The Artist | #3✓

Chapter 9

"That's just perfect," I heard Toby say. I paused, feeling my face warm up as I stared at my painting in front of me. We were in the park together. Toby had invited me to 'hang out' like he'd put it in his text message. I had been taken aback when I'd received it, but I'd tumbled out of my bed regardless of how early in the day it was and got dressed before leaving to meet up with him. It was like Toby could tell I was still grieving and was trying to cheer me up.

"Thanks," I mumbled, turning towards him to find him smiling — it was soft and seemed kind of relieved. I let my eyes move from him to his painting, observing the composition of a fairy playing a pipe on a tree branch. Toby was doing his work in poster color while I worked with the acrylic paint I had brought with me.

"You're smiling, that's a relief," he said as his smile widened. I blinked before I touched the edge of my mouth to see that I'd indeed been doing that. I felt my face warm up again, realizing how moody and depressed I'd been for the past week.

"Yeah..." I trailed, not really knowing how to reply to his statement. We continued to paint, and Toby's dog busied itself with sniffing at our tubes of paints and the flowers by the nearby bushes. It also laid on the grass to take breaks. Soft music from Toby's music player filled the void, and since it was quite early in the day — just nearing noon, not a lot of kids were in the park yet.

"You said something about stickers a week ago," Toby said, making me frown a bit as I wondered when that was until it came to me. The memory made me a bit sad since it had been the day Toby had told me why exactly he's rejected me and was still going to reject me. To be honest, the stickers were a very small bit of the memory that was now dancing in my mind.

"Yeah," I muttered, hoping my voice didn't sound choked. Toby was trying to cheer me up, I should save the waterworks for later. "I like them," I added, biting my bottom lip as I continued to touch the background of my painting with bright red.

"Would you like me to give you some? I have a handful in my apartment that I've gotten from things like cereal promotions and gift packs. I didn't think much of them until I came across a few while I was cleaning up my apartment yesterday," he said, making me turn to him. He had his eyes on his painting, and the hand that held his brush moved in swift motions to distribute equal amounts of paint across the piece's background. 

"Oh, okay," I said, looking back at my work. "You'll bring them to school with you?"

I turned to find him frowning a bit. He'd paused painting, and was now running a few fingers through his brown locks. "You should come and get them from my apartment. It's right next to the LRT station so you could go home straight away afterward, how about that? Or do you prefer getting them in school?"

I let myself think about his offer, trying to keep away thoughts that didn't have much to do with convenience, but my personal interest. I wanted to go to his place to get them because that meant I wouldn't have to wait — okay, maybe it was because I wanted to see what his place looked like.

"I'll come to pick them up then," I muttered, watching as he smiled before nodding. We continued painting, engaging in small talk as the sun came up from behind the clouds it had been hiding behind. It soon became warmer as it shifted from early to late noon, and the park became noisier as kids began to fill the playground with their caregivers.

"I think we should leave now," Toby said as he took his painting down from its stand. He put it aside, before picking up his stand and dismantling it. "The kids sometimes come over and ask me to paint their faces..." he trailed with a laugh. "I don't want to deal with their parents."

"Oh," I said, not knowing how to reply to that. I watched him put the pieces of his stand into its carrier bag before I decided to pack up too. When we were both done Toby whistled for Duke. The dog came running out of the bushes covered in blades of grass. Toby laughed at the sight, bending over to pick them out of the dog's dark fur.