Colors // Joshler

// 28. To And From The Separate Places //

Upon removing all the tubes from the box, Tyler counted them, and found that were exactly ten. Each one was a different shade, but all of them were blue--Azure, Indigo, Turquoise, Teal, Cyan, Ultramarine, Steel Blue, Baby Blue, Cobalt Blue, and Midnight Blue.

It was quite possibly the nicest thing anyone had ever done for Tyler, especially coming from someone he didn't know that well yet.

He spent hours trying to come up with a good painting to make with them. No, the perfect painting. Maybe this gift was a sign that it was on its way. It somehow seemed good, Tyler thought, to paint the perfect painting with the gift he had received from Josh. It would be taking his gift and turning it into something beautiful that they could both admire.

Maybe Josh was his muse. Tyler knew that all artists had muses, in one form or another--but he hadn't found his yet. He'd drawn inspiration from himself, from music, from nature, from his cat, from school, from life. But none of it had really felt like a muse should.

To be truthful, Tyler really wanted a muse. He craved one, longed for it to grace its gift upon his mind.

Had Josh inspired any of paintings? He hadn't painted him directly, but that wasn't much of an indication. It was difficult to tell, really.

Tyler almost wished he had Josh's phone number, so he could text him and thank him for the gift, maybe even hint towards him about his possible hidden muse abilities. Tyler didn't text often; he had never texted Hayley much, but he did text his parents to let them know when he left school to head home, and when he arrived at school, so that they would know he had passed to and from the separate places safely.

Oh, well. He could talk to him tomorrow, anyway. Face to face conversations were better.

Carefully putting the paint tubes back into the same box they had came in, Tyler folded the flaps closed and laid back on his bed. It was the first night in a while where he hadn't stayed up late painting. It was significantly late, but still, there had been no painting going on. Just thoughts.

Tyler was tired, and he always made a point of stopping his work once he got tired. After setting the box of paints on his bedside table, Tyler curled up under the blankets, turned out the light, and drifted off.