Impulsion (Station 32 #1)(100)

The fun Bio: I’m an obsessive daydreamer. Lover of loud alternative music. Addicted to Red Bull. I love to laugh until it hurts. Fall is my favorite season. Black is my favorite ‘shade.’ Strong believer in the saying: there is a reason for everything, therefore I search for ‘marked moments’ every moment of every day…and I find them. Life is beautiful!





Brush Strokes



A Novel



Janelle Stalder





Prelude



An artist cannot fail; it is a success to be one. – Charles Horton Cooley



It’s funny how life can take an unexpected turn. It seems like no matter how carefully we plan things, or envision where our lives will go, something can happen to turn it all on its side. Love can do that. Love can make people do things that are completely out of character and push them to limits they didn’t even know were possible. They say all you need is love, but how true is that?

When you love a person so much that being with them feels like you can breathe easier, when just their nearness is the oxygen inflating your lungs, is that the kind of love where it’s all you need? Where hunger is something insignificant compared to the need and appetite you feel for only that one person?

Or does love make fools of us all? Is it simply infatuation and lust clouding our sense of judgement? Or is that just what cynical people think?

***

Colt knelt beside me, his lips moving over and over again, my name falling from them. I couldn’t hear him, my ears now ringing so loudly I was afraid I might have gone deaf. I watched as Colt’s body jerked violently, falling beside me. His lips still moved, caressing my name as though it were the only prayer he knew. We lay beside each other, our blood pooling around us, and I couldn’t help but think we looked like some modern version of Bonny and Clyde. I reached out my hand and found his, gripping it.

It’s funny how life takes an unexpected turn.





One



Life imitates art far more than art imitates life – Oscar Wilde



Olivia



The blank canvas glared at me mockingly. Go ahead, it taunted. Paint something. I blew a piece of my bangs out of my eyes and sat back, the unused paintbrush dangling in my hands. What the hell was wrong with me? I’d been home for a week now and hadn’t been able to paint one thing. It was unheard of!

“You’re such an *, Olivia Banks.” I looked up to see my best friend, Ella, standing in the doorway, hands on her hips, mouth turned down in a frown. Her clear blue eyes narrowed as I met her gaze.

“Well hello to you too,” I said with an easy smile.

She sputtered, walking further into my room. “Don’t you ‘well hello to you too’ me! I just saw your mother down at Bulk Barn and she had to tell me that you’re home. And guess what?”

I knew what, but I played along. “What?”

“Seems you’ve been home for a whole freakin’ week! What the hell, Olive?”

I turned back to my yet-to-be-even-started painting and decided that it was useless. There was no way I’d get anything done with Ella here, not that I was getting far before she arrived. Placing the brush on the easel, I looked back at her, guilt sitting heavily in my stomach.

“I’m sorry,” I offered. She rolled her eyes, throwing herself down on the edge of my bed. “Look,” I started, “it really hasn’t been a whole week. I got home Saturday, and I’ve just been so busy unpacking and getting settled that I haven’t had time to call anyone.”

“It’s Saturday, Olive,” Ella replied in a bland voice. “So, yeah, it has been a whole week. And that excuse you just gave me? Complete bullshit. You’ve been gone now for two years, and when you finally come home you can’t take five minutes out of your ‘busy’ schedule to call your best friend?”

Okay. So she was mad. I got it. I’d be mad too if the situation was reversed. The truth was, I hadn’t been home for so long I was worried that things would be too different between us. Sure, we spoke on the phone off and on, and we’d send each other emails and cards for our birthdays and what not, but after being away for so long one would assume things would be a bit…I don’t know…awkward.

I’d been away at the best art school in the country for my sophomore and junior years. I felt – out of touch with things back home. And it was a small town, so being away for two years pretty much made you a leper in everyone’s books. I had no idea what was going on with most of the people I had grown up with. Well, except Ella. Damn. I really should have called her. Now I felt like an ass.

“I really am sorry,” I said, getting up to sit down beside her. “You have every right to be mad at me. I’m a terrible friend. I guess I was just afraid to see people again.”

She turned to look at me with her big eyes all round and puppy-dog-like. It was like a physical punch to my gut. I was used to that look, it had gotten us out of trouble countless times in the past, especially if it was one of our dads who was giving us crap. I don’t think any man with a beating heart could look at her sad face and not give in to her every whim. It was a talent really. I wish I had it.

“Even me?” she said with a small pout. I shrugged, speechless. “I’ve been waiting for forever to have you back, Olive. I’m so damn happy you’re here I want to crawl out onto your roof and scream it to the whole neighbourhood.”