Lana June Curtis is a 16 year old with a wild heart and an open mind. When her parents die in a tragic accident, the once shy little girl has gotten into some new hobbies. New rifts have also arrived in between the Curtis siblings, and Lana likes to...
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"Washed into the blue" // Chapter One
Another day gone, more hours on the clock that became memories and the sun about to fade away for the night. (1: clouds become grayer, the sky turns from cerulean all around, to navy on the edges and the sun falls on the western end of the horizon.)
Today was another repeat of the never-ending, unproductive and hazy 24 hours of a summer day. It was the point at which people actually started to consider school as a viable option again.
My steps stopped making scraping noises and became the sound of a bird flapping it's wings, ready for flight, then slowing down again. Rumbles of a certain car's engine disappeared as I finally regained my breath in the shelter of the shadows of a random building.
That was a lucky one, I thought. Last time I wasn't so quick and I almost got jumped by the Brumly boys. If you don't know who they are, the Brumly boys are a gang of some of the toughest greasers in Tulsa, Oklahoma. You don't wanna mess with them, especially if you've been teetering over to their territory a lot recently.
Soon as all the turns blended together and I didn't realize where I was going, I found myself in the one place I felt most at home. (2: there is still light but everything is washed in a midnight blue haze. My eyes are straining but when I look up at the fiery edges of the floating clouds and see faint white pinpricks of light emerging, I almost forget what seeing even is.)
I laughed out into the open air, how ironic it was! The place I had been most afraid of in the past was now where my comfort took place. Of course now there would always be a glint of shame in the windows to my soul, but there was also an air of rebelliousness that seemed too large to ignore.
Before my mind processed what my arms were doing, I had picked up two of my favorite colors of paint and began swirling different images on the brick wall. Muscle memory, I think it was. (3: On the western horizon, hues of orange and yellow bombarded together to create the essence of innocence and life. In the big, blue-ink sky, the moon had come out to play on the east.)
I was currently doing a piece I called The Midnight City. Outlines of buildings and the milky skyline combined together with swirls of yellow and blue similar to that of Starry Night.
After filling in all the last details, I found a blank space to put my signature mark on it. It was a simple signing of the initials "RZ". (I wish I had a deeper reason for these specific letters but really I just thought they looked cool together). If you looked close enough at all of my murals, about 4, you would notice that I always signed "RZ", you just had to find it.
Suddenly, the sound of clapping and a deep voice made me jump out of my trance. Shit, I thought. I was so dead. Not only would I probably get beat up now but my brothers would kill me twice over if they found out where I was sneaking off to at night.
"So..." The voice said. "I finally get to meet you."
I had an urge to run away and never look back, but something about this mysterious person had already intrigued me enough to stay put.
"Who are you?" I asked tentatively.
"I'm your biggest fan, Rizz." They replied.
I started to get a little bit scared now. Fan? Rizz? He had to know who I was and what I'd been doing for awhile now, and who the hell was Rizz?
He stepped out of the shadows and into the glowing light of a nearby lamp.
I took in a small but sharp breath. He was... cute, and had a friendly looking face, but yet at the same time had a look that says he's experienced a lot of... everything, really. (4: The smallest sliver of orange was still visible, and the looming shapes above were only discernible if they moved past the illuminated moon.)
"Fan?" I finally muttered. The word was unfamiliar to my lips and the way my tongue spelled it out. The train blowing from the middle of town could now be heard and I knew I would have to raise my voice to be heard again. (Sometimes I wonder if it was the same one.)
He let out a small laugh and a big smile. Suddenly I laughed and then we were both grinning like children in a candy shop.
"I guess it's about time I introduced myself. You can call me Alex." He offered me his hand and a kind smile.
"Lana." I said.
"Lana... I like it." He smiled for the umpteenth time, "For a while I just settled with Rizz."
"Rizz?" I asked, curious.
"You know, RZ? Rz...Rizz," Alex explained.
Our paces matched together as we walked in unison towards one end of the street. A comfortable silence settled over us and he began to speak again.
"You know, the first time I saw you I thought you were going to mug me." He started. "Then I realized it was just a paint can and not a gun."
"Are you from here?" I asked out of nowhere. "I mean- I don't wanna sound rude or anything but 'round here we call guns 'heaters'."
"No, I'm not from here actually." Alex answered casually.
"Oh well why'd you decide to move to Tulsa? Out of all places?"
Alex stopped walking and then moved his eyes sky-wards and then back to me.
"I think-" His Adam's apple bobbed up and down. "I just need somewhere to settle."
His big, chocolate eyes glanced at mine for a brief second and when I saw the moon reflecting off his irises I knew I was going to remember that sunset forever. (5: The sky is ink-black. The color where you lose your mind thinking about it and it swallows you whole.)
