Watercolors (B.A.)

Chapter One

Kahlo

If Amina could change the color of her hair, she'd make it dirty blonde. It'd be the kind of blonde that boys swooned over. It would be the color that made everyone else forget all her flaws. It wouldn't even matter if she had the soft stomach she's always had, because she'd be blonde, and blondes have more fun right?

Amina always imagined standing at the top of Mount Everest, taking her helmet off, and letting her dirty blonde curls flap behind her in the wind. The little flakes of snow would infiltrate her strands, and make her hair glitter. The coarse black hair that she had always had never glittered, and that was a problem. Ever since she was little, Amina always wanted to glitter.

All of her notebooks, pens, backpacks, and shoes would always be sparkly, sequined, or speckled with glitter. It wasn't an obsession per say, but rather a mere appreciation for the uncommon. Glitter and sparkles weren't something Amina would see walking down the street, and that made her love it more. Something about glitter was so flashy and bold, yet so individual and personal. Amina was fascinated. So when she told her mother to get her flat colored notebooks the day before senior year, her mother nearly had a heart attack over the phone.

"Are you sure, Mimi? This is the first time you've ever not had a glitter notebook on the first day of school." Amina could tell her mother was shocked.

"Yes Mom. I'm sure. You can get any color you want, but I'm really just not feeling the glitter this year."

It wasn't that Amina wasn't still in love with all things sparkle and glitter, but rather she felt as though she had passed that phase in her life. Amina was 17 years old, about to be a senior. Seniors at her school didn't have sparkly notebooks, pens, and shoes. They had makeup, boyfriends, and flat irons.

As Amina walked down the halls of her crowded high school, she wished she had the comfort of glitter to get her through the day. Instead she just had her plain, flat, black notebook. All the un-glittery girls had their hair pin straight, eyebrows shaped, and heels over 3 inches on. Amina had her hair in space buns, eyebrows in need of tweezing, and Doc Martens on. Normally she didn't care about this stuff. She liked to stand out and sparkle in the hallways. But even as she walked into art history, Amina couldn't even find it in herself to be excited. There was nothing to shine for.

Lunch was Amina's favorite time of the day. She could forget about classes, forget about glitter-less notebooks, and focus on her friend. On days when Zane wasn't there, Amina could focus on herself, and she liked that more than anything. Not that she didn't love her best friend, but Zane was just like dipping your toes in the water. Amina was like diving in head first.

It never bothered Amina to sit alone in the cafeteria for the first few minutes it took Zane to walk in. Zane was always easy to spot, with her beautifully yellow-brown skin, and her dark brown curls always pulled into a bun of the top of her head. Zane was also five-nine, which definitely aided in Amina's search for her.

"What's wrong with you?" Zane asked, as she gracefully slid her thin figure into the clunky plastic seat. "School just started, and you already look bummed."

"I'm not bummed."

Amina didn't really know what else to say after that. Truthfully, she wasn't bummed. School was school, and Amina was Amina, and the two never really cared much for each other. It was more of a mutual agreement between the two, that Amina would attend, and try her hardest. School gave her nothing in return, even though she never wanted anything anyways. Amina was here for the writing inspiration, and because the government told her to be. That was enough for her parents, but more importantly that was enough for her.