joey thought to herself.
It'd always been her passion to express herself through the intricate lines and marks that harmoniously come together to form an image. Every single detail had meaning, importance. The colors, the thickness of the lines, the way the picture simply was, those were all keys to the essence of her art.
No two pictures were of the same essence. They all had different emotions and messages hidden within them. Everything had a meaning, everything but the life of the artist that brought forth the works of art. At least that's what she would think.
She was just that person who put so much heart into everything that her own life had become meaningless. Her art was the only thing she could actually give life and value to. She wasn't a self-pitiful person. The life she had was just nothing compared to the beauty of art.
So there she was, currently mixing paint on her palette, only stopping to wipe off the beads of sweat that would occasionally form on her forehead. Joey wanted to paint something that said "I'm bored" but looked as if she wasn't. Fake entertainment isn't easy to express artistically, she thought to herself and shook her head. She was about to put the tip of her paintbrush on her canvas when she heard a knock on the door.
"Joey, are you in there?" the door opened, revealing Joey's father, Mr. Lee.
"Hey dad.." Joey put down her palette and wiped her hands on her smock.
"Joey," Mr. Lee walked into the room. "I have a meeting later so- what did I tell you about keeping your room clean?"
One thing about being a visual artist: "cleanliness" does not exist. A teenage boy's room is nothing compared to that of an artist's.
Joey took a quick look at everything in her field of vision, and honestly, her room had never made a very good impression of the currently fine life she was living. The bed was undone, her closet was definitely doing a good job at showing everyone that one day Joey couldn't decide what to wear to her friend's surprise birthday party; basically her entire room looked like a hurricane passed through and brought some art supplies along with it.
"I'm sorry Dad, I just got so caught up in-"
"Yeah I know, you were painting or sketching or creating some great art to be put into museums and my office and everything. I understand that you are very passionate about what you do, but the least you could do is clean up after yourself, our housekeeper has a big enough load on her hands," Mr. Lee put a hand on her shoulder, giving her a look.
"Sorry," Joey lightly shrugged at the situation.
Mr. Lee looked around and sighed. "You really should get out more, so I'm bringing you to wait for me while I'm having a meeting because we'll be going out afterwards. I heard that my business partners have sons.."
Joey immediately groaned and rolled her eyes as soon as she processed the word "sons" in her mind. She thought she made it clear with her dad that she wasn't up for a relationship, but no, he always took opportunities to introduce Joey to new boys.
"Get changed. We leave in an hour," Mr. Lee walked out and closed the door.
It wasn't that her issue with boys was that she had misandry, she definitely did not hate boys, and she wasn't afraid of them either. Joey always came up with this conclusion that she just couldn't keep a stable relationship with any guy, and by "stable relationship" she meant "not being the cause of something tragic happening to the guy."
Basically, Joey thought she was eternally cursed with bad luck with guys ever since the one night she.. sort of lost someone very dear to her.
Ha, Joey thought. I wouldn't be surprised if those boys ended up getting hit by a taxi or something after they meet me.
She cleared her head and changed for the stupid meeting so that she could get over with it. She really didn't care about what she was wearing when she was being dragged along by her dad to meet some boys. Joey knew that there was no point, even if she liked the guy he'd end up missing or getting in an accident or he might even get beaten up a few hours after meeting her. Basically, she already knew something bad was gonna happen to the guy, even if it was a simple thing like getting mayo all over his shirt.
It'd happened all before, so she really didn't feel the anxiety someone usually had when they knew they were going to meet someone new. Joey had already been told by her friends that her stupid superstitious beliefs weren't true and she was just being paranoid or something, but she felt something was off, she just knew it and she didn't really like it when she was being questioned about this matter.
Once Joey was all ready, she grabbed a small sketchpad and her purse (which only contained her phone, wallet, and around 4 charcoal pencils) and she was off to their car in the basement parking where her dad always waited for her whenever he would ask (mostly force) her to go to a meeting with him as an excuse for her to socialize with the opposite gender.
"Let's go, cm'on," Mr. Lee stepped into the car.
Joey got into the car and strapped on her seat belt. "I swear to god, dad, if this next boy ends up like that last one, I'm going to put myself in jail."
Mr. Lee chuckled and began driving. "I promise you, Joey, I have a feeling these boys will be safe from your so-called 'curse.' I don't think they'll end up falling down the stairs, the building we're going to has a minimal amount of those."
The girl was able to breathe a little easier, she always felt a bit uneasy whenever she thought of the possible things that could happen to the guys she met- wait.
"Boys? As in b-o-y-s? As in the plural form of boy?" Joey spit out.
"Don't worry, it's just two. Nothing terrible's gonna happen," Mr. Lee reassured his daughter.
Might not be terrible, Joey thought. It might be horrific.
-
im so sorry for this s.hitty and short first chapter (don't be surprised this always happens with me) i just had to get this posted already since it's long overdue
it took me forever to replan this oops
btw votes and comments are appreciated :) oh and pls check out my other book, december (it has more chapters posted than this like srsly)
