In Lucas' defense, she was jaywalking. In Lucas' defense, she came out of nowhere. In Lucas' defense… shit. Was she moving?
Lucas pushed his door open and hurried over to the side of the girl he just hit with his car. Oh god, he just hit someone with his car. Another car pulled to the side of the road and got out. Lucas could hear them start talking to 911.
He was trying to remember whether or not you're supposed to move someone who was badly injured - hopefully not dead, please not dead - when she groaned and started to stir. His relief was palpable. She shifted, just enough so she was facing him. Lucas slid an arm around her back, trying to help her sit up. Her leg was bent at a very wrong-looking angle, but Lucas was more worried about the blood running along the side of her face.
"Hey, are you okay?" he asked, knowing it was a stupid question, but he couldn't think of what to say. He'd never been in a situation like this. Her head started to loll back as she started to slip out of consciousness again. Lucas didn't know a lot, but he did know that when someone hits their head, you're not supposed to let them fall asleep. "No, no, no, don't do that."
She snapped back awake, but she looked confused - and not half as scared as she should have been. "Your name," he said, "what's your name?"
"Maya."
"Maya what?"
"Hart."
"You got a middle name?" he asked her. Even in the midst of everything, she glared at him.
"Penelope." Her voice - that wasn't very strong starting out - began to weaken.
"Okay, Maya. I'm Lucas." He wracked his mind for something to ask, anything to keep her conscious and talking. "What's your favorite color?"
"Yellow," she muttered, shifting a little, then wincing.
"Don't move. Yellow? What, uh, what shade?"
"Gold. 5:30 afternoon sunlight gold."
Despite the situation, Lucas couldn't help but smile. "That's… really specific."
"Yeah, well, I'm an artist," she said, with a wobbly smile in return.
"Okay, tell me about your last painting, then," Lucas replied, and then he heard his misstep. "I mean, not your last painting ever, just the - the last one you did."
To his surprise, she gave him a smile, which quickly turned into a grimace. "It was a self portrait."
"Describe it. Don't leave anything out." He could feel her getting weaker and weaker. By now, he was completely supporting all of her body weight.
"It's just me, in black and white. And I'm surrounded by stars. I didn't know how to finish it, it was an impulse, really, but I put a long purple slash over my eyes. I don't really know if it works or not." She was quiet for a moment. "It might be though, right? My last painting?"
"No. You're gonna be fine." Lucas, of course, had no way of knowing that. But her really, really wanted it to be true. After all, he was the one who hit her with his car. Lucas locked eyes with the guy on the phone. The guy nodded, sending Lucas a silent message: Help is coming.
When he looked back down to Maya, her eyes were closed. "No, no, Maya, you have to stay awake." Reluctantly, her eyes opened.
"I can't."
"Yes, you can. Where were you going when I - when you got hit?"
"The museum."
"Which museum?"
"The art museum," she said, and even in her weak state, he could hear the slight annoyance in her voice.
"Why?"
"I haven't been making anything good lately. I wanted to see what real artists made. It's a thin line between intimidation and inspiration. I've learned to toe it very carefully."
"What's your favorite painting?"
"It's - Magritte."
"What's the name?"
"The Lovers. It's the one with… The one with the…"
"What? Maya, the one with what?"
Her head lolled back again, but this time her eyes remained closed. "Maya!" She didn't stir. He'd kept her awake as long as he could. At least she was still breathing. At least she was alive.
Less than two minutes later, the ambulance arrived. They peppered him with questions so quickly that he forgot them as soon as he'd answered them. "Hey," he said, as we watched Maya get loaded up into the ambulance. "What hospital are you guys taking her to?"
The paramedic answered and then climbed in the back. Lucas stopped, watched them drive away, sirens blaring. After a moment, the man who was on the phone drove away, too. Lucas stood there a second longer, half-wondering what had just happened, and then, even though it felt so wrong, he got into the car he just hit her with and drove home.
He showered (making special care to wipe the blood off of him), changed, ordered takeout, watched a rerun of Friday Night Lights and went to bed.
The whole time, his mind kept drifting to Maya, hoping she was okay, hoping he didn't kill her, hoping she would finish her painting, imagining that she crossed the street and made her way into the museums and saw the painting by - who was it?
The Lovers by Magritte. After a quick google image search, Lucas could instantly see why it was her favorite. He didn't pretend to know a lot about art, or anything really, but it wasn't hard to fall in love with that painting.
-::-::-::-::-::-::-
The next morning Lucas drove to the hospital, with flowers (he thought a balloon would be too much). He was taking one of his vacation days for work. He felt obligated, but more than that, he wanted to go. For whatever reason, he wanted to see her again. He was relieved to hear she was allowed to take visitors. Whenever it's really bad, only family is allowed in. Well, at least that's what happened in all the movies.
So he got to her door, double-checked the room number and after a deep breath, knocked. "Come in?" he heard her say. She sounded confused, but when he opened the door, her eyebrows shot up in surprise.
"Hey, I don't know if you remember me, I'm -"
"I remember you. You're the guy who hit me with his car. Lucas, right?"
"... I'm really sorry about that," he said, feeling like he wanted to look away, but also feeling like he owed it to her to face up to what he did. To his surprise, she smiled.
"Don't be. When I'm trying to paint, I get kinda crazed and I sort of ignore walk signs. Actually, I'm surprised I haven't gotten hit before."
He still felt pretty bad for hitting her, but the guilt in the pit of his stomach started to lessen. Lucas walked to the chair by her bed and took a seat, setting the flowers down on the table next to the bed. "I'm not holding up any visitors, am I?"
"Consider yourself lucky. You're my only visitor."
"What? Why?" Lucas asked her, before he could stop himself. He knew that if he were in the hospital, he'd at least get one visitor. Had he waited just a moment longer, he probably would've realized there was a reason, but she just smiled. For someone in a cast and a head bandage, she smiled a lot.
"Well, my two best friends are on their honeymoon, and my mom and my step-dad are on the cruise I sent them on for their anniversary. Trust me, I spent three hours on the phone with my best friend last night convincing her to stay in Italy."
"Wow. That's dedication. Pretty sure my best friend would shoot me a "get well soon" text," he said. She laughed, and Lucas felt his smile stretch wider. "So, what's the verdict? How bad is it?"
Her smile fell a little. "It's not too bad. I got pretty lucky. My leg is definitely broken, and I've got a concussion, but other than that, I'm all fine." She was silent for a moment. "I didn't get a chance to thank you for keeping me awake yesterday. According to my doctor, that was the right thing to do."
"I mean, I did hit you with my car, I think I kinda owed you that much." He hadn't noticed it before when half her face was covered with blood, but she was pretty. Really pretty. He shook his head. The last thing she needed was the guy who'd almost killed her to start hitting on her.
"To be honest, I'm kind of glad you're here. Did you know that when you have a concussion, you can't do anything? No listening to music, no watching TV, no reading, no going on your phone even. I've been bored out of my mind."
"Well, I have the day off. I feel like if I hit you with my car, I can at least keep you company."
"Good. I could really use some."
-::-::-::-::-::-::-
"No way. You're not actually telling me you The Beatles are better than Michael Jackson. I don't accept that."
"Come on! Like, every song of theirs is an instant classic."
"They have some great songs. I'll give them Yesterday, Blackbird and, I don't know, Something. But you know who has a lot of great songs? Michael Jackson. There's a difference between great and good, Huckleberry."
"Huckleberry?"
"Do you even hear yourself when you speak? With that accent, you're begging for a nickname. Be grateful I didn't give you something worse."
"Like what?"
"Bucky McBoing-Boing."
"Huckleberry it is."
-::-::-::-::-::-::-
"For years and years, I swore I wanted to be a vet."
"Really? Why?"
"I once gave birth to a baby cow."
"Ooh. I know it's the miracle of life and everything, but that just sounds kinda gross. So why'd you change your mind?"
"I realized I was going to have to put animals down."
"You wanted to be a vet for years and you never once thought about that?"
"In my defense… I've got nothing."
"Well, what do you want to do now?"
"I want to be a teacher."
-::-::-::-::-::-::-
"So, you're in a… what do artists call it?"
"A slump."
"Right. How are you going to get out of it?"
"Well, I was going to go to the art museum, but some idiot hit me with his car, so that plan's been shot to hell."
"Right, yes, sorry again."
"For the last time, Ranger Rick, don't worry about it. It's fine. I'm getting discharged tonight, so I'll figure something out tomorrow. Who knows? Maybe the bump on my head turned me into the next Picasso."
"So, what's your process, then?"
"You know that thing where you visualize something but it never quite looks like it does in your head?"
"Yeah."
"Well, it's sorta like that. I know how I want the painting to make me feel. Right now, all it's made me feel was frustrated. And hungry."
-::-::-::-::-::-::-
"That painting you told me about? Your favorite? It was amazing."
"The Lovers?"
"Yeah, that one!"
"I didn't even remember telling you about it."
"It's beautiful. Haunting, even."
"That's certainly what he was going for. You actually looked it up."
"I was curious."
"Wow, that's… dedication."
-::-::-::-::-::-::-
"Time to go, already?" Lucas checked his watch. Sure enough, it had been four hours. That was three hours and fifty five minutes longer than he thought he'd stay. But the time had seemed to fly. The more he got to know Maya, the more delightful she became. He kept waiting to find some fatal flaw, something big that would turn him off of her, but he came up empty. She was easy to talk to, and interesting. Even after getting to know her more, he was still intrigued.
"Yeah, I guess it is. Look, I'm getting out of here in a few hours, thank god, and I was wondering… Well, here." She grabbed a pen from the desk next to her and scrawled out her number and an address on a piece of scrap paper. "That's my studio, if you ever wanna swing by sometime. If you want." He could see her trying to hide a blush, and he felt his own cheeks turning pink too, so he figured it was as good a time as any to leave before he embarrassed himself and ruined the whole thing.
He gave her one last smile before finally heading out the door.
-::-::-::-::-::-::-
Did he have to be at work?. Probably. Was he going to be late? Probably. Did he care? Probably should, didn't really. Weirdly enough, after those hours of talking, he learned that she took her coffee with only a little milk, whereas he was more of a frou frou drink kind of guy. And he wanted to see her studio.
So he pulled up to the curb, double-checking he had the right address. He did. So he knocked on the door.
His face lit up as soon as Maya was revealed, smudges of blue and yellow paint on her hands and cheeks. He'd told her yesterday blue was his favorite color. Lucas held up to Starbucks cups. "I brought coffee."
"I'm gonna be honest, Huckleberry, I didn't really think I'd hear from you again."
"Well, luckily for both of us, you were wrong. Can I come in?"
-::-::-::-::-::-::-
Maya's studio was cozy, with wide open windows and paint-stained newspapers all over the floor. There were abandoned canvases and tipped-over easels, and in the center of it all was an easel, perfectly maintained, but there were large, fresh paint smears all over the floor.
"Hang on, I'm gonna go change my paint water." She crutched away, and before Lucas could think to ask if she needed help, she was in the other room. And besides, he'd made his way to the painting she was working on.
It was her self-portrait but things were a little different. It was still in black and white, still a silhouette, still surrounded by stars, but she wasn't alone anymore. This time there was a silhouette of someone else, a boy, someone who looked oddly similar to him. Over her eyes was a long streak of blue, over his, a streak of yellow. Lucas stared at it for a few moments. He'd never seen anything quite like that. Magritte had nothing on Maya Hart.