Maya thinks about Toby.

Maya sat on the porch of her tremendously white and tremendously large three-storey house. It was a vivid, sundrenched day in New York, and Maya was making the most of the pleasant weather. Despite her heavenly surroundings, Maya didn't feel serene like she usually did when she sat on her personal chair on the large porch in front of her house. She loved how she could look out into the pretty garden as she painted, and wave at the passersby as she enjoyed her generally relaxing days. She normally painted and sketched non-stop when she was sitting here on the porch – it was as if she were an inexorable force; possessed, even (in a good way of course). But today was different. Maya looked at her blank canvas and couldn't comprehend why it was unfeasible for her to think of a subject matter to sketch. She let out a little yelp in aggravation – this impassive moment was exceptional and almost never came over her, especially when she was here, at her favourite place in the entire world, her place of thoughts and inspiration, the one place where she was by no means alone or troubled… her safe haven…

Her frustration was disrupted by Dennis, her sandy-haired father, who opened the large reddish-brown front door and stepped onto the porch. Dennis was American, with skin a little lighter than Maya's, blue eyes and some facial hair. Maya had inherited the majority of her features from her mother, who was thin and Malaysian, and had long black hair and sparkling brown eyes.

"Ah," Dennis said, glancing at the blank canvas in front of his daughter. Maya might have inherited her mother's genes for her beauty, exquisiteness and appearance, but she undeniably had her father's flair for art and (more often than not) blithe character.

Maya glanced at her father apprehensively. She wondered whether or not she would be able to make some advancement on this artwork.

"Well, that's beautiful, Maya. Takes my breath away, for sure. Now that's a masterpiece right there!" Dennis began applauding and cheering, patting his daughter on the back for her palpable hard work.

Maya laughed. She loved her father's uncanny sense of humour. It reminded her of Toby for some indefinite reason.

"Thanks, Dad," she said, smiling for a moment. Then her expression changed and retreated back to being solemn and morose. She sat back in her chair in an indolent way and groaned.

"Dad, I can't think of anything," she admitted with an exasperated sigh.

The truth was that these days her mind was only occupied with thoughts of a boy. One particular boy she had only met once. A boy with jet-black hair, piercing hazel eyes that glistened frequently as he smiled and laughed, and a figure a bit on the lean side. The thing that striked her most about him, though, was his exceptionally pale skin. It was even paler than Jenny's. She found it to be quite peculiar. She glanced at her own lightly tanned skin and her mind flew yet again to Toby. He was quite attractive, she had silently decided, but in an imperceptible way. Other teenage girls wouldn't take any notice of him, because they almost certainly wouldn't bother to truly distinguish him. From afar, he appeared to look like any ordinary sixteen-year-old boy, but up-close she could see the profundity, intensity and veracity in his eyes, even though he she perceived him to be a light-hearted, O blood type sort of person more than anything.

"Him and his stupid black hair," Maya muttered, for an instant overlooking her father's presence.

"Maya?" Dennis asked vigilantly. "Are you okay?"

Maya opened her eyes wide, diminutively embarrassed that she had been caught conversing with herself, something she generally never did. That is, before she ever started attending that art class.

"Oh… yes… Dad," Maya choked out, sitting up straight again, calculatedly hitting her head in an effort to disregard her thoughts about Toby for just one second. It was like millions of mini Toby's had infected her mind like bacteria, and she yearned for them to all abscond and return to their homeland (Jupiter, or wherever).

"You sure?" Dennis looked weary. "Look, what's your topic… your subject matter?"

Dennis had formerly loved to do art just like Maya, and had attended the same art class as his daughter for two years. He was Maya's number one enthusiast and supporter, especially since his parents had prohibited him to pursue art when he was a teenager just a few years older than Maya's present age. Dennis's parents had only certified him to attend art class because he had supplicated them, and when they apprehended how serious he was about pursuing art as a career, they had thought it was ludicrous. Therefore, they banished him from anything even remotely associated to art. They inflicted him into becoming a lawyer, a profession he wasn't tremendously fond of, and ever since Dennis had supported Maya a hundred and ten percent to not make the same errors his parents had with him. Dennis still held an unfathomable appreciation for art, but his parents had unremittingly attempted to turn him against it, and so nowadays he no longer could paint the masterpieces he was proficient of producing before. Dennis believed this problem was prompted by his parents' condemnation of his art from the beginning.

"The subject matter is monochrome artwork," Maya explained to her father. "I can use anything I want to create it, and the subject matter can be anything." She glanced up at Dennis, fishing for any gratis ideas he would possibly have to propose. "C'mon, Dad, I'm completely stuck."

"That's a first." Dennis could see that his daughter was anxious – art was everything to her; and once upon a time, to him as well.

"Okay, well… let's start here: what are you thinking about right now?" He put a big emphasis on the last two words.

Maya fidgeted with her paintbrush, blushing. Luckily her and her father were like two peas in a pod, and they always understood each other.

"It's okay," Dennis said hastily, discerning Maya's discomfited facial expression. "You don't have to tell me. Just… relax , close your eyes, and think about what you see."

"Thanks, Dad." Maya smiled, nodding.

"Don't worry about it, honey. Just call me if you need anything else."

With one final smile of encouragement, Dennis walked inside the house, leaving the door half-open.

That was what Maya loved about her father. He knew that she loved him, and she loved being around him and listening to his prudent advice, but he also knew when to leave her be.

Maya threw her paintbrush out into the garden, infuriated at herself for being incapable of focusing. What was it about Toby that intrigued her so much, anyway?

Maya stood up to fetch her paintbrush back, and at last acknowledged her father's suggestion. She sat back down in her seat and slowly, intently began painting. She knew that she'd regret the subject matter she had just selected (she'd unquestionably have to hide her face in embarrassment afterwards), but she had nothing else.

--

After spending the maximum thirty minutes on her ostensibly embarrassing monochrome artwork, Maya traipsed up the white stairs to her large, mainly white-and-blue room. Her bedroom walls were yellow, though, the colour of sanguinity. She sat on her bed and seized her personal home phone off her bedside table. It said that she had received four missed calls. She sighed and checked the numbers, but they all flashed 'private number'. Maya began to become bothered. She was almost wholly certain that she had found herself a stalker. The phone rang, and she picked up the phone once more.

"Hello?" she said into the phone intolerantly, a hint of anxiousness in her voice. She tried to sound sturdy, but she didn't think that it was working.

Just like all those other times she heard the light laughter of a teenage boy, followed by beeping as the person on the other line hung up. Maya sighed. These prank calls had been disrupting and distressing her for the last few days, and she just wanted it to discontinue. The peculiar thing was that although the laughter sounded manic, she was almost positive that she had heard that laugher before, in person.