Repainted {Camila/You}

1

I wasn't supposed to meet her. I wasn't supposed to know who she is. Maybe that is why it bothered me so much when my roommate, ever curious, entered our room and asked the question I'd been avoiding for weeks,"How's it going with you two?" The green eyed girl smirked, looking over our room once more. 

Her eyes couldn't focus on one thing, instead hopping over my desk and unfinished notebooks, over the canvases covered in sketches that weren't quite completed. They probably never would be. My paints were scattered on the floor in all shades of green, red, yellow. They weren't anything special yet, but they would be eventually. I just had to figure out what I was painting.

"Lauren," I sighed, "I've already told you there's nothing going on."

"So you say. You've spent nearly every night with her holed up in this room. What do you even do?"

I shrugged, "I don't wanna talk about it, Lauren."

She nodded, knowing full well that I did. I wanted it out in the open, I wanted to be able to name what I was feeling, to dignify Camila and I's relationship with a title. At least to tell her that yes, I cared, but it was so much more than just that. The green eyed girl stood and crossed from the chair over to my bed, making herself comfortable. I was glad for her intrusion, really. It was better for me to not be alone. I didn't want to be left with my thoughts. Maybe that was why I enjoyed her so much. When she was around, I didn't have to hold them in. With her, everything about me could spill over, blending into the big mess that was me. With her, the spilling, the mess making, and the raw truthfulness of everything in my life were okay. She took my messes and put them on canvas. She used her fingers to paint, getting so much closer than using a brush and promised she wouldn't abandon her work. What I didn't realize then was that Camila was taking the smallest pieces of art within me and making them her own, one by one until I was repainted.

I would do the same.

 Months later, after the seasons had come and change again, after cold city nights became warm ocean scented evenings, the inspiration for the painting was obvious. The big, deep eyes in various swirling shades of brown are what gave it away, butterflies in various shades of blue and purple painted around. I wasn't supposed to meet Camila. Things were never supposed to go so far, but once she entered my life –a beautiful, uncontrolled mess– everything changed. My dark, concentrated pieces began to lack solidity. The lines in my paintings lost their strength and the creativity flowed from a place I never knew I could tap into, like endless droplets of water streaming from a waterfall. What I didn't realize was that with every conversation, she was dipping her fingers into my soul, taking each small masterpiece that made me and turning them into works of art all her own. Slowly, Camila was blending the colors and shades of me until I was becoming repainted.

~~~

Fall was always my favorite season. I waited all year for the leaves to turn, just so I could absorb the color into my artwork. With the seasons changing, my artwork changed too. This was what I was concentrated on as a group of my friends and I sat in the quad on a blanket, each of us involved in different activities. Lauren lay on her back, staring into the cloudless sky above us, and Dua scribbled in her notebook trying to capture the inspiration in her mind. I occupied myself with painting all of the trees around the quad on one canvas. We were an artistic bunch, no doubt what made us click so well together. I glanced at my phone, pressing the home button to see the time.

"Crap, I have communications." I groaned, looking at the green eyed Cuban laying next to me.

"Did you make any friends in that class yet?" She chuckled. I was rather antisocial on campus, more focused on finding my place in myself first. I preferred a corner of the class where I could doodle. In all honesty, I had no clue why psychology was my major. Art of all forms was my passion.