Starting Over

ryan martin: lonely (unedited)

The same day

I never understood friendships, I thought they were supposed to represent someone you would talk to in your free time. Someone you could go to when you are bored.

Friendship is a canvas and the people are the paint. When the bond is strong then the painting will be a one of a kind masterpiece, but when the bond is weak near to breaking the painting will be a mess.

I had a canvas full of colors and I ruined it by not trusting the paint to do its thing. Here I am, stuck with a shitty painting and no friends to joke about the shitty painting with.

I could laugh at how sad this is, but then I would be laughing at my stupid mistakes, the same mistakes I cannot admit to.

I am fucked up, but I declared myself a mess before anyone could beat me to it.

Students push and shove past me not one of them bothered looking through the sea of students rushing to get to class to say sorry. I pull my yellow hoodie over my head creating a sense of solitude for myself and I keep my eyes on the cracked tile below me.

The tardy bell rings above me and the students seem to magically disappear from the hallway beside a couple of strays including myself.

I keep walking, not changing my steady pace. My sneakers squeak against the tile the noise echoing throughout the somewhat empty hallway and in the corner of my eye, I see some students glare in my direction causing me to duck my head lower than it was.

I pass by Ellie, she didn't glance my way, her nose is too far up for her to see anything but the ceiling.

I hesitantly glance up seeing I am close to the art room before looking back to the tile. When I get to the door, I quietly turn the knob and slowly enter the room to be faced with many eyes looking in my direction and an amused teacher who hides his smile by turning around facing the board.

My face turns red and I scatter to my seat placing my head on the desk to hide from the embarrassment.

The teacher, Mr. Sates, continues to write and talk as if I never entered the room. I smile softly to myself, at least someone is willing to save me from some humiliation.

"Now everyone, get out your sketchbook or go to the painting station and draw or paint how you feel." Mr. Sates states before strolling to his desk, grabbing a stack of papers and leaves the classroom without any warning.

Almost immediately people begin to move desks next to their friends, couples start doing the annoying lovely dovey shit and only a few people leave the class, but only a minute after Mr. Sates left.

I quietly walk my to the painting section no one really paying attention to me. I drag a stool from a nearby table and place it in front of an easel with a canvas. Locating the paintbrush and paints, I grab a cup full of brushes and as many paints as I can carry, making several trips, waddling to my area.

Getting myself ready I pull my hood off my head and pull the sleeves up to my elbows making sure I don't get any paint on my sweatshirt. I then grab the smock lying on the table across from me and tie smock around my waist and pulling the top piece over my head.

I dip the brush in paint and I close my eyes and paint, letting the brush guide me.

Sometime in my concentration, someone had started poking me. I open my eyes in frustration to see a girl with frizzy black hair and freckles sprinkled all over her face.

"Why are you sitting here by yourself?" She asks I notice a group of people watching the two of us.

"Because I can," I say turning back to my painting keeping the conversation short. A few months ago I realized human interaction is tiring, I don't miss it.

"Well I'm just going to ignore what you just said . . ." she pauses looks up at the ceiling, grinning to herself. "Do you believe in ghosts?"

"No."

"Yes, you do."

I look at her weirdly, "No, I don't."

"My name is Ghost, well at least my nickname is, and you can see me so. . ." She trails off twiddling her thumbs. She unexpectedly shoves her hand in my face, "What's your name?"

I stare at her for a moment, do I really want to give this girl my name?

No. No, I don't.

"My name is Ryan." I stupidly say shaking her hand.

I want to beat myself up.

"Well Ryan Martin, did you hear about what happened to Maya Lin yesterday?" She exclaims

"No, and I don't want to know."

"She almost got raped by Cole Rogers, Ellie Woods' boyfriend, in the hallway, but thankfully George Rays came and beat him up." She says completely ignoring what I said and begins to rant about how big of an asshole Cole is and how heroic George was.

I chuckle softly to myself, George finally got to be kind of like the heroes in those dumb comic books he use to read, but why the hell is Ellie dating self-absorbed assholes.

"How do you know this?" I cut off her rant, but when I realize what I did I immediately begin banging my forehead on the wall. I am not meant to be talking to this girl.

She brushes off my weirdness but before she says anything a guy comes over to our, I mean my area.

"Ghost are you coming over tomorrow, I need your help with the upcoming test next week." Ghost bites her lip glancing at anything but the guy in front of us.

As if he just noticed my presence, the guy quickly looks me over before giving a nod of acknowledgment.

I awkwardly nod back when Ghost pulls her phone from her back pocket and seems to be texting someone, but when I try to get a closer look she glares at me and turns in the other direction.

I hear a beep come from the mysterious guy and he pulls out his phone and faintly smiles.

"Thanks," with that he walks back to his friends.

"Sorry about that," she shyly tucks a strand of hair behind her ear.

I huff and go back to my painting, ignoring her, I can't get caught in her spell. I look at my watch, I have ten minutes to finish this.

"So. . . What are you painting? It looks kind of depressing." She dips her finger in the green paint, peppering her finger all around her canvas.

"Something."

Ghost rolls her eyes, "Of course it's something, it's a beautiful something, but what is the 'something' meant to be."

I dip my brush in the yellow paint and flick the paint on to my dark mess. "It's empty space. It's meant to show even in the dark, light can come and clear away some of the darkness."

I grab her hand, entwining my pale hand with her dark one and I smile.

"Thank you for showing me that."

She smiles in response, showing off her neon yellow braces.

"You're welcome."

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This is my favorite chapter besides ashton carter. I don't why but it is.

I am going to put a schedule for this story, but I'm not going to be very specific with it because I don't want to risk procrastinating and end up taking too long to write one chapter.

The schedule is a chapter once a month.
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