Hello everyone! I was bored one day and this short story was born! Hope you like it.
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Risa
It’s funny how emotions can change something that would have normally amounted to nothing. If humans didn’t have emotion, the painting would still be two sloping, parallel lines. Specifically, if she didn’t have emotion.
The black lines she’d just painted on the large canvas meant nothing. To her, they were just a random start to another random painting. Just like the many that were gathering dust in the attic, which her parents had made her painting room. It might end up being a road, or an arm or anything else that popped into her head.
“Rae! Dinner!” The girl let out a sigh and sealed the paint. She threw off one of her father’s old, now stained with layers of paint, changing into the t-shirt she’d worn to school. Rae headed down the hall to the table, the smell of her mother’s cooking meeting her head on.
“What took you so long, Rae?” Her mother asked, giving her a motherly glance.
“I was painting,” Rae mumbled, looking at her empty plate.
“Did you finish your homework first?” By the sound of silverware hitting glass, Rae knew her mother was trying to get her eye contact.
“No,” She whispered, so quietly that she barely heard the words herself.
“I beg your pardon?” Her mother demanded.
“No.” The sigh that came from her mother was loud and Rae winced as if she’d been hit.
“Rae! We’ve talked about this before; schoolwork comes before your hobby. You need to start good your freshman year--”
“But, mom, it isn’t a hobby!” Rae insisted, trembling to keep the rage from making her do or say something she'd regret.
“Yes, it is.” Her mother said, shaking her head.
The girl clenched her teeth and fists and kept her eyes closed. Anger was overwhelming her. This discussion had become a nightly thing, but this was the first time her mother outright said that her passion in life was nothing but a hobby.
“Don’t ever say that.” Rae said, her voice containing Alaskan winters.
“Say what?” Her mother was challenging her, daring her to say something.
“That what I want to do for the rest of my life is some 'silly hobby.'”
“I’m sorry, Rae, I’m just trying to do what’s best for you.” Rae sighed and noticed how tired her mom looked. Instead of continuing the argument, Rae turned away and prayed silently, keeping the tears from falling. Her mother did the same and they started eating.
When they were almost done, Rae heard the door open and the sound of heavy boots on wood floors. She saw her mother look up, her eyes burning in anger. All of the fury that Rae had possessed went away as the footsteps became louder.
Her father stepped into the dining room. Rae stood up and walked down the hall when she heard her mother ask her father where he’d been. He mumbled something and they started yelling. Tears stung Rae’s eyes as she ascended into the attic.
She threw her father’s old shirt into an empty corner. Tears fell from her chin to the floor as she snatched a paintbrush wet with crimson paint. With it held tightly in her hand, she threw her arms forward as if she was throwing a baseball to her father; like she did when she was little and they were still a happy family. Paint splattered like blood across the two lines.
Grabbing another paintbrush without looking at the color that it was wet with, she did the same thing. The color ended up being a very dark blue. Rae would have done it again but the black hole that had been sucking anything good she possessed was starting to ache physically. She fell to the floor and let herself cry. How could high school possibly be the best years of her life if she had to live like this?
*****
Four years later
*****
A girl carried a box full of paintings downstairs to the large van in front of the small house. To get to the van, she had to pass her mom and dad. They wouldn’t look each other in the eyes; as usual. But this didn’t faze her, not anymore. For a girl of eighteen, she had very old eyes.
“Is that the last of it?” Her mother’s voice was cold, as it always was when she was talking about the girls hobby turned profession.
“No, there’s one more.” She looked to the two girls and one guy standing by the van. “Will you guys help me out?” All three nodded and followed her into the attic.
“Rae, I still don’t understand why all of your genius was stored in a dusty attic.” The taller of the two girls, Sarah, said. Rae laughed and nodded towards something covered with a dirty sheet. Her friends stood blinking at it.
“Drum roll please.” Rae said and the boy, Evan, grinned and grasped out the drumsticks that were always in his pocket. He rolled on the wall he was closest to. Rae rolled her eyes and pulled off the sheet. Her friends stood dumbstruck at the painting.
“What is it?” Lorraine, the shortest of the girls asked, putting her hand deep into her multicolored hair. Sarah angled her head and cocked an eyebrow, the same question flashing in her eyes.
“I call it ‘Scars Unseen,’” She told them, admiring the painting she’d started four years earlier.
“I don’t get it,” Evan rubbed the back of his neck. They looked on the painting. Too many colors to name splattered the canvas, made from throwing paint off of a brush. The only solid lines were two thick, black lines underneath the chaos
“As I remember it correctly, this began my freshman year. I made these,” Rae delicately brushed the upper of the two lines, “before dinner one night. Something…something bad happened and I came up here and spattered paint on the canvas.” Her fingers brushed each color, a knot tightening up in her throat. Memories of a thousand tears came flooding to her at once and it began to hurt physically.
“You mean, every time you got pissed off or depressed…” Lorraine spoke her voice drifting off.
“I did this.” Two warm arms wrapped around her and she looked up to see Evan’s brown eyes looking into hers.
“You never let on how much your life sucked before a month ago…how could you hold all this in?” Evan sounded a little angry at her and she looked down.
“It’s no big deal.” Rae argued.
“Look at that! You’re telling me that’s no big deal!” He gestured at the painting, “There must be hundreds of strokes on that painting.”
“It’s just like when you play out of anger.” She said, forcing herself out of his grasp. Rae looked to where Sarah and Lorraine were steaming. “Like when you,” she pointed to Sarah, “run until your legs turn to Jell-O just because someone pissed you off. Or when Rained over there plays her guitar until her fingers bleed.”
Her friends looked at each other and thought about it. “This is what I do to blow off steam, or would you rather that are on my skin?” They all glared at her. “These marks right here are my battle scars, and this,” she pointed to her head, “is my badge of courage.”
Lorraine snickered, “Not much of a reward.” Rae rolled her eyes and smacked her shoulder.
“I love you too.” She laughed.
“Now I feel jealous.” Evan grinned and took Rae up in a bear hug.
“Get off me, you perv!” Rae laughed and he set her down, giving her a hurt look. She smiled and kissed him on the cheek.
“Rae!” All of them groaned at her mother’s voice, “It’s time to go!”
“Coming!” Rae yelled, rolling her eyes. “Come on guys. Evan, will you grab it?” He nodded and picked up the painting that had taken for years to finish. Yet Rae knew as they loaded it and said last goodbyes to her mother that more scars would come, to many to be put on any canvas.
Those were the ones that would be truly left unseen.
Anyway, keep up the good work 
!!! PM me if you have any questions.