Petals In The Wind - a Myles Parrish story

"To Be Inspired"

The house, Myles' house I mean, was beautiful. It wasn't a mansion but it was bigger than any house I'd ever stepped into. It had Victorian style architecture, high white columns that stood on either side of the steps leading to the front door. Even after I arrived in the driveway, I remained still, taking in my surroundings. "Wow," I murmured to myself. A cool breeze blew past me, weaving through my curls, which I let fall down my back that day, snapping me back to reality. After I realized I hadn't moved from my original spot, I blushed and began to walk towards the door.

The house made me feel extremely short. The door, painted the cleanest shade of white, stood multiple feet above me- which was quite intimidating. I paused shortly, took a breath, and finally rung the doorbell. I stared down at my shoes and nervously shifted my weight from one leg to the other. I wasn't sure why I was so nervous but I was. Maybe it was the house that intimidated me so much. Or maybe it was who was inside the house that frightened me.

After a couple of seconds that seemed like hours, a woman, a little taller than me, opened the door. Her red lips smiled down at me as she invited me in. "You must be Mirlana?" she asked, shaking my hand, "Nice to meet you. Myles is already in the basement. That door," she pointed to a blue door next to the staircase, "right there." I acknowledged her by nodding and slowly descended down the stairs. I could see a light on at the bottom as I walked towards the basement and I could hear the rustling of paper.

When I made it to the bottom I saw that Myles had changed out of his earlier clothes into some basketball shorts and a hoodie. He was too busy setting up what looked to be our work station to notice me standing behind him so I cleared my throat to get his attention. He immediately turned around, startled, and automatically began to blush. "Oh hey, you scared me." I tried to hold back my giggles at how embarrassed he was, "I'm sorry."

Nodding towards the table, he motioned for me to come closer. I looked at the table which consisted of paper, pencils, colored pencils, pastels, paint, and other art supplies. "Someone's prepared," I joked, attempting to lighten the awkward tension between us that clouded the room like smoke. He gave a weak laugh but continued to move things around on the table. "Just wanted to make sure we had everything," he said gesturing for me to take a seat in the brown wooden chair.

We both took out seats and stared at the jungle of art supplies on table. As if he read my mind, Myles blurted out, "where do we even start?" I let out a small, slightly nervous, laugh "I have no idea." The only instructions Mr. Langsly gave were 'to be inspired'. I had no idea what he meant by that and apparently neither did Myles. I sighed heavily. "I don't know about you but I'm lacking some serious inspiration right now."

For the first time in a while, he let out a small, but genuine, laugh and smiled at me. Boy, he sure had a gorgeous smile. I guess he noticed me staring because he suddenly blushed.

Almost as instantly as his cheeks reddened, more than usual that is, they calmed back to his normal color before he talked. "Same," huffed Myles, obviously feeling as defeated as I was. Suddenly I had an idea- one that helped breaking the ice and finishing the project. "Myles, I have a question for you, dig deep okay?" He nodded slowly, "okayyyy?" I scooted my chair closer to his and I could see him tense up but ignored it.

"What's something in your life you couldn't live without? And don't be cliche and say friends or family or your stupid phone. Dig deep."

He stopped for a moment, really thinking about my question. After a while a smile spread across his face and I could have sworn his eyes even sparkled a little. "My music." I rolled my eyes, "you're so cliche predictable. You'd live with your freakin playlist."

This time Myles rolled his eyes at me, "no that's not what I meant." He let out of puff of air and grabbed my wrist, pulling me out of my chair. "Come here, I'll show you." I stumbled over my feet a few times as he dragged me through his basement. Finally we came to another table, resting in the corner. He let me go and opened to laptop that sat on the table.

After clicking around he eventually found what he was looking for. He looked up and me and smiled, "You ready?" I nodded, confused and curious. Satisfied, Myles clicked on something an music started playing. It was someone rapping and it was actually really good. The more I started listening, the more it sounded familiar. I thought to myself, trying to decipher whose voice that was. Then it hit me.

My eyes opened widely and I looked from the computer to Myles back to the computer repeatedly. "Oh my goodness." Myles smiled widened as I went through my realization over an over in my head. "Oh my goodness. That's you? Isn't it!" I slowly took a step closer an looked over Myles shoulder. "Yeah, that's me. That's what I meant." Sure enough, the track was named 'Myles'. "Wow."

I didn't know what else to say. He was super talented. "Thanks. So what did you ask me for?" Suddenly I flashed back to the purpose of the question. "Oh oh yeah, well take that energy and passion you have for your music and try to make it into a visual picture. A mix of colors and emotions. I'll try to do the same and we can individually draw out some sketches. Then try to put it together in the end."

Myles took a moment to take and what I said and then nodded his head. "That's actually really smart. So what's your passion? What can't you live without?"

I shrugged my shoulders nonchalantly. "I dunno." Myles closed his laptop and turned to me. "Come on, I won't judge!" I held up both my hands as if I was surrendering. "I'm being serious." And I was. I never really felt passionate about anything. There wasn't anything I couldn't live without. Nothing was that serious for me.

"There's something. Maybe you're too afraid to admit it or maybe you haven't dug deep enough, but everyone is passionate about something." We both paused and stared at each other before Myles broke eye contact and continued speaking, "But you need to figure out soon because our project is due in a couple of weeks." I let out a sigh, "ughhhhh, I hate this."

I plopped down into the nearest chair and slid down while Myles laughed at me. "Hate working or hate dealing with your feelings? Wait do you even have feelings? I heard girls like to not have feelings these days."

My eyebrows knitted together and my bottom lip stuck out in a pout. "I would be offended-" I broke my pout and giggled a little, "-but both actually. And by the way, I totally have feelings. I nearly cried when Hannah Montana picked Jake over Jesse" I said, matter-of-factly.

Noticing how dead serious I was, made Myles burst into laughter. Not just any type of laughter but the kind where you hold your stomach and fall to the floor and gasp as if all the oxygen had left the room. Tears formed at the rim of his eyes from all the laughing. I tried to stay serious but the laughter was contagious. It started off with me giggling and ended in us both on the floor, crying with laughter.

"Oh my god. You're such a dork." Myles said, finally catching his breath. "The funny thing is, you're right" I giggled, lifting myself off the floor.

We decided to work on our individual ideas and continue working together the next day. Myles invited me to stay over anyways and just chill but I decided against it since I knew Kalin wouldn't approve. I gave Myles a quick hug and walked home. A smile was plastered on my face the whole time. As the wind blew past me and the sun started the go down, I watched the sky turn shades of purple. I was really happy that the tension between me and Myles had practically vanished and surprised that he opened up to me and let me hear his music.

But there was one thing that bothered me the entire night. What was my passion? I thought about it since the moment I left Myles' house and I really couldn't think of one. There was nothing that gave me motivation to get out of bed every morning. I didn't have an inspiration for life. But I needed to find something out quickly because we had to start on the project. I was completely stuck.

I felt like there was so much I needed to do.

Make things right with Myles and Kalin

Find and inspiration

Finish the project

Not to mention homework for other classes, chores at home and babysitting my neighbors kids for a little extra money.

The hardest thing, believe it or not, was finding an inspiration. That should've been easy but it wasn't really something I ever thought about. Nothing inspired me. I guess I had to take Myles' advice.... I had to look deeper.