we are
nearing the
end of
this chapter
of our
lives.
We worked in silence after our so called mutual agreement. Parker tried to catch Riley's attention but after a while it got old. Once he realized that he was bothering us more then he was being cute he decided to watch television in our living room.
Riley and I were silent until there was a knock at the door. Riley seemed relieved that there would be someone else to talk to instead of the weird and awkward tension between the both of us.
She yelled for her dad and Auggie to wait while she washed her hands. After she dried off er hands she wen over to the door and invited her brother inside.
"Lucas!" Auggie yelled. He almost jumped into my arms but then noticed that I was pretty much covered in paint. I hadn't seen him since the fallout between me and his sister. We were super close whenever I would go over to Riley's apartment.
I think that it was because of my close relationship with Parker. Although Parker and Auggie never met I was sure that they would soon grow to be very close friends.
"I'm Parker." My brother jumped off of his chair and greeted Auggie. Auggie smiled and followed Parker to the living room where they went deep into the topic of Spongebob versus Patrick. Even though they both had different views on who was better they seemed to still get along and see each others points.
Riley said goodbye to her father and sat back down. She tried to make small talk but eventually gave up and decided to focus on her painting. Parker and Auggie seemed to be having a lot of fun. They were watching television while playing trucks and dinosaurs.
"They seem to be having a lot of fun." Riley continued to make an effort to keep up a conversation.
I nodded. "Yo should bring hi over more often. There aren't that many kids in the neighborhood and it's good for him to be around other kids his age."
Riley pursed her lips together for a brief second before answering. "Does Parker not have friends at school?"
"He does, but they don't come by often." I answered.
She nodded and asked no other questions. I hesitated before talking again but figured that at this point I had nothing else to loose.
"We don't have to do this."
She placed her brushes down and brushed her hands off. "Do what?"
"Pretend to get along, you know? Can you just promise me one thing?" I questioned.
She nodded and I continued. "I know that we have been going back and forth for the past week but promise me that whatever happens we will always try and be friends. I know that there is a chance that we can have a falling out but please promise me that before we give up on being friends that we both try to continue our friendship."
"I hope that we will always be friends, Lucas. Although I can't control what happens in life I hope that we can get through this awkward phase of confusion and be what we use to be." Riley concurred.
"And what was that?" I smiled.
"What was what?" She let out a laugh.
"What were we?" I inquired.
"We were friends." Riley started to pick up her brushes once again and started painting. She dipped her brush into one of my colors and flicked her brush at me. "Only friends."
I wiped the tiny droplets of paint off of my face and lathered my brush in the same color as hers. I flung my brush forward and big splotches of paint landed in her hair.
"You're going to get it, Lucas!" She yelled. I saw both Parker and Auggie peak around the corner at the mess that we were making. Both of them slowly backed their way up into the living room making sure that they weren't going to get involved with this mess.
Riley mixed white and the color and her brush together and chased me around the kitchen. "I'm going to get you and I swear you will be sorry when you do!"
I turned back around and picked up my pace. "Can't be sorry if you don't catch me." I provoked her.
We continued running around for the next ten minutes. There was paint all over the floor. Big blobs of paint all over the kitchen and the table. There were dashes and splatters of paint all over both of our paintings. Even though we were almost finished with our self portraits-from the glimpses that I saw- tied both of our paintings together.
I could have kept running around my small kitchen but decided to gradually slow down my pace let her catch up to me. If I was being completely honest, I was getting a little tired and the paint was getting everywhere.
Riley backtracked her steps and came around the corner facing me head on. She jumped up into my arms and rapped her legs around me. We were both crying of laughter as she swirled the paint brush around my face leaving different shades of her favorite color all over me.
"That's enough!" I tried to move my face back and forth to get the paint from getting on my lips and me accidentally eating it and I ended up succeeding.
It was hard to resist the urge to kiss her then and now. I tried to push those feelings down deep and tied to forget about how she made me feel.
I could feel my heart beating a million miles a second. My heart was pumping so hard that I felt like it would pop right out of my chest.
It was overwhelming to say the least. I could feel her heart beating the same speed as mines yet she seemed so clam ad relaxed at the same time.
Once she finally stopped laughing I leaned in a little closer. I was so tempted to fill the space between us. I fought every impulse action that my mind wanted me to do.
"Lucas." She whispered. I released my arms from around her back and she jumped off of me.
We walked over to our paintings. I hadn't got a good look of her painting and we decided earlier not to look at each others paintings until we were both finished. We knew that it was risky and that our grade was on the line but it was part of our creative process.
Her self portrait was on the right of the table. She painted herself looking to the left of the painting where an empty space. My painting was on the left of the table. I painted myself on the right hand of the side of the table.
It was uncanny- our paintings were so alike yet we didn't even really discuss how our paintings would be. Side to side, our self portraits were looking at each other.
Where there as white space was the paint that we were both going to fill with the negative space with the different colors that we had previously picked out.
"Wow." Riley was speechless.
I nodded in agreement. "Yeah, wow."
In the negative space was different shades of purple linking our portrait selves together.
