Mind Garden

3

A girl with neon pink hair strides up to Daniel during his second period art class. She has a radiant smile on her face and eyes glowing with happiness.

"Will you be my partner for the project?" she asks in her, what Daniel presumes to be, normally bubbly voice. He gives a huff. Her eyes barely flinch.

He nods. The girl jumps happily and runs to grab her things. She's settled beside Daniel within a minute. His head sways.

"My name's Ash, I figured you didn't know my name. I know yours though."

Daniel stared at her with a slightly confused expression. Such a strange person to want to spend time with him.

"The project says to design a piece of art for one of the school's classes, along with a caption for it. It will be printed in their textbook," she reads off the handout from the art teacher.

She's already delicately scribbled 'Daniel & Ash' at the top. He studies her to judge if her name is worthy of her looks. It doesn't fit.

He watches her hands move gracefully around, opening her sketchbook. He catches her full name on the cover before she slams it down and flips to an open page.

'Ashton Monroe-Wells.'

His eyes begin to storm, a drizzle of acidic rain coating every inch. Every shadow hidden in his pupils cracked in half by lightning.

Ashton looks up to him.

"Would you mind if we did... science?" She suggests with a soft voice. She's adjusted to him quite nicely. Even gotten quieter.

He nods his head in compliance with an inch of a smile.

"Can it include flowers?"

The words tumble out of his mouth before he can realize in a quiet, aching voice.

"Yeah!" Ashton seems to brighten at the sound of flowers, which makes the uneasiness floating through his blood stream diminish.

They use Ashton's sketchbook, and start with a simple page layout. They box out a space for the drawing and the rest for the caption. Daniel starts to use his own sketchbook to practice the flowers while Ashton's pencil is already running over the page.

She sketches out a few boxes and rectangles, rounding them out. She hatches and shades and perfects. He looks at his flowers.

They're absolute shit compared to her sketch of the window and window box. She slides the page to him.

He takes it with a sharp intake of the rigid air surrounding them. His pencil moves shakily across the paper, creating lines and circles which he fits together nicely.

Ashton smiles at the finished sketch. She's just finished writing out a quick paragraph about flowers. Daniel lined the sketch, and together they stole the aftermath of every storm, hoisted it into the air and back onto the paper. It was brilliant and glowing with color now.

The bell rings as Ashton turns in the project. Something urges Daniel to stay. The whispers.

"Keep her," it brushes in his ear, "She'll be useful."

He pauses at the door so she can catch up.

"I like your hair."