Clashing Hearts

24

"When you truly care for someone, their mistakes never change your feelings because it's the mind that gets angry but the heart still cares." -- TheloveBits

Athena's POV

"So this guy keeps you busy."

I jolted dropping my paint brush on the floor when I heard my dad, Ares Niarchos' voice behind me.

"Easy." He hissed as he held my arms to keep me steady. I was in a danger of bumping the table beside me. It would be a disaster if the cans of coloured paint would follow the brush on the floor.

I was not expecting my dad to be home in a Monday afternoon. Normally he was in the office or out of the country doing business. Seeing him down here in the basement was very unusual.

The basement was one of the abandoned areas of this huge house that no one in my family really cared to visit. I had it cleaned and became my working space for the past two years. It was very quiet that I could concentrate very well in working on my paintings with no distractions.

I was always fascinated with arts and paintings since I was a kid. I loved to draw and play with the colors. I could relate on it easily because it was not as complicated as reading and writing words and numbers.

It helped also that I studied a vocational course on the different types of painting techniques and styles after I graduated senior high. It enhanced my knowledge and made me more passionate in the subject of arts and paintings, to the point that I wanted to have my own gallery or a museum.

I did several of my own work already, bringing my ideas on the canvas with a mixture of modernism, abstract and surreal painting techniques-- using oil, watercolor, charcoal, pastel, acrylic, spray, enamel and so on. I wanted to be inventive sometimes that I used sand, pebbles, salt and hot wax. With art, it was limitless. You could use whatever you want and you could paint whatever or whoever you want.

Yeah... whoever you want. You could express your feelings for that person through the canvas. Like what I did at that moment. I could not stop thinking of Carter like my head would explode.

I kept on reminiscing the moments we actually conversed -- his ideas and opinions on a certain topic, his principles and values in life... I found out that he was really a good guy. Too different from the rich narcissistic arrogant guys I knew. And the more I knew him better, the more I was drawn onto him.

I had made too many sketches of Carter last night, the evidence was scattered on the floor. This morning I was so inspired that I woke up at four in the morning and came down here in the basement to make an oil painting of him. Right now I was almost done. I just made some finishing touches to enhance the painting to make him look more real and breathing.

And now, being caught by my dad made me feel very embarrassed.

"Hmm... this guy doesn't look like Zion." He stared at the canvas then forced a smile.

"What are you doing here? You're supposed to be in the office." I asked him evading to answer anything about the picture in the canvas.

"I just attended an important meeting then decided to come home." He settled in the armchair and flexed his neck. He looked tired and looked his age of fifty. He needed to dye his gray hair, it was showing above his temple already.

My heart was rendering. I knew from that frown on his face and that sad eyes, something was bothering him.

I wiped my hands and went to sat on the arm of the chair he was sitting. I back hugged his neck and settled my chin above his shoulder.