With his head propped up on his hand and his sketchbook propped up on his bag, Isaac Lahey stretches out on the bleachers next to the green grass of the lacrosse field; he moves the graphite pencil in quick strokes over the white page to try and capture the movement of the bodies running across the field. His favourite person to draw is the ever-moving, spastic, animated, Stillinski, number 24,clad in his red and white lacrosse jersey and black helmet. The boy seems to have limbs that go on forever and seem to have a mind of their own, it makes Isaac smile and wonder what he's like as a person. He's never seen the faces of the ones he draws, 37 (Jackson), 8 (Danny), and 11 (Scott), because they are always obscured by the masks. He's never even bothered to learn their first names.
Isaac has lived here, in Beacon Hills, for about a month now after having flown down from Canada. His dad was given some business opportunity that he doesn't give a rats ass about and was dragged here against his will. It's always hot, always sunny, and everyone is far to cheery. It's only when he's alone with his sketch book, lounging about in the shade as just an observer, does he feel somewhat like this could become his home. He will admit, the art class is amazing here and he's in love with philosophy as well. Somewhere in the distance, probably not he just has a habit of mentally muffling sounds, a bell rings and like any well conditioned student the boy is up on his feet without even thinking about it. He slings the bag over his shoulder, the strap laying across his chest, and puts his book away and tucks the pencil into the spot between his ear and his head so it pokes out next to his eye.
Black and white, converses dip in and out of his vision as he hops down the steps of the bleachers and saunters out onto the loose gravel pathway that leads around the field and back towards the school. No one notices him and he notices no one while he walks, enjoying the background chatter of his peers and the cool breeze rustling through his loose sweater. Since it's just after lunch the hallway is cluttered with people, so much so that Isaac's claustrophobia is having a damn song and dance inside of him, kicking up his heart rate and making it that much harder to breath. He can't help but feel lucky that he's taller than just about everyone, enough so that he can see above their heads and control his phobia. The only thing stopping him from just squaring his shoulders and knocking down everyone in his path at the speed of a bulldozer on light speed is the fact that he has art next and that's something worth relaxing over.
"Now, what I want from you today is to paint this vase with these beautiful lillies poking out from it. The catch is: I don't want you to paint what you see, don't paint me the vase with the flowers just like that I can see that for myself. Paint what you feel, feel how the vase holds the flowers that sprout from it." Mr. Melville says, walking around the perimeter, behind the children positioned at their easel in a circle around the display in the centre of the classroom. Isaac frowns, he's never been much good at expressing his feeling even in art; everything for him has always been so structured and bottled up when it comes to his art. Even his life. This makes it hard for him, how does one even paint how they feel? You paint what you see...can you see feelings? The boy shakes his head and just gets to work. First comes the under sketch, so at least he can get the general structure of the picture at hand; then he tries to work in some flow and emotion by using paints of all different colours. He deviates from the just blue of the vase and the just white of the lillies by dabbing in other colours if the opposite nature but it doesn't look...right.
"Melville..." He calls, looking up for the teacher and the man makes his way over to the boy. Melville makes a face, inspecting his work and Isaac starts hating it even more.
"You have such talent Isaac, but your ability to transfer your emotion into your art is lacking. Try painting the flow of what you see; where your eyes start first and how they move about the set up." Mr. Melville suggests, so Isaac nods and tries it out but it still doesn't look right. A frustrated frown deforms his face, making him look more like he is in despair than like he is frustrated. People always told him that he has a very expressive mouth.
He walks home angry, hoping his father isn't feeling the same way.
All Scott wants to do is go home and lay in his bed. His muscles ache from coach's insanity workout during lacrosse today and he's swamped with homework from chemistry; Mr. Harris isn't giving him a break at all. The lacrosse captain groans at the thought and rolls over to pull his books out of his bag, it's all he can do not to give up all at once. In an act of passive rebellion he writes down each answer in point form, which so happens to be the exact opposite way of the way his English teacher likes to have her homework written out like. "No full sentences for you Ms.G." Scott triumphantly says to himself while completing his homework.
A knock on the door brings him away from his revolution and to the front hall. He opens the door to find a tall, well built-in-a-lanky-way, boy with honey coloured curls, tired blue eyes and a pink expressive mouth. Scott feels like he can see the hint of a bruise along the stranger's jaw but the red and gold stripped scarf he's wearing is obscuring the view. It's got the emblem of a lion on it; it says gryffindor.
"Sorry to bother you but I think you may have..gotten my mail." The boy says, in a voice like the low hum of cicadas in summer. Scott doesn't like the way his eyes won't lift up from the ground.
"Let me check." The captain ruffles his hair and goes to the kitchen counter, motioning for the other boy to come in but he quietly declines.
"Bills, bills, bills, coupons for mcdonalds- keeping those- bills...Lahey..s'definitely him." "Yea here, sorry man." Scott says as he comes back to the door and hands the boy his mail. Lahey's hands reach out with half curled fingers, long and pale, to take the envelopes away from Scott's darker, stubbier, ones. He almost feels self conscious about them. The Lahey boy politely thanks him and quickly retreats back to the house next door with long strides and Scott almost doesn't realize he's been staring after him long after he's gone inside. Something in Scott's gut just wants to bring him in and take care of him.
"I need sleep." He finishes his homework without a hitch and takes a long hot shower before crawling in to bed, hoping his mom has a good night at work.