Prologue:
"Move it, Gale!" my brother hissed as he pushed me away and threw his bags into the car. I staggered backwards but did not fall down into the wet grass. My eyes narrowed in on my brother as he jumped into the front, laughing. "I get the front! Gale gets the back!" he chanted.
I hissed under my breath as I tossed in my bags and followed my mom into the back seat of the rental van. The driver tilted his hat and smiled at my mom.
"Mornin' ma'am," he said warmly. His accent was cute and his eyes sparkled in the reflection of the sun. "Where am I drivin' you three to to'ay?"
"JFK Airport, please," my mom said with a smile. I rolled my eyes as I turned to look at our house. I would miss the darling mansion. My family and I were going to Costa Rica for two weeks of a vacation. My brother and I were skipping school and my mom had saved up some vacation days from work so we can go out.
Since I never knew my father, I knew he never supported my mother. I always felt withdrawn from my family, with my sterling black hair and grassy green eyes. I was always different than my mom and brother. I was told I looked like my father. My brother looked like my mom – dirty blonde hair with blue eyes. I was the complete opposite. I was unique but never thought of myself as special.
"Honey?" I turned my head to look at my mom who looked at me with a confused and concerned look on her face. "Is there something wrong?"
I gave a half smile and shook my head. "No," I chuckled. "There's nothing wrong, mom."
"Oh, alright," my mom said smiling. "How's that picture doing?" she asked as her eyes fell down to look at my art pad I held in my hands. I looked down too at the bad. It was just a sketch right now – it was the outline of a person sitting in a chair with their throat slit open.
"Oh, uh," I started. I tapped my pencil's eraser on the pad subconsciously. It was one of my habits. I looked back up to my mom. "You know how my art works, right? One moment, I don't know what I'm drawing and the next moment I'm totally absorbed, I can't even look up from my work," my mom smiled. "To answer your question, I'm not sure." I laughed.
"Ah, alright," my mom said. Then her eyes narrowed. "I just wanted to know Gale, but when did you really get involved in art? You never seemed like an artist."
"Umm," I started. "I think it started when the 9th Wonders creator came to New York. You know how Blake likes that comic and I wanted to go to New York. He couldn't go alone… and yadda, yadda," I said.
My mom smiled. "That artist made an impression on you."
"No, not really," I shook my head. "It's just… I felt like… I wanted to start drawing after the moment I met him. Isn't that weird?"
My mom shrugged and looked back to her window.
I looked down at my work and flipped through a few pages – I decided to do that page on the plane and I just wanted to look at my other pictures. The first one in the sketch pad was a picture of two people. I could tell by the shading I did that the girl holding the wine glasses in her hands had long, blonde hair and her expression wasn't happy. The man however - you couldn't see his face – long, dark sideburns slithered down his face and his hands were held up almost like they held a pair of invisible puppet strings.
The next picture was that of a car accident. Pieces of a taxi were scattered all around the road and a dark haired girl was looking at the crash, tears streaming down her cheeks and her body charred – bones visible on some parts of her body as well as extreme burns.
I never knew I could draw this well… and why did I draw things like this? Is it because I'm different? Unique? Special?