Painting Passion

Isabelle’s passion for painting was an emotion rivaled only by her absolute loathing for losing. She was the avatar for this first emotion, her rival Scotty, the epitome of her ire. He always won. Always!

In their first contest, she had turned in a work of true brilliance. In it, she had portrayed herself as Icarus, where she chased the sun across the sky with a butterfly net. Scotty’s work depicted a nonsense girl chasing nonsense things; it was too abstract to have any true merit. Yet, the judges had viewed his work, looked back at her, smiled, and then proceeded to award him first place.

It was all rigged. Had to be. That was why they had looked at her the way they had. Their smile had been a smirk. They were saying that she wasn’t going to win. They were saying that her efforts didn’t matter. Well, we’ll see about that, won’t we?

In her next painting, she was Sisyphus. Only, she was a mighty golden dragon who pushed a globe up a slope. She imagined that the globe was her creativity and that the judges were up top awaiting to appraise it. Well, once she got it up there, she was going to shove it down their throats. There was no chance they wouldn’t see her brilliance this time.

Isabelle’s fist closed around the heart-shaped pendant of her necklace. She always wore it for luck—a gift from her mother. Despite her confidence, she stood in the gallery’s hall, all nerves and uncertainty. Waiting was the worst part. Waiting to see the results posted. Waiting to see her appraised worth.

When the judges announced and unveiled the winner, Isabelle’s breath caught. But that wasn’t quite right. She was still breathing. No, it was her heart; it had stopped. In the same moment, her eyes welled up, and her fists balled as she pivoted and hurried out of the gallery.

That night, she sobbed before a blank canvas. The winner had been a painting of a giant girl stooping to look at a fire. There was no doubt in her mind about who had painted it. It had that same stupid abstract-dream quality. First place was a real-world prize, yet he was winning with abstract work. It didn’t make sense.

She had put all of this extra effort and research into making her work as real as possible. Had modeled her dragon after real lizards. Had depicted her Icarus wings like those of real birds. Wasn’t that the point? To make the work as real as possible? And yet she somehow kept losing to dreams. How was his abstract beating her realism?

Isabelle wore the sweatshirt her mom used to paint in—its sleeves too marred with old paint to begrudge the tears she had wiped away. If realism didn’t matter, none of it did. She would paint what she wanted to. And so she did.

Everything Isabelle had become was because of her mother. The necklace, the shirt, the paint, all of it was a cause that Isabelle had taken up on her mom’s behalf. Her earliest memories were near the base of her mom’s easel, an easel that she had also inherited. And just because her mom was no longer around, that didn’t mean she was no longer here. For as long as Isabelle painted, her mom was painting too.

Soon, a depiction of her mom reached down from the top of her canvas. It was like Michelangelo’s work showing God and Adam reaching towards one another. Only, her depiction showed a paintbrush passing from mother to daughter—daughter, who stood before a canvas, her mother perched on a cloud. At least, that was her sketch. When she added color, the paintbrush became the body of a butterfly, its wings stretching out as the horizon that separated Isabelle from her mother.

The next time the contest came around, things were different. Instead of curling into a ball of anxiety, Isabelle walked around the gallery. Past winners hung about the space, which meant she also encountered Scotty’s recent wins. She idly massaged her pendant as she looked over his work.

The first image showed a girl running, but it also showed something she hadn’t noticed before. The girl wore a necklace, which she guarded. Whatever animosity Isabelle previously held, it was gone now. She could actually appreciate his work. It really was good. She could even sympathize with the girl in it. They both had something precious, which they guarded.

In his next work, a small boy stood in the foreground with a torch held aloft. A girl’s face emerged from the surrounding darkness, her giant silhouette crouching while mostly obscured by shadow. The fire’s light flickered in her pupils as she leaned close, a pendant dangling from her neck—a pendant with a heart’s shape.

Isabelle’s breath hitched.

“I saw your painting,” someone said.

She spun to find a brown-haired boy, his build slight, his hands in his pockets, his gaze askant—Scotty.

“It’s really good,” he said without meeting her gaze. “This time, you’ll win for sure.”

“Th—thank you,” she replied.

“Well, I can tell you put a lot—”

“No,” she interrupted, stepping near him and orienting on his paintings. “I didn’t see it before, but I do now. So, thank you.”

Scotty met her gaze, then looked away again. He sighed. “I didn’t know how else to say it. You wouldn’t... You know? Want to go out sometime?”

“There’s a cafe around the corner. Buy me a coffee?”

“Of course! When?”

Isabelle hooked her arm into his. “I’m free now.”

“But the results...”

“Doesn’t matter. I didn’t paint to win; I painted to share something important. Whatever comes of that is for other people to decide. So...coffee?”

As the judges emerged to post the results, Isabelle and Scotty stepped out into sunshine.