lost saints | twilight universe (ON HOLD INDEFINITELY)

3. SKINCARE, A DOOMED ENDING, & ART.

TERMINAL - TUYO

"EU CONTINUO VIVO, DE PÉ, MEIO CEGO / APALPANDO AS PARADES DO CORACÃO"

***

THERE WAS ONE TEACHER IN SITKA HIGH WHO SOLEIL LOVED UNEQUIVOCALLY, AND SOMETIMES IT SEEMED LIKE SHE COULD READ HER MIND. Billie-Moon Bloom, who was arguably too cool of a young woman to be teaching art at an underfunded high school, had quickly become Sol's closest confidante since her move to Sitka. The two of them were eerily similar-- they both loved art in all forms, had an insatiable addiction to caffeine, and spent their Thursday night's at Sitka General Hospital baring their guts and drinking lukewarm lemonade. Some might've argued that their relationship surpassed that of a teacher-student one to sometimes inappropriate levels, but no one looked deeply enough into it to notice anything abnormal.

Sol had been looking forward to seeing Billie-Moon all break. Now that lunch had ended, she only had a few periods left until she got to Advanced Art Studio, and Billie had spent the whole two weeks gone, so Sol was eager to finish the day. The next few class periods passed without much incident. Florence had been right; she did have all of her classes with at least one of the Cullen clan. Soleil chose not to think too much of it, though; Sitka High was a small school, and its AP students rotated through the same classes consistently. The buff guy, Emmett, was in her Spanish 5, and was surprisingly fluent. Señora Poveda had actually squealed in delight and had immediately sat Emmett next to Sol, rambling about her days in Spain in slightly-nonsensical Spanish to the pair of them. Emmett winced and raised an eyebrow at their teacher's lack of proficiency, and Soleil had shrugged. It was a small, underfunded public high school, of course. What else could he have expected? Her AP Statistic's class had Alice and Jasper, who both turned to stare at her as she walked in, disregarding the gawking of the entire class. At that, Soleil tried her hardest to not bury her head into her textbook in embarrassment and slight confusion.

The last period of the day, Sol practically ran to the art studio. It was tucked into a deep corner of the building, a large brick room with a skylight illuminating the wooden tables and feeling like a second home. Billie practically had free reign to do as she pleased, and different Native artist's works hung on the wall next to prints of obscurely famous pieces, second-hand couches were draped with thick stoner blankets, and the Holy Grail itself was balanced on a stack of unopened canvas boxes-- an extremely fancy espresso machine. Sol was the first one in the classroom, dumping her bag on the table nearest to Billie's desk and bee-lining for the machine, snatching her favorite mug (an egg-shell blue one with a field of poppies painted on it) from a shelf nearby and impatiently waiting for the machine to sputter out blonde roast.

"Well, there's my favorite girl," a husky voice floated out from beneath the old wooden desk, and out popped Billie, her long black hair swirled into a messy bun and her homemade earrings brushing the tops of her sweater. Sol grabbed her mug from the still-churning coffee maker and went to give Billie a big hug. She smelled like lavender and turpentine, and Sol felt truly, infinitely comfortable for the first time all day. As the odd student filtered into the classroom, taking their sweet time because Billie didn't believe in 'tardies', Billie caught Soleil up on the retreat she had done in Washington with a few other indigenous artists. They had all made art to sell for a fundraiser for the MMIW, the coalition to stop violence against Native women, and she'd auctioned off several paintings for a large sum of money and was feeling awfully happy about it.

They chatted until the bell rang, and then Soleil sat down on her stool, pulling her hair back into a messy ponytail and pushing the sleeves of her cardigan up past her elbows, eager to get started. She'd had a sculpture piece brewing in her head all break and was eager to start it before the concept was lost. She began sketching her idea roughly before she dove into the clay.