Give Them Hell

Courage

Nikki

Watching her sleep is something I always loved. Her being Dallas as not for some creepy reason, I don't get off on watching her sleep or anything. Dallas just looks peaceful and not worried about school or her dad or anything.

I've woken up several times while we were together in high school to Dallas sleeping on the couch in the living room or asleep in the chair beside my bed. My guess is that she used the window because the spare key was never touched. She'd come over after she fought with Mackenzie or her dad, Dallas claimed that it was just to scare them but I know that she was a little scared of her father.

The first time Dallas snuck into the house it scared the hell out of me. She was asleep on the couch and I was walking into the kitchen for, well, I don't exactly remember. I just looked over and she was asleep on the couch still wearing her Chuck Taylor's and leather jacket.

"Dallas? What are you doing?" I ask a little louder than I meant to and she jolted awake.

"I uh, I was sleeping." She kinda laughs as she rubs her eyes. "Dad and Mackenzie got into it late last night and I didn't want to wake up you or your mom."

"What were you going to do if my mom saw you first?" I ask with a laugh and she smiles.

"I didn't even think of that." Dallas admits with a laugh. "You look lovely at seven o'clock in the morning, babe."

"Oh thank you." I laugh.

Dallas is still asleep and I'm not even entirely sure why I'm awake if I'm being completely honest. She still looks peaceful while she sleeps, she's been worrying a lot about CC and Dakota's relationship and the toll that it takes on June, Dallas isn't worrying about that right now.

I look around her bedroom and I see an old Chuck Taylor's box on her book shelf what's covered in black pen drawings. I walk over to it and pull it off the book shelf then sit back down on the end of the bed.

I open up the box and I laugh a little bit. The shirt and the ticket stubs from the Queen concert that we went to eight years ago. There's some old Polaroid pictures of Dallas and I that people have took of us. There's the lighter that she swiped and the black rose I gave to her on Valentine's Day. There's the old ballpoint pen with my teeth marks on the end. There's an envelope with the seal of North Carolina State University, if I had to guess its her acceptance letter. In the far back corner is a little heart shaped rock with our initials painted on with black paint.

Dallas wasn't at school and she wasn't at home, it was really starting to worry me but then it hit me like a fucking train. I looked up at the sky and saw angry black storm clouds rolling in and I knew exactly where my tiny girlfriend was off to.

By the time I got to the beach it was starting to rain so I pulled up my hood. It didn't take me long to find Dallas sitting on a towel with an umbrella jammed into the sand beside her. Her Chuck Taylor's and socks were sitting on the edge of the towel and her toes squished in the sand. On her lap is a small canvas and beside her are little jars of paint. Also sitting on the blanket is a Tupperware dish that looks like it had food in it at one point and an empty Coke bottle. There's a little portable radio playing KISS sitting beside her hip so it doesn't get wet.

I sit down beside her under the umbrella and put my hand on her knee. Dallas smiles but doesn't look up from her painting.

She's painting a storm with black seething waves crashing against a fishing boat. Thunder clouds fill the sky and a bolt of pure lightning lights up the painting. It's an absolutely stunning piece that rarely strays from blacks and greys. The fishing boat is a dirty, yellowed, white that looks like it was once as white as freshly fallen snow but time fighting against storms and salty water has weathered it. The boarder is a deep burgundy colour that is almost brown but even that colour is weathered. There's a burning yellow fog light that sends off a shaky light from the boats turbulence. The fishing boat looks about ready to capsize but it's still putting up a fight. It's an absolutely phenomenal piece of artwork.

"I couldn't get the storm right." Dallas explains and meets my eyes. "I had to see a storm closer up."

"You missed school, how long have you been out here?" I ask her.

"Since about six and I woke up, I could see the storm clouds and I knew it was the best day to paint it." Dallas explains.

"It's phenomenal, babe." I compliment and she kisses my cheek.

"Thank you, my art teacher wants me to enter something into the school's gallery. I was thinking of entering this but I kinda like it too much for it to sit on a school wall forever." She admits and I smile.

"I think you should enter it." I admit. "You're an amazing artist and I think the school deserves to know."

I look around the towel as Dallas finishes up the painting and I see a heart shaped rock about the size of a sliver dollar. I pick it up and nudge Dallas. She smiles at takes it from my fingers. I watch as she paints something on the rock quickly and hands it back to me. The rock reads: F+D.

Dallas did end up submitting that painting to the school's art gallery and as far as I know it's still there. She submitted it with this letter that was posted beside it.

Courage, D. Andrews 1977.

"I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hands. It's when you know you're licked before you begin, but you begin anyway and see it through no matter what." Those are the words of Atticus Finch in Harper Lee's To Kill A Mockingbird. My painting is called courage because that's what it represents. The fishing boat isn't going to beat this storm but it didn't stop it from setting out. The fishing boat is fighting and clawing for its survival. The fishing boat is courageous for fighting the battle whether when the sea settles and the boat is still there or if the sea has claimed another victim the fishing boat is courageous no matter what.

Dallas sits up and put on her glasses, she lays down on her stomach so her head is beside my lap. I smile at her and close my hand around the heart shaped rock.

"Think I'm a dork for keeping all this stuff?" She wonders sleepily and I shake my head.

"No because I kept something of yours all these years too." I admit and she looks up at me confused.

"Yeah? What?" Dallas challenges and and I smirk.

"Your virginity." I laugh and she playfully hits my arm which only makes me laugh harder.

"I'm going back to bed." She says and moves back up the bed.

"Okay, goodnight." I laugh as she lays back down.

My theory on Dallas' painting Courage was that she was the boat. Dallas was the little fishing boat fighting in her father's sea. She knew that he could very well swallow her whole but she fought and fought and fought and when the seas settled again and the storm cleared her little fishing boat was still there. Dallas is still here, Dallas beat her father's storm.