step into the sun || c.m

chapter nine

The night was perfect. There was not a single way it could have gone any better. Yet he was sitting in Cierra's driveway, hands pressed on the steering wheel, sweating. His knuckles were white, and he swore he wasn't breathing.

"Connor, yanno we can go inside and like... sleep? Tomorrow is Sunday, we don't even have to sleep, we can watch movies or whatever." She suggested, nudging him. She had already tried to get out, but he wouldn't let her. It felt like they had been sitting here forever. Because they kind of had.

"I got you a second present." He blurted out, taking his hands off of the steering wheel and running them through his hair.

"Connor no stop it, this i-" He shook his head, which caused her to stop.

"No, it isn't like that. It wasn't like the camera it's..." He stopped and sighed. He had painted her something. He hadn't really told her he started painting again. He had never even really told her he had stopped. Around January of freshman year, he just realized he had no soul or love in his heart for much of anything, so he stopped painting. He only painted flowers anyways. He loved flowers, and he still did love flowers. He had just thrown out all of his flower press books and destroyed a bunch of his paintings. Yet, for some reason, he had kept all of his paints sealed tightly in the attic, along with some of his favorite paintings and all of his brushes. For when he wanted to start painting again. For when he finally found some inspiration. "It's this." He unbuckled his seat belt and grabbed the painting from the backseat of his car. He didn't wrap it, he just handed it to her, and he watched her jaw drop.

"Oh my god, it's..." She took all of it in, and sighed. "Beautiful." She wasn't wrong, it was probably his best work. It was a huge expanse of trees, basically covering the whole canvas, but the grass was flowers, pink and purple and pale blue. Like instead of grass growing from the ground, hundreds and hundreds of flowers expanded across the forest. And in the center,very small, hand and hand, were to bodies, that were painted all grey, no color on their bodies, just grey, except where there hands interlocked, which was bright yellow. They had no shadows being cast onto the flowers, to show the bodies weren't two people.... Two entities, two souls.

"You like it?" He squeaked out. She looked at him and nodded vigorously. She didn't look like she was about to cry this time, she just looked incredibly grateful and happy.

"I love it." She whispered, using her free arm to pull Connor into a hug. He tensed up for a second, she never usually hugged him. Held hands, did that weird "keeping each other warm" thing, but they usually never... hugged? After a few seconds, he wrapped his arms around her, and sniffed her hair, which she had taken down from her topknot during dinner. "I love you." She added.

"Eh, love you too Cierra." He pulled away first, not because he didn't want to hug her, because his heart was beating so incredibly fast and he didn't want her to hear it beating that ridiculously fast.

"Hey, I have one final birthday wish, and it won't cost you a thing. Just some of your time." Her hands continued to grip the painting, her knuckles turning an even brighter shade of white than his had only minutes earlier.

"Which is?" He laughed a little.

"Can you paint me?" She blurted out.

"Can I what?" He chuckled, confused by what she was asking him.

"I have some paints up in my room from when I took art sophomore year, and I was going to paint your back... But I can't paint. You.... You really can paint. So will you... Paint me?" She gave him that awkward all teeth smile.

"Um... Where do you um.. Want me to paint you?" He started to get uncomfortable, hoping to god she didn't want to do that nude body painting. He didn't know if he could handle that.

"Just my back, nothing else." She put her hands up. "None of that weird shit. I mean I won't have a shirt on but you won't... Yanno see anything." She nervously laughed. He returned the gesture.

"Yes... Of course." They both got out of Connor's truck, Cierra still holding onto the painting. They started walking up to the front door, and quickly shuffled in, since it was almost midnight and Cierra had said on the car ride over that her mom was probably pass out drunk on the couch. Cierra slipped off her shoes at the front door, and Connor did as well, so they didn't make any noises on the hardwoods as they made their way upstairs and into Cierra's room. She had many frames and posters lining her walls, from bands and movies she loved, some clothes laying on the floor, her desk was completely cluttered and her bed was unmade. Just like it always was. She had some unoccupied hooks on her wall, so she quickly made her way to one of those and hung Connor's painting on it.

"I love it so much." She whispered, not necessarily at him. It almost seemed moreso at herself. He didn't really mind, as long as she loved it. "The paints are in the junk closet, you know where it is. There also a mason jar in there, you can fill it up with water. I'm gonna... set up." She chuckled awkwardly. Without a word, he made his way to the junk closet, grabbing the paints and brushes.They were the nice, liquid acrylic paints, and it would almost hurt him to use such nice paints that would only stay on her for a little while, but it was what she wanted. He grabbed the tub of paints and brushes which were mainly dark purples and blues and navys and some sunset colors. He grabbed a mason jar and went to her bath room, filling it up only halfway and going back into Cierra's bedroom. The lights were off, but the three lamps around her room were on, giving him more than enough light. She was lying on the floor, a blanket on the ground, and a pillow to support her breasts because he assumed it would hurt if she were just lying on the ground. She had changed into pajama pants and pulled her hair back into a bun. . "Hey, if you wanna change, some of my dad's old pajama pants are in my bottom drawer." He didn't say anything else, he quickly pulled out the grey checkered pants as he took off his suit, laying it on her desk chair. He didn't bother trying to find a shirt. He sat down next to her, and set the tub of brushes and paints next to him and the water jar on his other sigh. He sucked in a deep breath.

"So, what do you want me to paint." He asked her. It took a moment for her to respond, but she knew exactly what she wanted.

"The galaxy." She really loved the whole galaxy thing. She wasn't one of those girls with the galaxy print clothes, but she loved the stars and space, the never endingness. Connor looked up at the ceiling. The summer before freshman year, he had painted her ceiling to look like all the stars in the sky and all the constellations. She said it helped her sleep at night, most of the time. Sometimes she got really caught up in looking at it and she wouldn't fall asleep for hours.

"Of course." He got to work. There was no music on, and there were barely any words, but it didn't feel silent. He used a variety of brushes, from the one that could cover a small canvas in only ten strokes to one you only used for details. He painted the stars, and the planets, and the black wholes. He wasn't even sure if the galaxy he was painting was the milky way. He started to lose himself, like he did every single time he picked up that brush. He even seemed to forget that he was painting on Cierra. He didn't even care that he was getting paint all over his body, making her the paint on her body wasn't getting smudged. She didn't speak, and he could tell she was about to fall asleep. He really didn't care. He lost track of time, it felt like it had only been seconds, but it had been closer to two hours. He painted until he couldn't find anything else to paint. Nothing else to add. He had painted the galaxy.

"Hey, Cierra?" He whispered. But she didn't respond. She was asleep. He didn't want to wake her. But what he did do, was he went over to her desk where she had sat down her polaroid camera, and he walked over to her. He knew she would probably want to remember this too. So he stood over her and he took a photo of her back, hoping the click didn't wake her. It didn't. He put the camera back on the desk and the new polaroid right on top of the one they had taken earlier that night. He didn't wait for it to develop. He just grabbed the large blanket off of Cierra's bed as well as a pillow for himself, and lied down next to her. He placed he blanket on her lower half, careful not to smudge the paint, and pulled some of the covers on his lower half as well. But he didn't really care about keeping himself warm. He looked over at Cierra, one last time before he closed his eyes to go to sleep. He saw a small smile on her face, and he had to fight the urge to roll over and hold her in his arms, but he knew that she'd get mad if he ruined the galaxy before she was ready. So he didn't, he just lied there, happy he had made her happy.

author's note// my wife/friend/hoe anna told me to end it wth conoor actually painted the kermit meme on her ucking back and i almost did it i really did