notes: Back after half a year (yay) with nothing to show 'cept for a runaway muse and a number of half-written oneshots taking up space on my Drive. Sigh.
But okay this fic idea hit me out of nowhere and practically consumed three vital months of my life. Still rusty in my writing (Happy New Year to me), so eh.
She'd always known that she was an artist.
When people ask her what makes her so sure, she'll shrug with the palms of her hands facing skyward and say, I found and lost myself in art. She'll pause and run a paint-speckled hand through dirty blond locks before continuing with, I draw because it's in my soul, paint because it's in my blood and I bleed colors. I create because I can, I destroy because I have the power to do so. Art, Max says, is who I am.
Most of the time they'll leave satisfied. Those who aren't will nod anyway and say, charming. But no matter what happens, it doesn't matter.
Because honestly, it's just one of those things that can't ever be answered —you just know, from the marrow of your bones to the very fibers of your being. For Max, it's as natural as breathing. One slow inhale for every stroke of color on a blank canvas. An exhale for a charcoal smear on parchment. A sigh for every completed piece that will either end up in her already cluttered room or Jeb's office, and a short gasp of unbridled excitement whenever she comes up with a new plan for her next design, forgetting that she has homework to do and the reminder on her phone is ignored.
From crayons to color pencils in her elementary days, paint and pastel in middle school, to more advanced mediums like clay and charcoal in high school—she's mastered them all. She's made a plan where she'll make sure art is a class in all her years and doodles in the margins of her class notebooks until the drawings eventually bleed onto her notes and honestly, those boring trigonometry equations suddenly look more appealing with blooming flower vines curled around them.
She spends her allowance on art supplies rather than new jeans because she likes the way paint is randomly splattered all over the denim along with the smudges of charcoal that somehow never washed out; they're proof of her work. And besides, she says to Jeb, half-jokingly when he tries to reason with her to just buy a new pair for a family reunion, if crabby Aunt Anne asks me what I like doing, I'll just point to my jeans. One unpleasant conversation averted, right?
Her drawings are always littered over the glass coffee table, just as Maya's music compositions are scattered on the kitchen table. It's always been a running joke between them to threaten each other's work as a start to Monday mornings—If you don't clear them off the table before I set my breakfast down, she'll say, I can't guarantee that they'll be milk free. But she'll still neatly stack them up anyway and waits for the reply of Then I can't guarantee your drawings will be wrinkle free when my feet are up on the coffee table, sister dear, and Maya will come out of the bathroom with her head inclined in thanks; Jeb will shake his head and wonder aloud about why he's the only technical one in the family.
When people ask her why she loves art so much, she'll shrug with the palms of her hands facing skyward and ask, Does there have to be a reason? Because—
because
—I just do.
Spray painting, however, becomes her forte the minute she discovers it. It's quite enchanting, really; wild and untamed colors contained in an aerosol can, waiting to be transferred to a blank white poster board.
The first time she tries it, it's messy and out in her apartment balcony because the thought of her room smelling like industrial grade chemicals is unflattering, coupled with the fact that she'd like her desk to stay a natural brown. Her Saturday is spent experimenting on multiple poster boards purchased at the dollar store with her usual supplies scattered around her, from wadded up newspapers to palette knives. She learns to angle the aerosol can properly, and by the end of the day the first board resembles a tie-dye shirt. (Or a dying rainbow, in her sister's words.) Eventually, she grows more confident and creates a portrait of the solar system using different sized jar lids and her palette knife to scrape away black paint to reveal white stars underneath. It ends up in Jeb's office and soon, she's not satisfied with painting on canvases and poster boards.
It's no surprise, then, that she turns to run down and unused warehouses and red brick alleyways already covered with profanity and crude drawings of genitals. There's just something fulfilling with her way she lightly sprays an entire section of a wall pure white, and begins her own personal mission to beautify this part of the neighborhood—downtown Westfield—with its reputation of being the arguably poorer half of Westfield south of the dividing train tracks.
From white space blooms a splash of browns, blacks, and greys; she climbs onto empty dumpsters to reach the top of her painting, and a falcon in flight slowly but surely appears, bit by bit. She outlines it's outstretched wings in detail and mentally plans out the placement of its feathers, brows scrunched in concentration. She's so engrossed in her work that she doesn't notice that the sun has set and it's when her can of brown runs out does she notice that she should be heading back home for dinner unless she wanted Jeb to call the cops on her.
She doesn't reveal her latest project until Maya casually mentions over dinner a month later about how the buildings have been taken over by birds and quite frankly, it's pretty amazing, really. Jeb only looks intrigued. However, she's silent, slowly chewing on her lasagna, waiting for Maya to go on when her twin casually questions about when, exactly, Max, were you going to tell us?The rest of dinner is spent explaining about her personal mission to paint a bird on every abandoned warehouse wall or on dirty red brick alleyways, because she thinks this South Westfield needs a major makeover. And it has to be a bird in flight, she adds before Maya rolls hazel browns and finishes it off with because everything has to be a symbol with you.
Max continues to paint falcons, doves, hawks, sparrows, and anything she feels like painting on every dilapidated surface she finds, but even after she's finished and wipes sweat off with stained fingers and waits for the feeling of unaltered joy to come, it still doesn't feel quite right. Like there's still missing details to fill in, or there's still some features she still needs to add. Something more. But try as she might, she can't place what it is and adding more feathers will not make the "I know I'm missing something" feeling go away.
It is in her senior year when she finds a remedy for the solution.
"Don't you dare run out on me, Royal Red," she growls to the object at fault, stopping briefly in her work to shake the can. "I'm pretty sure I'm out of money to buy a new one."
Her newest painting of a Phoenix rising from its ashes is her magnum opus, she's sure of it; she's spent almost a week on it and it's far by the most elaborate and detailed one. There's fifty something shades of red, orange, gold, and yellow and it's the one that demanded the most attention with its location: situated on a looming wall behind low store building roofs; one could easily spy majestic red wings from their viewpoint on Main Street.
She climbs down from her ladder and reaches for her beat up gray messenger bag, silently praying to whatever deity that she hasn't offended so far in her life, hoping that she'll somehow magically find bills in the many pockets of her bag.
No such luck.
She does, however, find a coupon for a free can of paint. The spark of hope in her chest at seeing a new opportunity to grab another Royal Red dies out as soon as she spots the expiration date marked as last week and she slumps against her ladder, blowing out a defeated sigh.
"Well...I guess it's time to improvise," she says, eyeing her cans neatly lined up by their hues and selecting Firebrick Red. Other people might have told her to just put it off, but tomorrow was the start of the new school year and a completed Phoenix for a new start, right?
With renewed determination, she climbs back up and breathes in the warm summer air, wipes her hands on cutoff shorts before letting art overtake her.
She grabs her yellow schedule the next morning, eyes scanning briefly to check if art was her standard fifth period and gives a hum of satisfaction when it is and tugs a grumbling Maya (Why am I stuck with Davison for Calculus?) to find Iggy and Nudge standing by their lockers.
"Where's Lissa?" She asks, looking around for the redhead.
"With her sister," Iggy answers her before Nudge launches a barrage of questions.
"What classes do you guys have? Can you believe that Davison hasn't retired and is teaching Calc for another year?" Nudge complains. "After having her last year, I don't think I'm going to make it. But I have drama though!" Her face brightens considerably at her elective.
"You're not alone, Nudge," Maya says and points to her own schedule. "We can suffer together."
While Maya and Nudge moan about their impending doom, she takes the opportunity to ask Iggy about Angel and Gazzy. "How are your freshmen doing?"
He shrugs. "Eh. My mom made me come earlier to show them around. I already know Gazzy will take over my legacy as being the top Chem kid."
She's about to ask him about his classes when the bell rings and they're forced to leave in opposite directions. She shifts her backpack onto one shoulder and trudges through the crowd to History, only looking forward to lunch and Art.
"Green apple coming your way." She rolls a red Washington apple across their usual corner lunch table to Iggy and laughs at the look he throws her way.
"I'm colorblind, not stupid," he says dryly. "I'd be damned if Washington apples turned green."
Maya rolls her eyes and sets down her own tray, taking a seat next to her. Lissa peels her orange and carefully separates the sections while Nudge picks at her salad until they're all settled before breaking into chatter.
"There's a new kid!" Nudge exclaims. "He's in my PE class and lemme just say that the kid can run." She pauses. "He's pretty hot too, but I think he wears too much black."
"Um," She offers through a mouthful of spaghetti.
"Well that sucks," Iggy drawls, leaning back in his chair. "Moving when it's senior year."
"What's his name?" Maya asks, clearly interested. She shoots a look towards her twin and Maya gives her a "he's fair game" face.
"Nick Ride, I think," Nudge answers. "Good luck trying to snag him, because I see Brigid flirting with him."
"Already?" Iggy turns around and spies the red-headed girl with the new kid in the middle of the cafeteria. He shakes his head and looks at Lissa. "Sometimes I forget that you're related."
Lissa shrugs. "Sometimes I do too. It's for the better, I think."
She's about to offer her two cents but she remembers what she wanted to show them before school even started. She whips out her phone and shows them her Phoenix set as her wallpaper.
"Wow, Max! You've really outdone yourself this time! This is your best one yet!"
Iggy whistles in appreciation. "Damn. Even though it's just gray to me, it's stunning."
"Are you going to show Keller?" Lissa asks. "Because this is gorgeous."
"Yep," she replies, popping the P and thinking of her next class. "I can't wait."
Max doesn't know what to feel when she walks into Miss Keller's room and spies a black-clad figure rearranging paint bottles on the crafts table. She also doesn't realize that she's watching him separate the acrylics from the tempura and the watercolors from the oils until the warning bells rings and he meets her gaze for a second.
Nudge was right, he was pretty hot —if you were into dark boys with shaggy hair and soulful eyes who radiated mystery...and could single-handedly categorize paint without looking at their labels.
Damn indeed.
She breaks their gaze when Miss Keller sweeps into the room with a clear plastic tub full of art supplies—new paintbrushes, she excitedly notes—and begins listing the class curriculum while simultaneously shelving said art supplies.
"In this class, you'll be given a month to create a project based on what we will be learning. For example, if we're learning about pottery, there will be a month for you guys to make something out of clay that reflect…"
She tunes Miss Keller out, already knowing the curriculum by heart and turning her attention to Nick who was currently looking at the walls of the classroom which were covered in paintings, shelves stocked with clay sculptures. She's also mildly horrified when she realizes that she wants to know more about him and the way his features soften whenever he looks at paintings of landscapes. She finds herself wishing that maybe, she could be his partner for the semester because—
"Nick Ride and Maxine Martinez!"
Her eyes widen considerably as she looks at Miss Keller, who's grinning widely at her, wondering if the woman had obtained psychic powers over the summer. She drags her gaze to Nick who is currently looking uncomfortable with the amount of stares he is currently receiving. Making her way to him, she offers him a smile she hopes looks friendly.
"Max," she offers as an introduction.
Dark brown eyes meet hazel and Nick inclines his head in return.
"Nick," he replies, and she tries not to think about the way the sound of his voice—because damn, that baritone—makes her feel.
"Nick's my art partner."
Maya stops walking and lets her backpack fall to the sidewalk. "No freaking way."
"Oh yeah," she says, turning to look at her twin. "And guess what? The guy knows his paints."
Maya picks her bag back up and smirks. "So I'm guessing that someone has a crush now, huh? How cute." They continue walking and Maya prods her shoulder as they near their apartment complex. "You should invite him to the Hub on Friday," she says. "Moving here his senior year and all. At this point I'm willing to bet that you're his only friend."
She mulls over the thought in her head and decides that it was a pretty good idea. "Sounds good. He did look kinda lost today in class," she says as they're walking up the stairs. "And besides, if he's with us Brigid will back off."
Maya unlocks their door and throws her bag onto the sofa. "Yeah, because who can ever forget the incident where you 'accidentally' tripped her and sent her crashing into the lockers in freshman year?"
"Don't you have to practice?" She asks when Maya pulls a package of Cup Noodles off the kitchen shelf. "Your performance is in two days."
"Yesterday while you were off finishing your Phoenix," her twin replies. "We got the song down pat. Speaking of the Phoenix, what did Keller say about it?"
"She fawned over it, as usual," she says. "Called me her best student in her six years of teaching. My grade is secured in her class."
Her thoughts drift to a certain raven haired boy who had watched her intently as she showed her phone to Miss Keller at the front of the room, who was gushing about the colors and hues and everything else.
Yeah, she thinks. I would like to know you more.