Slowly learning that life is okay (GirlxGirl) [COMPLETE]

Ellie - I kissed a girl (and I liked it)

She was in Cat's house, because she had a big art assignment that was due the next day and she had forgotten about it, so now Ellie was there to help her out. Ellie didn't really blame her, she knew the dangers of procrastination.

Cat had gathered her hair in a very small ponytail, and a lot of it was already out of it. She was in an old T-shirt and shorts, both with paint stains. It was actually hot enough now that Ellie could survive with just her flannel inside, so she pulled her sleeves up her elbow, making sure it wouldn't be anywhere near the wet paint.

"So... what do you want to do?" she asked, eyeing the big canvas on the table.

"I'm not sure yet. The teacher said it had to have some impressionist vibe with the techniques, but we can paint whatever," Cat said, her eyes leaving the white canvas for a second to look at her. "But I was thinking of doing a landscape, because that's very Monet."

"Then it gotta have some big-ass flower field," she thought out loud. "If we're doing Monet."

Cat smiled, nodding in agreement and picking up a pencil. She started outlining some shapes, asking Ellie's opinion of where she should place the elements of her piece. At the end, they had a sketch of a cliff and a lighthouse at the top, and everywhere on the hill leading to it were flowers.

"I like this," Cat's smile was bright and her eyes shined in excitement. It was pretty cute, if you asked Ellie. "Let's paint."

Cat transferred the sketch to the canvas, then passed Ellie a paintbrush. They started with the background, the blue sky and the ocean below, the waves crashing against the cliff's stone.

"Since when do you have tattoos?" Ellie asked, spreading the paint on the canvas.

"Since I was 16 and my cousin started doing tattoos," she answered, shrugging. "I've always known I wanted them, so when he finished college and started the parlour I was basically one of his first clients."

"That's cool," she dipped the brush in the paint again, "did it hurt a lot?"

"Depends on the place. Where you have a lot of flesh hurts less than where it's really bony," she explained, glancing at Ellie with a playful smirk, "why so curious, are you thinking of getting one?"

She thought for a second. Tattoos were cool, she was sure of that, but also... Ellie eyed the scar on her forearm. It would be a pretty nice way of hiding that. She could have an amazing piece of art on her arm and it would double as camouflage.

"Yeah, I am."

Cat's eyebrows shot up and her smile grew wider. "We can go together if you want. I'm thinking of getting another one on my arm."

"Sure. That'd be cool," she mirrored Cat's grin, but her gaze felt too heavy and her cheeks were hot so Ellie moved her eyes back to the canvas. "Thanks."

She was weirdly aware of Cat's eyes on her, of her body beside her, of her tattooed arm as they painted together. She felt awkward, and she wished Cat had put some songs to play in the background so it would distract her of the silence and of her thoughts. Thoughts of how weird Ellie was and how close Cat stood...

It was starting to look a lot like The Cliff Walk at Pourville, except there were no girls but a lighthouse at the top. It was starting to become alive, and it made both of them excited. Ellie loved that part of painting. When the idea became more, when the colours weren't random spots around the canvas but actually something, when it became something beautiful.

And Cat was an amazing artist, and her work was stunning. It had the lack of lines and the shifting of colours of Monet, but it also had Cat. In the way she'd placed the strokes, in the palette she'd chosen and the overall vibe of it. Ellie couldn't place exactly where Cat was, but she could see her there in the canvas.