"Passion is the genesis of genius"
—Galileo Galilei

C H A P T E R  0 5| Through His Painting

Isaire was essentially a river town. Be it fishing on a lazy Sunday, swimming in the hot summer, boating in the afternoon, hiking or kayaking, even setting up perfect picnics or dates, the river was always the first option for all sorts of entertainment.

The number of times I had watched an artist or photographer hover over here, wasn't small either. But never had I ever seen an artist like him. So much talent, so much potential.

Seeing the intensity with which he was painting, all of my enthusiasm to talk to him had ran away. I stepped backwards in equally silent steps as I had come, and sat on a nearby bench; a different one than the bench I usually sat on. First time in all these years honestly.

Some things in this world have the power to hold you captive in a daze. His painting sure had that power. Or it was a mixture of both him and his painting, I couldn't quite pinpoint. But the painting was so beautiful, and looked so much real, that even someone like me who had never held a paintbrush in her hand before, found it hard to look away.

It was as if all the people, all the moments, all the beauty I'd seen revolving around this river in my entire life had been imprisoned within that small canvas.

My eyes never left the painting even when he was finished, and it was getting quite dark. Only when he stood up to head home did my daze break. I stood up too, and rushed towards the exit, before he could turn around or have any idea someone was watching him all the time.

That day when I got home, dad had already returned from work; which only meant I was in trouble.

"What keeps you outside this long?" Dad enquired, his brows furrowed in a manner that told me this was not going to end well.

"I don't understand your problem, Eloine. You don't even have a clear idea what subject you are gonna take up in college!" His voices raised.

This was so not going to end well. I looked down at the floor.

"The amount of time you waste there everyday, had you been working during that time, I'd have to worry less about your college fees."

Mom kept shut. She never spoke up when dad was scolding me. It would only make his accusations turn to her, she knew.

"I worked in two part-time jobs this summer, dad," I added weakly, which I clearly regretted having mentioned at all. Me trying to defend myself set him off more.

"You can easily manage one job with school. I too did. We don't have a lot of money, you know it, right?"

I nodded a little, and got back to my room. I had to find a job now. School was already taking a toll on me with so much homework, now I had to find a job. Great.

But he was right too. We didn't have a lot of money.

I opened my computer reluctantly. Summer break was over, shops didn't need extra employees anymore.

I was going to open a new tab in Google Chrome, but my eyes fell upon an already opened tab, Facebook. My mind ran back to something.

Next moment, I was typing 'Andrew Evanston' furiously in the search button. Even though we had broken up, I never gathered the courage to unfriend him from my Facebook friend list.

Always holding up old strings, Eloine.

My heart skipped a beat immediately as his profile opened. Those eyes in that profile picture...

I scrolled down, only to have my heart almost stop this time.

Last post was only an hour ago; with a picture in some party, in New York, I supposed. Red, green, blue lights were falling all over his face, his hair looked messy, and he could be a little drunk too.
He still looked as handsome as the last time I'd seen him. I could feel those ocean blue eyes staring at me.

He was not clean shaven like before. Even post breakup, Andrew would always be clean shaven. He knew I didn't like any trace of beard in his face.

My face flinched at the thought. Come on, he's just trying to move on from you. It's not like you guys are still together or anything.

I closed the window with a disturbed mind, and started looking for jobs.

Turned out a new coffee shop had opened in town, and they were hiring. Good. I grabbed my phone from the side table, and immediately dialed the number given. I was surprised that the woman asked me to meet tomorrow. I could start working from this weekend if I got the job.

It was for the best, I told myself, the more occupied I was, the less I'd think about Andrew.

That night I had a really weird dream. I was sitting on my usual bench in the Riverwater park. Cyan was there, and he was drawing a portrait of Andrew, who had grown a disgusting beard, much to my dismay.

--

Within the next couple of days, I was both surprised and excited to find out I'd made a new friend. Either Cyan was reserving a seat next to him for me in Environmental Biology, or I was doing the same for him in AP English.

Amelia, the new girl, also sat a bench or two ahead of us in both Biology and AP English, and I found myself looking at her a lot of times; trying to find out what made her so confident, and stand out. Especially because I'd caught Cyan eyeing her a few times.

There was finally someone at my lunch table who was not sitting with me out of pity, or was not regretting sitting with me when he had 'better friends'.

Cyan was still he 'new guy', people came at our table and threw random party invitations to him every now and then. Some completely ignored me, others were polite enough to add "you may also come".

It didn't change things, however. He politely rejected the offers every time.

Cyan and I were similar in a lot of cases, you see, we both were quiet, social outcasts, and introverts. Moreover we both shared a dedicated passion for strong coffee, French culture, and mostly, river Islaire.

Stacey's visits to our table had been surprisingly less frequent; maybe she had bracketed him in my category—a loner.

She could be the nicest girl when we were together in classes. We would walk to classes together, she'd copy parts of my homework, we'd talk a about latest rumors. It was all good. However, in lunch table, when all of her friends gathered together, I got the clear hint Stacey was 'the nicest' to a lot of people, and I was quite in the bottom of her priority list. But I was thankful that she at least regards me as a good friend; she was the closest I had to a best friend.

As much as I wanted, I couldn't pick up the topic of Cyan's passion for painting in school. I just felt he wouldn't want to talk about it; he could have told me by now if he wanted to.

I understood it though, even I had a fashion sketchbook hidden inside my drawer under school yearbooks, that I'd not reveal to anybody. Particularly because I sucked at it, which wasn't his case at all, however.

In my opinion, he was the most talented painter in this town. And day by day it was getting harder to talk to him while pretending I had no idea about his hidden talent.

Friday at lunch we were talking about electives, when it suddenly occured to me.

"What other elective are you taking this year?" I asked casually.

"Why, I'm doing Accountancy." He answered. "You've taken Home Ec, haven't you?"

"Yeah." Oh how I hated Home Ec! I cringed at that thought.

But I was trying to stick to the topic.

"Why don't you take up something more creative?"

He raised an eyebrow. "Because I'm opting to study business in college."

"So you don't love painting?" The question was too direct, so I tried to put a quick fix immediately. "I mean, Accountancy is boring. Arts is so creative!" I squealed in a high-pitch, fake tone.

He shot me a flat look. "No, I like what I'm doing."

"You introduced me as Picasso the other day, so I thought.."

"So what?" He deadpanned. "As if you sing like Lady Gaga."

We both laughed at this. "You said Picasso, so I just retorted back."

"See? I just said it like that too." He shrugged, cocking his head to one side.

It was obvious he was lying. I'd been secretly watching him in the park for the past couple of days. It was a beautiful pastime to watch him paint master pieces everyday. One day it was something really abstract, the other day it was the scenery of the river. And I'd no words to explain just how mesmerizing and enigmatic those works were.

"Are you going to Tessa's party tonight?" He suddenly asked, as if trying hard to change the topic.

Noticing this, I chose not to pester him with something he didn't want to talk about.

"No way," I tried to reply with a small laugh. "You going?"

"Me neither," he put both his hands up in the air in a mock-surrender. "I'm not the social type."

"You sure?" I asked, taking a sip from my can of soda. "Cause people are literally mounting you with party invitations from day 1."

"You know I'm not the type."

"But you are becoming really popular, especially among girls. The 'new boy' in town." I pointed out, my fingers forming the shape of quotation mark in the air.

"Why, you're getting jealous, girl?" He cocked an eyebrow at me and smirked.

I felt my cheeks heating up a little. His smirk was goddamn sexy, and I couldn''t help blushing at it.

"Get o'er yourself, boy."

As if just in queue, Kate, our classmate in Biology, came at our table for the second time this day.

"The party will be a blast, Cyan. You sure you're not coming?"

"Nah." He shot her the same smile like before. "I'll be busy tonight." Giving her the same reply.

"Oh, you'll miss a lot. Be sure to be at the next one though."

When she got out of our eyesight, it was my turn to cock an eyebrow. "See? You are popular."

He grinned, but says nothing.

--

My job at the shop started at 5:30; hence I didn't go to the park today. I really didn't have any interest of being late in the first day. Jenna, the owner of the shop, though seems like a nice woman, was certainly very strict with rules.

"Good evening, Jenna," I greeted her as soon as I entered the coffee shop.

"Ah, evening, Eloine."

She had already taught me my job on Wednesday. So I put on the orange apron with the shop's logo over my black tees and white jeans, and waited for my first customer to arrive.

After waiting patiently for ten minutes, there was a jingle at the door. I looked up to greet my first customer.

Cyan was standing there, a smirk on his face. "Here we meet again," he said, the smirk never leaving his face.

"Welcome, sir."

Ah, what an attractive start.

****

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P.s. We too had such a start.