Work Text:
There was far too much beauty to behold in the world. Within the darkening azure sky, the pale-amber stars, the wind kissing our cheeks, the ground beneath our feet housing life. Winona thought it impossible to capture, she had attempted so. Countless canvases drenched in natural curuleans and pines, fingers churned raw by scraping against a wooden paintbrush handle. She’d spend hours in the Indiana heat, all for the chance to illustrate a semblance of it. Still her vibrantly stained hands left her no satisfaction, she felt foolish for even trying.
When she and Michelle came of age, Winona thought she hated her. For a brief, terrifying, moment, she seemed to really believe so. How could she embody all the world’s beauty, so easily? As if it was nothing at all – something to be discarded, left unsaid? Her hair the sable hue of obsidian, her wide eyes mahogany, her skin smooth as the highest clouds. It wasn’t envy, it was awe. Winona could paint a thousand portraits of the roaring, alluring sea meeting the heavens at midnight, and never match the shade of how navy moonlight hit Michelle’s cheek. To Winona, she was the lilac moon, the carmine sun, and every lovely celestial body between.
Art was a tricky medium, just as Michelle was. Avoidant, arrogant, as well always somewhat out of reach. You can never trap art beneath your thumb, never demand it to speak the distinct message to all beholders. Michelle could never say what she meant, never be just in arm’s reach completely. There, physically, for holding Winona whenever she woke up in a cold sweat – nonetheless rarely present, the way she needed her to be. Winona never blamed her, because the sorrys would come spilling out in desperate pleas and soft hands wiping the tears from her eyes. Michelle was drowning, all the time. Held underwater, holding her breath, until she couldn’t anymore. Her lungs would burst one day, and everything held tightly inside would come gushing out in a flashflood.
That day came somewhere in mid-July. The rampant midsummer heat beat down upon the Wheeler home, sticky beneath a honeysuckle grove. Tangerine nectar stained the girls’ hands, grazed knees still dripping from the hose outside. They were bickering nonsensically on Michelle’s bed, a typical dispute over the next campaign. Inches apart, someone’s hands on the other’s thigh. Winona cannot recall what exactly her stance was, considering soon Michelle’s cherry-pink lips were on hers and the entire world faded to incoherent static. It was the first of many.
At last, Winona had Michelle figured out in her absolute entirety. She had yet to accomplish such a thing with art. Her head in her palms, strained over a blank canvas, sweating bullets in her childhood room. Posters peeled from the walls in the ever-consuming heat, a fan buzzing in the background. The yellow walls seemed to mock her in their vibrant hue, evaporating any inspiration from her mind. Then a subtle harsh tapping came from the window, which rapidly shifted into a full-blown attack. For a moment Winona believed her house was getting stoned, only to find Michelle standing outside at midday, tossing pebbles. “Oh, my god.” Winona groaned, creaking open the pane with struggle.
Michelle grinned wildly, spreading her arms. She wore a thin white tanktop, matched with blue jean shorts. “I have a surprise for you!” She swooned, swinging one leg over the other, flopping down on Winona’s rug.
Winona knitted her eyebrows, amused. “You cannot be serious.” She chuckled, hoisting Michelle to her feet. She quickly pecked her cheek, reaching into her back pocket in the process. She unveiled two tickets to an art gallery that had opened the past weekend, designed to showcase nature. Winona rolled her head back, unable to contain her ecstasy. “I love you, do you know that? I really, truly, do love you.” She giggled like a schoolgirl, tugging Michelle by her collar into a passionate kiss. The two melted into it, the tickets discarded to the floor.
—-
Winona feared Michelle would become exasperated of being dragged around tirelessly, however the complaints never arrived. Their hands were interlocked, Michelle’s thumb tenderly grazing over Winona’s whenever she stopped to study a piece. It could’ve been the best day of her life, if that wasn’t when she met the other girl. These gentle afternoons strangely reminded Winona of that day, the overgrown canopy above the gallery tent illuminating the space as if they glided through a memory.
The two halted to an abrupt stop facing a small painting, a simple illustration. Two girls lounging restfully beside a wide river, arms curled around eachother. It became familiar, the domesticity of it, intimate as a heartbeat. “Looks like us,” Michelle remarked quietly. “She has your hair.” She smirked.
Winona pressed her lips together. “Does she?” She pondered sarcastically, examining the girl’s brown curls. “Hm, I don’t see it.” She proclaimed. Michelle huffed disbelievingly. She cocked her head to the side, forming a viewfinder as Winona gently released her hand – allowing her to discover the creative vision.
Michelle stuck her hand out suddenly, pointing at the girl. “She has your nose too, you know?” She yanked the pair closer to the painting. “Your eyes, your freckles, it’s all there.” She proudly declared. “It’s obvious, she’s you.” She slung her arm over Winona’s shoulders, pressing a kiss to her hairline. “She’s beautiful, just as you are.” Winona blushed a violent shade of carnelian, stare dropping to the floor.
Winona considered her options, humming. “Alright, then, you’re the other one.” She stated. The other girl bared minimal resemblance to Michelle, with blazing ginger hair and piercing blue irises. Still, she carried a look to her, one Winona would recognize anywhere. That was her girl. Her girl, with the beauty that rivaled a thousand suns. The one she could recognize in oblivion, with the fierce loving fervor in her gaze, the one that would always be hers.
“That’s fine with me.” Michelle warmly whispered, knocking their pinkies together. “As long as you’re with me, that’s fine with me.”