Almost Everything | on hold

18 | She Comes Up For Air

[18 | She Comes Up For Air]

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In between meetings with the school's counselor and getting a much needed break from Theodore and Brian's drama, Isla felt more like herself than she ever did before. While her short skirts remained untouched in the closet for almost three weeks now, she learned to wear her hair down like she used to; now with the old star decorated pins her grandmother has left her.

She also managed to find time to visit Grandma Gustava's grave, leaving her sunflowers — her grandmother's favorite — as the only token of her ever being there.

The discarded astrology books her grandmother has left in the attic found their way to Isla's hands and mind again, occupying any free time she managed to squeeze in between being in charge of the art club and studying in preparation for finals.

But this time around, Isla didn't jump from one hobby to the other. She didn't run from her failures. She stuck around and let her failures turn into successes. Through hard work and continuous training, Isla has learned to not only paint properly, but also how different mediums of paint and canvases work. She attended some workshops, spent her last money from her previous summer job at art supplies, and painted her sorrows away.

Making art started first as a sort of distraction. From reality and the problems that plagued her mind. But then it became a beautiful escape, one that let her express herself in different colors and shades and ranges. Most importantly one that let her paint images of herself in different places and in different clothes, under different skies and different circumstances. Leading different lives, in a skin that wasn't hers.

In between creating art and letting herself fall into the old habits and relics her grandmother has left her, Isla has managed to find a piece of herself that she thought she had long forgotten. A piece of herself that she has let her former partner bury.

That's around the same time she began seeing his face — it wasn't his face this time, it was Theodore's — in every place she went, saw the memories they made and the laughs they shared. Their deepest darkest secrets and their most wanted desires. And in between those stolen moments, they shared a feeling that transcended words. A feeling that she hasn't recognized before because she was too busy concealing her true self and making everyone think she's fine until she finally cracked and let the ghosts of her past catch up to her and pull her down. Down and down and down until she drowned. Until she thought no one was going to save her.

And she was right, because no one did.

She just learned how to swim by herself. To stay afloat for long enough to catch her breath and survive. She came up just before she hit rock bottom and that's all that matters for now.