family matters || [kiah]

The pencil in my hand is nothing but an extension of my fingers. I watch as lines, some thick, some thin, are created before me creating an image on the paper that was to tell stories about me, about how I am feeling, about what is going on in this head of mine. I pull away from the paper, my eyes studying the half drawn picture I couldn't quite tell what it was, I didn't need to know, not yet, it would all piece together in the end, it always did. I smile to myself before placing the pencil back onto the paper, almost instantly my fingers begin to work again, weaving lines across the sheet, back and forth and back again. I shade in some places too, my hand working quickly, so fast.

For years I have drawn, drawn endlessly. Where people put words I put an image. I didn't need words, words were complicated, where as an image was straight forward and beautiful. Well images were straight forward to people who could read them. If you couldn't read them I would say learn to because there was so much that one image could tell you, there was so much just laying around on the streets that you could frame with your fingers than read, telling you about the wold in which we live in. The only things people had to do was look, look and read and love.

People often tell me that my eagerness for the things around me is too extreme, but they are wrong, I am not too extreme, I need to be more intense. I want people to understand, to see the world I see, the beautify it holds, that it hides from people and their arrogance. Maybe I should tone it down, after all if people weren’t looking, then did they really deserve to see the world I see? To see the world in which they live in?

Once again I pull away from the paper, but this time it is because I was finished. I look down at the lead markings and smile. The image wasn't perfect, there were errors all over it but those errors are what made it special, war made it perfect. A smile paints itself onto my lips and I climb from my chair, my legs carrying me over to my wall where I pin the picture. I stand back. My whole wall was like a collage of my inner thoughts, Pictures ranging from black and white to the colours of the sunrise plastered over the paint. People walk into my room and they feel like they have walked into an art gallery, not realising that these images reflective something much deeper than just why they look like on the surface. Look deeper I would tell them but a look of utter confusion would slip onto their dumbfounded faces and I would give up.

Slipping my pencil into my pocket I slip out of my room, my door closing soft behind me. My house was rather empty, my brother, Stallion, doing what ever the hell it is that he does. It was his turn to be running our small store our parents had let behind but I doubt he was doing that, I don't think he felt like he had time to waste on sun a small business. He didn't understand, he didn't understand that it was all we had left of our parents. I understood, and usually I would escape down there now and run the place, but I had had enough, I didn't want to be locked away in a rather empty store for the day. It will stayed closed today, not a soul will even notice, no one but me.

In moments I am out of my house and waling down the cement path which was cracked in places. Was it because of the suns heat? Or erosion from the salty air? I wasn't quite sure but as I walked along I begun to wander just how old this walkways was. How many times had I walked down it? How many other people had walked down this exact same path thinking the exact same thing? I didn't know, there was just to many possibilities- suddenly I come across a rather odd scene.

In front of my lay a girl. She just lay there, just off to the side of the cement path, her head using is edge a s a pillow. A frown slips onto my forehead. What was this girl doing? I walk up to her only to see that the left side of her face was painted in colours that did not belong. Purples as dark as the morning sky, and yellows that look old flowered her cheek ringing her eye. My mouth drops open slightly and I crouch down next to the girl, one of my pale hands reaching out to touch the damaged flesh. Did it hurt? My cold fingers touch her skin, they are soft and delicate. “Are you ok?” The question falls from my lips without much thought, but the emotion bend it is obvious. It hurt to see this girls face marked with the mark of pain. “Does it hurt?”

My fingers linger on the girls face for a moment longer, tracing the darker lines that trailed from the corner of her eye to the edge of her chin. It looked painful, the swelling around the eye making it almost impossible or it to open. A frown slips onto my forehead and I pull my hand away from her face and rest it on my knees, my eyes studying her other eyes which slowly began to open to reveal a sea green gem. Tears begin to form in the sea of green salty drops of liquid leaking from the corner. My heart begins to ache for the girl as I could tell she was fighting back the tears, no one deserved to feel like this. I swallow hard and plaster a small reassuring smile onto my lips.   "I'm not okay. It really hurts."  

Her words are laced with pain, with tears and embarrassment. Embarrassment? what was she to be embarrassed about? I tilt my head to the side slightly my eyes studying hers which were studying my face. I wondered what she was thinking. Was she annoyed by the way I had touched her face, trailing my fingers over her bruised skin? Had I over stepped a line? I have never really been one to think about things like that, I have always just gone through without much thought. My ma once told me that that was going to get me into big trouble, into trouble that she wouldn't be able to help weasel me out of. Not that she was here to help me out in the first place. She was gone, left without a word, not to me, not to anyone.

Disappeared with the breeze one morning, taking my father with her.

“Its going to be okay, I’ll get ya some ice to numb the pain,” I place a hand on the urls shoulder to let her know that I will come back for her in a moment. Climbing to my feet but stop after a moment. Had this girl been out here all night? Had she slept out here on this dirty floor surrounded by small bits of rubbish and piles of sand. “Hey do you want to come? I have some frozen pea’s back at my place, and I know they work to perfection when it comes to pain.” And that I did know was absolutely accurate. I am not always the most graceful person, usually in the morning I can be quite the derp. I run into walls all the time stubbing my toes, I have broken them a couple times and each time I have used peas to ease the pain. “You don't have to, I mean I know you don't know me and coming to my place would seem daunting and what not, I could always bring the ice here, but if your hungry I could also make you something to eat.”

I didn't know if I was crossing a line or something, and I didn't want to be intruding but I wanted to help, have always been that way, especially since my parents disappearance. I have always been the one to want to help, always been the one who would look out for the others. No one else wanted to run the shop, but I knew that that was what our parents had loved, it was a large sum of the family income so I did it. I ran the shop, I decorated it and made it a place where people felt welcomed. The rest of my family just stood back, occasionally taking it upon themselves to have a lonely shift in the small shack by the harbour. I would not watch this girl in pain, I would do something about it, I would help her. It was obvious that someone had attacked her. But who? I didn't know and there was no way I was about to interrogate her. If she wanted to talk, she would talk. Right now, though, it just looked like she needed someone. Someone to care about her, to make a fuss about her. I could be that person.

I smile at the girl once more, crouching down to her level. “My brothers tell me that I can make one mean omelette.” A grin hooks up the corners of my lips my eyes dancing.

My brothers often told me that I smiled to easily that I trusted to easily, and that one day that was going to get me hurt. And I guess they were right because t had already hurt me. When our parents left it had causes my heart to ache in ways I hadn't even imagined possible. I remember how hard it had been to breathe when I first realised that they weren't coming back home, when I first realised that they were gone, leaving me and my brothers to face the world alone. To be honest I hand't seen it coming, and maybe I should have because  was an artist after all an artists were meant to be able to read deeper int people, into anything... but... but I hadn't because I trusted, because I loved, because I cared.  But despite it all I still trusted people because if I couldn't trust anyone what was the point in life? Life was made to live to trust to hurt and to love and that was exactly how I was going to live my own life. 

So when the small laugh escapes the girls lips I smile because I am proud that I had managed to make this girl laugh even though she was hurting. One person did not live their life only for themselves, but they lived it for others too and I guess that was where my parents had gone wrong. They hadn't thought of their kids when they left, even if they left because they were forced too, or if it as their own choice, they should have thought about the people who were replying on them, they should have lived for more people than just themselves. 

I knew that I would. I already was. I took on he responsibility of the shop that my parents left behind. I did it for my family because I knew just how much each and everyone of them hated the place, prefering to allow their minds wander in the ways that they desire. Alec, for example, in his endless stories, Stallion on the waves of the ocean. I lived my life for them, sometimes more than I did for even myself. 

The girl smiles as words of thanks and acceptance to my earlier proposal escape her lips. It was a nice smile, one that I would have loved to draw on a piece of paper and fill it with colours which were bright and welcoming, but I couldn't, I wouldn't, not with the purples and yellows and greens and blues which were flowering on her cheeks as that was not the image I pictured, thus that would not be the image which would be sketched into the world. It would not be filled with bright colours, but dark ones because how would I even allow myself to be able to had colours of happiness when it was clear that pain was written al over her features, over powering the momentary happiness. 

The girl wobbles slightly as she moves into a sitting position and instantly I am on my knees beside he, my hand a gentle guide as she climbs to her feet unsteadily. I am about to ask her if she is kay when she gives me a look, almost as if she is reading my mind. Her look clearly is trying to state that she is okay and that I shouldn't worry which only slightly soothes the concern which swims around in the depths of my gaze.  Thats when I take off slowly, my eyes constantly darting bak to the girl who limped as she tried to keep up with me and out short journey to my home. 

"I'm Averie. Thank you for this, by the way. I probably would have stayed in that spot forever if you didn't come along."

At her words I give her a warm smile, "no problem," I almost sing as I turn to face her, my body moving backwards so that I could look her in the eye as we spoke. "I am glad that you are okay, nothing too serious to worry about.Oh, and I am Magnus Costelllo," I tuck my hands behind the back of my head as I walk, my feet not needing my eyes to see the path as I had walked it many times before. "If you don't mind me asking, what happened?"