grainy - shawnmin

2

     The sun crept in Shawn's blue room. After enough ignoring it, he threw the blanket away to the other side of the bed and fell onto his feet. The floor was refreshing. Shawn complained about the heat as he stepped out of his room and into the bathroom. While he bathed, his family straightened up their home.

     After putting on what he wore nearly every day, Shawn joined his family for a cleaning day while whatever his sister liked played subtly in the background. Every week was the same. So boring, so repetitive. Weekdays told the Mendes family that nothing would change. Sitting around with his sister while Mom and Dad worked was painful. Nevertheless, sweet strums of guitar opened up Shawn's mind to other worlds. 

     It was Tuesday, bland as always. Shawn wrote poetry about pain. A broken heart.
She was so perfect, He wrote on a post-it note and shortly after crumpled it up. It wasn't real, who was 'she'? Then, songs about his 'first breakup' were printed in a notebook. There was no one that actually broke his heart. In fact, he ended all his minor relationships either because he got bored (really, they weren't big deals) or when he started to get feelings.

     Shawn's only experience with love (maybe, he was a baby still) was an intense crush he had during freshman year (despite the drama) on a redhead sophomore. Her hair brushed her shoulders. She had big turtle glasses and a long nose to keep them up. Her brows were fashionably bushy and her eyes stretched across a wide face. She owned a locker one over next to his. "Olivia" in peach pink lit up the inside of her locker. Shawn could tell she liked that color because her backpack also glowed with a peach pattern. 

   Maybe it was her fashion that inspired his music. During the fall when he met her, Olivia loved black and turtlenecks and torn jeans. Every day she wore a dark denim jacket she found at the youth ranch. During the spring, she wore soft colors. It was like her mood changed with the weather. The wind blew different colors into her palette.  She beamed beauty.

     Of course, Shawn only spoke to her during class at the group table in robotics. He knew only about her good grades and if her morning was good. While she flashed smiles at him throughout a straining 46 minutes, he was unaware of her fondness. He wanted to talk to her more out of class desperately. She would smile at him from across the hall with her tired looking olive eyes. There weren't a lot of beautiful people where he was from, and none with such a sweet brain and talent. Shawn spoke to her with a soft voice and shy eyes while he took out his supplies. She made him timider than he already was. 

       Olivia was the sun that turned his face pink during the winter. His friends always told him to shoot his shot, but he never did. His contact list didn't add another name to it, and a romance never sparked. Summer came and alas, Olivia moved away. Shawn was definitely disappointed when he searched for her red hair during the first sophomore week of the year, but not heartbroken. He tried to move on, but she kept appearing in his dreams.

      Now July, Shawn wrote lines of songs painting what could have happened if he had more courage. He imagined her seeing him as anything other than the lowerclassman in her robotics class. What if she stomped on him and walked away, what if he ran faster to get her back? He closed his eyes and clutched his heart at the thought. It took him the whole afternoon to compose short songs on his guitar.