Bianca stood there with a smile graced on her lips. Her eyes were fixed firmly upon the canvas before her as a spark of intent started inside the pit of her stomach, with the energy and beauty of fireworks. The canvas itself tempted Bianca to cover it with the colors of weeping sorrows and the joyous tears of a better day. The tears, the joys, the frustration—they all dripped off the canvas, and onto her fingertips. Reds and oranges like the falling sun brought a deep familiarity to it. Yellows and greens decorated the ground, created shadows along a plain filling it with things only found in movies. Her hands were stained the colors of the rainbow, and she stained the hearts of others everywhere she went.
“How does it look so far?” She would look to her friend, Quinton, with a certain sparkle in her eyes and a playful, cheeky smile plastered on her face.
Quinton grinned as he looked from the painting then back at her. “Perfect.”
“I know,” she’d laugh continue her work.
As the picture took shape, Quinton watched Bianca’s own passion fade away as she colored her fallen wild flowers gray. Her sunsets faded, a barren field of dispassion, of apathy even, replaced Bianca’s heart as soon as her fireworks vanished. All of a sudden, all the reds and oranges—the world she was once so familiar with—became extinct in a matter of seconds. Hues of ashen colors coupled with the harshness of jet black paint, down casted all else—sorrow and despair, dripped down past the warmer colors.
In attempt to recover that world, Bianca desperately sprinkled various colors onto the canvas. But, soon, it was no longer about the painting; Quinton noted. It was more about proving to herself, to Quinton, to everyone and anyone-- that she was good at something. That she, and no one else, could fix it; that it was all her own doing. She lashed out pastels onto the canvas, cutting through the dark, only for them to become locked away by the harsh realities of obscure paints. All Quinton could do was helplessly watch as Bianca’s hands become stained with a colorless rainbow; now careful not to touch the hearts of others, she withdrew herself to the confines of her room.
“Q,” Bianca sniffled a little as she gazed at him, but through him. “I ruined it. I ruined everything.” She paused then contorted her face. “I ruined everything again.” She spat out the word “again” with a bitterness that only came from years of disgust.
“No, no—Bianca, it’s beautiful.” He gestured towards the painting. “It just needs to be spruced up. Everything will be fine, you’ll see. Just…” Q went to go take the brush out of her hands; he couldn’t stand to see his best friend this way. But, without a sound, Bianca swiftly moved her hand out of the way, gripping the brush tighter than she had before. “B...?”
“No. I can do it myself.” She went from a sniffling wreck to being made of steel in seconds. Quinton returned back to his spot and continued to watch his friend paint. Quinton watched Bianca tear herself apart and then attempt to sew herself shut—watching her bleed her all heart, soul, and aspirations out onto the canvas for all to see in an attempt to undo the mess she had made.
“Quinton,” she deadpanned without looking towards him. “I fixed it.”
Quinton gazed towards the painting, then back at his friend. He didn’t have the heart to tell her that it seemed more grotesque— the wreckage more noticeable. Bianca’s warm-hearted nature wasn’t visible in the painting anymore; the art was one of a strangers. There was no more pasture, or sunset, it was now a stormy sea… everything seemed so wrong. So… out of place for the girl he thought he knew. “Bianca—“Quinton started.
“No. I fixed it… I fixed it.” She repeated. And with this, Quinton disappeared into the reds and the oranges; no longer being able to watch his friend lose herself. While Bianca hid herself away in the hue of darkness, because she had let herself be lost.