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Post by branch calix oliver on Mar 14, 2013 17:40:32 GMT -5
[/style][style=width: 358px; padding: 20px; background-color: #000; color: #999; text-transform: lowercase; font-family: garamond; font-style: italic; font-size: 13px; letter-spacing: 1px; text-align: justify; border-right: 1px dotted #0A0A0A; border-left: 1px dotted #0A0A0A;]Shadows settle on the place that you left. Our minds are troubled by the emptiness. Destroy the middle, it's a waste of time. From the perfect start to the finish line— Cal stayed where he was, sitting on the edge of the bench, but his eyes followed Mallory to where she was examining the flowers. He paused for a moment after what she said, his gaze falling to the cluster of bushes in front of him; he chuckled quietly. What a typical Mayview kid thing to say: born with a silver spoon in their mouths, only to discard it at the first opportunity.
"I wouldn't know," he said.
His fingers traced an unconscious pattern on the arm of the bench. "I've never been outside the US." After a beat, he added, "not much inside the US, either. My parents live in Florida, but last couple of years I don't go back there for the summer any more. These days it's just Hadley."
He laid his sketchbook and tin on the ground, then thought better of it and leaned it upright against the bench. It was too much like an extra limb for him to risk leaving it behind -- and more than that, he hated the idea of another student finding it. He glanced at Mallory again sidelong, his profile cast into shadow in the dimming light.
"I probably seem like a philistine to you."
ooc: short and late! i'm sorry :c |
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Post by lena2 on Mar 14, 2013 18:27:46 GMT -5
 it wasn't uncommon to have a stationary family, they were probably the most common of all family types to be perfectly honest. mallory was just one of the unlucky few that had to travel because of her parents desire for an exotic trip every month or so. they always dragged her everywhere. she used to go to the bahamas during the winter months and they would go ski in places like Utah or Colorado when they had an urge to cool down. there was always some unfilled desire that her parents acted upon, they were just so impatient for their own natural answer to their problems, they and to escape just to discover the answer. "count yourself as blessed, there are worse places to be than hadley is like an exotic island compared to some of the places i've been to." she sighed and turned her frown upside down. she had no reason to be unhappy. she was making friends, just like her mother had wanted her to. there was nothing sad about friends and there was no reason to think of the past. thats all it is, the past. its over and done with, there is no need for her to ever revisit all those dreary nights where her mother wouldn't return from her trip for days. her father pacing himself to sleep and her having to cry herself to sleep, not knowing if mommy was ever going to return to braid her hair that special way that only mommy can. mallory reached for the sketch book that he had leaned ever so carefully on the benched leg. her outstretched arn brushed against his and she grabbed the tattered edge, so that she could pull it toward her easier. it dragged dust with it and she hoped that he wouldn't mind too much. she was a curious person and this is just what she does because of that attribute she so loathed. she flipped the page to the most recent drawing. "this is beautiful." she was careful not to touch the carefully charcoaled likeness. "really, it is. i dont think a philistine could do anything like this. "MALLORY[/div] |
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Post by branch calix oliver on Mar 18, 2013 17:50:04 GMT -5
[/style][style=width: 358px; padding: 20px; background-color: #000; color: #999; text-transform: lowercase; font-family: garamond; font-style: italic; font-size: 13px; letter-spacing: 1px; text-align: justify; border-right: 1px dotted #0A0A0A; border-left: 1px dotted #0A0A0A;]Shadows settle on the place that you left. Our minds are troubled by the emptiness. Destroy the middle, it's a waste of time. From the perfect start to the finish line— Cal realised a moment too late what was happening as her arm reached over his lap. The sketchbook he had deliberately placed out of sight was in her grasp and irretrievable before he had time to process the thought, let alone stop her. Seeing her fingertips on the cracked cover of his most treasured possession felt almost like a physical burn. He froze up, jaw clenched in the effort of biting his tongue, and seemed almost to withdraw into himself. Then she opened the sketchbook, and even in this clandestine little hideaway in the dimming light, he felt as if it had been publicly laid bare.
She had only exposed the most recent drawing: the unfinished sketch of the Mayview grounds that he had been working on when she arrived. It was nothing - a practice piece, a study in shade and colour, something to pass the time. Yet as he watched her studying it, he felt his breath tighten in his chest. When they had still been outside, Mallory had gazed so closely at his face that each feature must have stopped making sense as part of the whole; but this, this invasion of his sketchbook, this felt personal in a way that the physical proximity hadn't. So much more could be read from the images a person created than the one that they projected. It was the one area of his life where he had some semblance of control.
The tension in his face made it difficult, but he managed to crack a smile: uneasy, laboured, but a smile nonetheless. "It's nothing," he said. "Copying what you see. Mechanical skill, no creative thought. You just have to be a human camera. Anybody can do it."
He shrugged, looking down. Self-deprecation made it easier to let go of his work, make it seem like it didn't matter so much. He made a sudden move as if to take the sketchbook back, but seemed to change his mind mid-movement and reached into his pocket for his cigarettes. Screw it. What point is art without an audience?
He bent his head to light the cigarette, and if his hands shook at all it was easy to disguise in the dim light. Taking his first drag, he waved away some of the smoke and then made a permissive gesture. "Go ahead, look through the whole thing. Feel free."
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Post by lena2 on Mar 19, 2013 17:00:37 GMT -5
the air was humid, humid enough to make mallory's hair curl even more. maybe it wasn't such a hot idea to wear her hair down when going to mysterious magical garden houses with a strange boy who can draw directly after her dog was killed. but the again, she didn't really plan on her day going like this, not at all. she smoother her hair down with her empty right hand making her hair more frizzy and stand upish. she lightly moved her finger over the side of the book, paging the papers but not quite turning them yet. she had a feeling that cal didn't want her to do anything with it. it was the lack of emotion in his voice when she was given free reign over the book. it was almost as if he was throwing his art away by giving it to her. and thats not what art is for, art is meant to be emotion, somehow he was not conveying that emotion he probably felt drawing these into his voice. "no. maybe you can show me next time. for now i'd like to keep some of your mystery preserved." she closed the cover onto the page, smoothing it out and setting it in the empty space it once was in. she was very meticulous about how she placed it. maybe he would appreciate her care for the book that was clearly worth more than life it's self. MALLORY[/div] |
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Post by branch calix oliver on Mar 24, 2013 12:13:57 GMT -5
[/style][style=width: 358px; padding: 20px; background-color: #000; color: #999; text-transform: lowercase; font-family: garamond; font-style: italic; font-size: 13px; letter-spacing: 1px; text-align: justify; border-right: 1px dotted #0A0A0A; border-left: 1px dotted #0A0A0A;]Shadows settle on the place that you left. Our minds are troubled by the emptiness. Destroy the middle, it's a waste of time. From the perfect start to the finish line— The tension that had remained in Cal's body as she fingered the book's cover dissipated into the air with Mallory's words. His shoulders, which had been curved forward defensively around his gaunt body, fell into a relaxed posture. His next exhalation of smoke came with a sigh of relief.
"Thanks."
He was tempted to pick up the sketchbook and wrap his hands around it like a pair of metal vices, but he left it where it was. Mallory had got the message: he was sure she wouldn't pick it up again if uninvited. The intensity of his physical reaction suddenly drove home to him how much time he spent alone - how unfamiliar it was to have human company. He was so unaccustomed to having anyone pay interest in him that her curiosity had, for a moment, felt like an attack. He tapped his long fingers on the arm of the bench, looking at Mallory again.
It was clear from his expression that he didn't hold a grudge, yet there was an element of retribution in the personal question he asked her. You've seen something of me; let me see something of you. It would be a fair exchange.
"Why were you crying, before?" sorry it's so short/late!! ;__; |
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Post by lena2 on Apr 1, 2013 11:42:19 GMT -5
she could feel the comfort she had been absorbed in was sucked right out of her, she was no longer in a mood to party or break school rules, she was the kind of person that didn't really like to talk about feelings. she was much better at coping when she could just roll her emotion into a ball and bury it deep inside her where no one could ever reach it. she was never the kind of girl to fall apart like she had at the wall, sometimes the little ball of emotion just grew larger and larger until it was taking her over, sometimes it would choke up her throat or sit in the bottom of her stomach, making it impossible to eat. at times like that, she would just continue on like she had noting wrong, because on the outside she was right, nothing was wrong, she was just a beautiful dancer who held grace in the palm of her hand. yet when you looked closely inside her, you could tell that something wasn't right, there were scars where there shouldn't have been. scars from all the mean words her mother had muttered under hear breath and all the names she was cursed with by the kids in her classes. she was a mess on the inside. having someone try to reach her emotion was like a blow to her reality, maybe someone did care and they wouldn't just take her feelings and enhance them. she wouldn't know until she let it happen, it was time to take a dive. "my mothers a monster." she slowly exhaled and continued on with her talking. "elle a tué mon chien d'enfance, il était mon meilleur ami. like i said, a monster." she fluctuated in between french and english, not knowing how to say in english, be it because of her little knowledge of english or the knot in her throat. "i don't expect you to care. i guess it's just a silly thing to cry about." she gave a sad smile in his direction and hoped he wouldn't mock her. MALLORY[/div] |
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Post by branch calix oliver on Apr 5, 2013 16:36:59 GMT -5
[/style][style=width: 358px; padding: 20px; background-color: #000; color: #999; text-transform: lowercase; font-family: garamond; font-style: italic; font-size: 13px; letter-spacing: 1px; text-align: justify; border-right: 1px dotted #0A0A0A; border-left: 1px dotted #0A0A0A;]Shadows settle on the place that you left. Our minds are troubled by the emptiness. Destroy the middle, it's a waste of time. From the perfect start to the finish line— This evening had a strange, unreal atmosphere. Branch was aware that it was influencing him, but he found himself letting himself be carried away by it. Everything he was thinking and feeling seemed both heightened and slowed down; a part of him wondered whether this showed just how starved of meaningful human contact he was, that he reacted to a pretty girl's attention almost as if it were a drug. The humid air was heady and aromatic with the strong pollen of the huge plants that surrounded them. He watched Mallory through eyes almost too dark to tell that they were hazel, his expression mirroring the pain he felt for her. He didn't understand much of the French she was speaking at this point, but the emotion in her voice needed no translation.
"Your dog died?" he repeated. That was the only part he had fully understood of what Mallory had said in her mother tongue; something 'friend', something 'mother'. His brows drew down slightly in an expression of sympathy, faint lines scoring his forehead in a frown. "That's not a silly thing to cry about... animals, y'know, they're not like people, but they're important because they're important to us."
He tapped some ash from the end of his cigarette, falling silent in thought for a few moments. He felt so remote from the other students here at Mayview that it was strange to be feeling so much sympathy for someone he supposed he should resent. Here was this girl, born with a silver spoon in her mouth, calling her mother a 'monster' when his own hadn't even let him come home in the summer for the last two years. When his own wouldn't throw a penny his way. But instead of feeling bitterness twist at him, he genuinely felt Mallory's sorrow. As pure and unselfish as any human feeling could be. He spent too much time caught up in his own thoughts these days, parched and starving for some other voice to interrupt them, that it felt completely alien to be concerned with someone else's.
"I had a dog when I was a kid," he said. "I remember, it ran away. I'm pretty sure that was my first experience of heartbreak." He glanced sideways at Mallory, trying to gauge her expression without seeming intrusive. "So, uh, do you wanna talk about it? Your dog, I mean."
BRANCH OLIVER: #1 AND #2 |
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