sick. - Evak

Finch

"I should be happy, but instead I feel nothing. I feel a lot of nothing these days. I've cried a few times, but mostly I'm empty, as if whatever makes me feel and hurt and laugh and love has been surgically removed, leaving me hollowed out like a shell."

Isak shuts the book and places it on the grass next to him. He instead, opts for staring up at the clouds scattered across the sky. They weren't fluffy clouds, but more like thin ones that looked as if they were swiftly painted across a canvas.

No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't make a single picture out of them. He scrunched his nose, now focused on a particular one. There was something unique about it, but he couldn't pinpoint it.

"What does that cloud look like?" He nudges Eva and points upwards.

"Which one?" She hums, still invested with coating her fingernails in a dark grey polish, which conveniently matched with the overcast sky.

"You're not even looking" He says, pretending to be offended.

Eva lifts her head up and follows Isak's finger that was pointed up at the biggest cloud.

"Kinda looks like a lopsided football."

"A lopsided football, really? That looks nothing like a lopsided football whatsoever."

"You asked for my honest opinion. That is clearly a lopsided football."
Eva laughs.

"Whatever, Eva."

Eva starts drifting the conversation towards colors of nail polish and if she even liked painting her fingernails in the first place. She abruptly looks down at her hand in frustration.

"I just bumped it!" She yelps.

Isak looks down at her finger, only one nail had gotten smudged.

Eva was like that, one slight mistake and she had to restart. Whether it was an English Essay, her hand writing, or in this case, nail polish.

Eva would only ever paint the nails on her left hand since she was right handed. She refused to even attempt whenever someone would tell her to try her best. She always gave the same "fact" about how she naturally just came out of the womb without the talent or ability to paint the nails on her right hand.

"Do you think this color looks good, like be totally honest Isak. Is there another color that would look better?"

"It's fine, Eva" Isak says, nearly on the brink of annoyance.

"Fine?" Eva scoffs.

"So it doesn't look good?" She questions for probably the third time.

"Eva, I don't know what exact color suits your hand one-hundred percent. If you're wondering if grey polish suits you, it does."

Isak breathes in.

"I'm a guy, Eva. Go get Noora and talk to her about your nail polish stuff."

"No straight guy on planet Earth cares about what color you choose to paint your nails with."

Eva gapes her jaw wide open.

"Really, Isak? You think I'm painting my nails for a BOY?"

She lets out a loud scoff in disbelief before searching through her bag. She grabs out her Ziploc bag full of q-tips and cotton balls.

An annoying silence fell between them and Isak knew it was his fault. Apologizing to Eva was the weirdest thing, but he knew that he sounded pretty ignorant and rude.

"Sorry Eva..." Isak clears his throat.

Before he could say anything else, a soggy cotton ball was flung at him, hitting the left side of his cheek. It made a loud smacking noise and he paused in place.