Summary:
How do you learn to heal and to trust when the only thing that hasn’t let you down is your own mind?
Oran Warner, art addict, is lacking inspiration – well, at least he was. Since accidentally getting a peek into the mind of his classmate after she left her sketchbook open on the table, he can’t seem to get enough of the world through her eyes. Lavender Andreas has been living in a world inside her head for the past five years.
Though he tried to contain himself, he couldn’t help but want to see more.
Lavender’s head was beautiful. Her head was safe. However, her head was a lot more comfortable when there wasn’t someone actively trying to get inside it.
Two artists: one muse.
Dedication:
To my little brother, who opened the sliding glass door for his mess of an older sister.
Lavender Andreas
Early March, 2017
She was crying before she’d rounded the corner.
The sun beat down from above, sticky scent of sap and pollen saturated the warm air, bees humming from flower to flower. A perfect spring afternoon before the sweltering heat of the coming months.
In her mind, the image of a spiraling, yellow sun scribbled into the corner of a page, hastily drawn grass and a handful of bright, multi-colored flowers made up of five dots and a circular center. A child’s drawing; one of hers, no less. The one her dad had hung on the wall in his cubicle at work.
Her heart clenched, bile rising in her throat.
Her father.
How could she face him?
How could she look into his eyes, those same eyes that had shone with so much pride when his little girl showed him that drawing of a perfect spring day, knowing deep within the pit of her soul that she would never again be that child?
How could the sun stand to shine when something so horrific had happened?
Oran Warner
August, 2022
It ended with a bang.
First day of senior year. The beginning of many ends, though this was not the end of his education.
Not when he still had so much left to learn.
The smell of acrylic and oil paints invaded his nostrils as he navigated the array of bulky, paint-stained wooden tables and stools that overtook the classroom floor. Though the disorganization made his muscles involuntarily twitch, he couldn’t keep himself from such spaces.
After all, he’d fallen in love with art itself.
Ten days in London and four in France that he’d spent with his family taught him how art affects a culture from outside a museum.
Masses of murals enveloping every inch of the walls that housed them created collages of art spanning entire blocks. Artists made masterpieces in the sketchbooks on their laps. Beneath deep red canopies of street vendors’ tents, hundreds of hand-painted works sat on display for thousands of clamoring, consuming tourists.
It wasn’t until he’d returned to his small, green, artless suburban nook that he’d realized: everywhere he had looked, there had been art.
His classmates filed inside. Gaggles of goobers to quiet soloists with their sketchbooks in hand, their heads perpetually downcast.
Mentally he sketched the figure of each student. He couldn’t help it at this point; visualizing the anatomical lines of the people Oran saw had become as natural to him as breathing.
He glanced from the door to the clock, then back to the door as the chatter became white noise.
Blue.
Deep turquoise-blue long sleeve, pale blue beret, blue 90’s-grunge-esque sunglasses, blue converse all-stars.
Elegant, flowing lines sketched themselves onto the paper of his mind. Round face, high cheekbones, broad shoulders, high waist. The blue, black, and white color scheme subtly screamed sophistication.
There was something in the way she carried herself, too; jaw set, a steely look in her eyes. It was like she was there to negotiate but was expecting nothing more than an ambush.
