Perfectly Imperfect

~21~

Dedicated to UjuritaElliana you've been here since the days of BTGOL having 20 reads and 5 votes and you blowing up my notifications with tens and tens of comments and you're still here. I couldn't have asked for a better person to start the journey with. Thank you 😩😩♥️♥️♥️♥️💋💋💋😍💋💋

And yes, I won some categories at the Nigerian Readers Choice Awards 💃💃💃💃. My Jade even won best female lead 😩😩, even after all her wahala 😂😂. Thank you for voting, for sticking by. I wouldn't be here without you guys 🤗🤗♥️♥️😩

                             ~Adam~

We went to the farthest corner of the Art Gallery. Most of my paintings weren't there and they were mostly happy pictures, sketches, and all by secondary school students. Nothing deep or overly intriguing. It's kinda exhausting to look at too happy pictures.

It's kind of depleting.

And not exactly depicting.

Kunmi had not exactly said a thing since we got here, just looking at the pictures and following my lead.

"This is yours."

She stated all of a sudden, almost startling me and I turned to look at the painting that she was talking about. It was a picture of a teenage boy staring out of his window, far into the horizon, at the setting sun. It was t I couldn't remember when I drew the picture or the inspiration behind it.

"Yes but then, how do you know that? It doesn't even have a label."

She moved a bit backward so her back was to the opposite wall. I found myself doing the same.

"I don't know." She replied with a shrug. "It just reminded me so much of your other works and then......."

I nodded slowly, even though I really couldn't pinpoint how this particular painting look similar to my other painting. If anything, they looked a lot different.

"And the boy looks sad."

She continued and I turned sideways to look at her before looking at the picture again.

"He's not sad, he's just a boy looking at the sunset

She said nothing for a while and I continued to stare at the painting, trying to remember the story behind it but I couldn't remember. I drew it a long time ago.

"It looks like that at first but looking closely, it looks like a boy trying to escape from something, anything."

Her voice was wistful and she hugged herself

I frowned because the picture did not remind me of anything similar to that but then, I also distinctly remembered when I made the painting. It was after one of those moments when dad had left mom battered in their room and I'd remained in mine, too terrified to leave my room and yet, wanting so badly to leave but I'd not. Instead, I'd stared at the sun setting under it was pitch black and mom had called me downstairs for dinner, all covered up and her ever huge smile on her face.

It was thinking about it now that made me realize the reason behind the picture and what the picture means. All this while, I've always thought of it as something else.

How does she even know this?

"But I'm might be wrong. You're the artist, so you should know better."

She said, her tone changing, lighter than it'd sounded before.

No, you're not wrong. You couldn't have been more right.