Picture Perfect
It stands beside the wardrobe in the quietest bedroom, blending into the whitewashed walls and the neutral carpet. It's barely noticeable, just a blank canvas just waiting to be loved. The price tag still hangs from the back, swaying in the light June breeze. It is pristine. Untouched. Imperfect.
Outside, a girl of eighteen runs barefoot across the garden, her light blonde hair twirling in spirals down her back, laced finely with ribbons of lilac. A boy, not much older, laughs from the bough of a tree, his head thrown back and his mouth wide open, letting the chuckle sweep from his mouth and wrap itself around the branches above his head. He looks over to the girl, getting ever closer and drops down to the ground. Her grin broadens, her eyes light up and he catches her in his strong arms, holding her to him. She nestles her head in the crook of his neck, and his nose presses against her mercury tresses. She has missed his smell, of coffee and talc and the aftershave that she bought him last Christmas. He inhales too, his nose filled with the scent of her apple shampoo and he represses the moan of hunger, of desire, of love that possesses him. They fall to the ground together, alone in their embrace, alone in their dream.
A redheaded girl with eyes like a storm and a face of an angel peers from an upstairs window. She holds in her dainty hands a photograph. A photograph of the blonde under the tree and she squeezes her eyes shut. She trails past the sniffling blond haired boy with whom she was forced to play, and creeps to the wardrobe. The canvas is old on her fingertips, a familiar friend. She traces her pianist fingers along the edge and smiles serenely, before taking her secret position behind the soft purple curtains that rustle in the summer air. Her sketchbook lies on her lap and she traces the outline of the girl she has always aspired to be as good as. She barely looks up. It comes naturally now. She has learnt the contours, the angles, the continual shadows that shape her sister's perfect visage. She knows her inside out and outside in.
The sun begins to dip on the horizon and the all too familiar clangs from the kitchen float on the still air towards them all. The redhead tucks her pencil behind her ear and slowly yanks herself away. Her dress catches on the top of the canvas. It calls her. She pulls the fabric closer and turns her head. Patience.
In the fading sunlight, the couple separate. They rise steadily to their feet as effortlessly as a pen glides across a page and drift to the back door. He steals a kiss from her gentle lips; she donates a caress in return. Nothing needs to be spoken. It is understood. It is perfect.
--
Midsummer: a new dawn, an old love. The boy with the smiling face returns, bringing a crown of daisies made at midnight. It rests upon the blonde girl's locks, tied away with a stream of ocean green. The flowers flourish upon her head, curling against her, entwining themselves around her contentedly. She creeps closer to the boy sitting on the ground and drops to his side. She kisses his temple and crawls into him. Eyes closed, they dream.
The sketch is done. In her hands, the redhead holds the perfect image. Her hand shivers in the warmth of her plan, at her own surety. The tingling races up and down her arm and she hides her shout of triumph as she props up the board on the easel that has been patiently waiting for this very moment. She closes her eyes and reaches out. The pencil turns itself in her loose grip until her fingers tense around it. There. Slowly, she presses it against the board. It has started. She braves a look at where her hand is hovering. She beams. It is perfect.
Every day they spend together, the more they learn to love. He knows without thinking to squeeze her hand when she doubts herself. She has learnt that his nose twitches when he is happy. There is nothing to stop them, nothing that would ever stop them. They are invincible. Untouchable.
The redhead watches every day. She smiles on, with her gentle face and her dramatic eyes, and lets her pencils dance over the surface of the board without taking her gaze from the joy that radiates from the yew at the end of the garden. She trusts herself wholly, puts everything behind it. She knows it is going to be perfect, and that it will be admired. It is not arrogance, it is complete belief in herself, and nothing more.
--
When July comes, it brings the rain that has been held back for so long. The brilliant boy no longer comes. The girl with the daisy crown does not give up. She will stay there forever, until he comes home. The redhead stares solemnly at the rain soaked yew; its branches claw towards her and she recoils. Her tiny, frail body shudders and she turns her back on the garden of gloom and unhappiness. It has been two weeks. She stares at the canvas, turned towards the wall, and edges towards it. It falls into her hands like a long-lost lover and she twists it around. The sketch is complete. The lines are erased. It just needs a tiny bit of work, nothing extraordinary. It needs more than a photograph of yesteryear to make it real. It needs the embrace of a friend, the kiss of one so devoted, the passion of love. It needs its other half, the other half that makes it whole, that completes perfection. She glances out of the window, at the girl in the white dress with the pink ribbons and crown of flowers of times gone past, and she cries.
--
With August comes hope. As the redhead stares out of the closed window, at the girl whose dreams were dashed, she sees the flash of brown that only belongs to one person. She stands up, hands pressed to the glass, nose poking against the frame. She gazes on as the blonde girl scrambles to her feet. She does not throw herself at him, not yet. She holds her head high and talks as though her blue ribbons are normal. The redhead sighs. It will not work. It will never be complete. Then the ribbons change before her eyes, to rich yellow, and she watches the boy open his arms for the lonely girl and the redhead smiles. She reaches out and the picture is at her side, it has come back to her. She knows what it needs. One tiny thing that will make it complete, and she props the picture against the window seat and leaves the house in a flurry of red hair, pink smiles and blue cloth.
--
In the mid-August sun, the blonde girl stands out amongst them all. Her hair, lighter than air, is pulled back with black ribbon, her dress dyed for the occasion to match. She wraps herself into her lover's arms, just like before only different. She no longer needs it selfishly. She needs it unconditionally. On the mantelpiece of the dining room, full to breaking point, is a photo of the redheaded girl with an angel's face and the smile of a child. She looks older than her fourteen years as her eyes glisten with the wisdom of an aged woman. She is barely noticeable, however, beneath the canvas hanging above the fireplace.
It is draped in black cloth that shimmers when the light catches it. A tall, statuesque woman stands beside it, held steady by a greying man, scarred and broken. The attention turns, the hum dies, the people stare expectantly. The man who looks so lost turns from his wife. He glances, heartbroken, at the curtains and cannot say a word. He lifts his hand and draws away the hangings into a shimmer of golden stars that float around the room. The blonde girl gasps as she stares at herself, a perfect capture. She feels the tears coursing down her chiselled cheeks and looks away, down to her clenched fists. A stream of ribbon, thin and as golden as the sun outside, unfurls from her grasp. It drifts against her toes and shines like new. Gingerly, she steps forward and pulls out a chair. She cannot quite reach but it doesn't matter. She stands on tiptoe and casts it up to the right place. The ribbon does not protest, it moves almost by itself. It knows where it is to go and fixes itself in place. Everyone reacts the same way. They say nothing.
The portrait is still there, in all its pale and lifelike glory. It is just an outline of a girl that grew to be a woman, with a golden ribbon hanging from her cream coloured curls. A golden ribbon flecked with red; the ribbon that cost her sister her life dressed in the blood that shall never go forgotten, the blood that makes the portrait so wonderfully imperfectly perfect.
A/N: I know this is very bizarre but I'd love to hear any interpretations you have of it. Personally, I have no idea what it's about and I wrote it!