I hear a cry of joy from somewhere in the store and something tells me the high-pitched noise is from Ansel.
Fighting a smile, I pick up a tube of oil paint, balking at the cost. I know supplies are expensive, but damn, this must be for the professionals whereas I need the elementary school stuff.
Moving to another aisle, I find shelf after shelf of sketchpads with different paper textures. There are pencils, charcoal, smudging sticks, erasers, and more.
It’s safe to say this is definitely Ansel’s version of heaven.
I find him eventually with his arms weighted down by supplies.
“You’re not getting anything?” he questions and I shake my head in response. “Suit yourself.” He heads to checkout and after he pays several hundred dollars—I’m not kidding—we head back home.
Ansel sets his stuff down by the door and I grab us each a grape Fanta from the fridge. Passing him one, I pop the top, smiling at the satisfying hiss of the bubbles.
“Where’d your brother go?” he asks, looking around the empty apartment. My brother was here when he picked me up—it was one of those times Sage was an ass and made him come up here.
“No idea,” I shrug, flopping on the couch, “he has the freedom to do whatever he wants now.”
Ansel shakes his head and joins me, playfully pushing my legs off to make room. “He’s not going to murder me and chop me into pieces when he gets back and finds me here, is he?”
“Possibly.” His eyes widen and I push his shoulder. “He’s not, I swear. He likes to give you a hard time but he’s coming around.”
Maybe.
Not really.
But Ansel doesn’t need to know that.
Ansel looks at me with narrowed eyes. “I want to believe you, but I don’t.” He gulps down some soda.
“Are you going to go to college?”
He rears back, my sudden question taking him by surprise. But after the conversation I had with my brother, I’ve been curious to talk to Ansel about it. Art is his passion, his life, what does he plan to do?
He scratches the back of his head, giving me a sheepish look. “I haven’t thought about it much to be honest. I know I should. My parents want me to go, I applied, but…”
“Yeah, that’s how I feel.”
He seems relieved by that. “It sucks going against the norm and what people want from you, but art is my life. I want to create. I want to move people with something I make. I don’t want to be an art teacher, which is what my parents have pushed me toward.” He takes another sip of the soda, the liquid sloshing around in the can. “Expectations fucking suck.”
“Yeah, they do,” I whisper in response. “We put enough pressure on ourselves as it is.”
“Fuck, this conversation is making me sad. Put a movie on or something before I get depressed and build a fort.”
“A fort?” I raise a brow.
He laughs. “When I was a kid, any time I got sad or in trouble I made a fort. I don’t know why.”
I give him a look. “Are we too old to build a fort?”
He snorts. “You’re never too old to build a fort.”
Two hours later, we’ve built a decent sized fort surrounding the TV, two large pizzas have been delivered, and we’ve polished off two more cans of soda each—it’s a problem, I know.
“Your brother is going to lose his shit when he sees this,” Ansel remarks, looking above at all the blankets we’ve used over top of lamps and chairs to create our hideout.
I laugh, genuinely laugh, and lean against my best friend’s side, resting my head on his shoulder. “I don’t care what he does, this is the most fun I’ve had in a while.”
Ansel grins, letting his head touch mine. “Meadows, I don’t know what magic brought you into my life, but I’m fucking glad for it.”