I haven't done a pic in game in so long! Haha I hope this is up to par! :) And I apologize for how long this is and how super exposition-y. These two are characters of mine and do have a backstory and I want to get it out of the way, so yeah... The past just has a big impact on their dynamic so I needed to explain it. I hope the last paragraph in particular ties it into the picture. :)
https://c1.staticflickr.com/1/443/19133213362_54af09cd6f_o.pngI've always been a clutz. It's not a characteristic that's particularly desirable, but if I wasn't, I never would have met Xane. So I guess it's a good thing.
It was sophomore...no, junior year. In high school. Before then, we'd never crossed paths before despite being in the same grade; he was the kid who was going places, taking all AP classes, number one in the class getting scholarship opportunities every week. Xane was literally voted the most likely to succeed our senior year, but he wasn't like...a gawky nerd or anything. Xane was cool. There was just something about him- he was, and still is, the most passionate and driven person I have ever met. He wanted success, and he knew that it wasn't going to fall into his lap. I was the complete opposite. I still
am the complete opposite. To me, a C was a good grade, and I spent most of my time in school day dreaming and drawing over my math homework. I wasn't supposed to be going places. I wasn't in any
real AP classes, unless you count art (which I aced all year, thank you very much), I wasn't ambitious, and was simply going through the motions of high school.
Xane was the one who changed all that. We met in the most cliche way possible: I spilled my coffee on him in the hallway. I remember feeling terrible. It had gotten all over me too, and I was fully expecting a firm "Hey, watch where you're going!" But that wasn't what he said. Actually, his biggest concern was whether or not my sketchbook was ruined. Thank goodness it wasn't. Art was my only good grade.
I remember it like it was yesterday. He looked at me, and after I was finished apologizing profusely for messing up his nice shirt he complimented my hair, I accidentally-on-purpose left out the fact it wasn't my natural color, and he suggested I make it up the accident to him by letting him buy me another after school. There was another pause, but somehow I managed to nod. I remember smiling at him, and as they say, the rest was history.
Until graduation, that is. We had rubbed off on each other quite a bit. Xane helped me with school and I did exponentially (notice the big word?) better, and I helped him actually have fun. Over the course of our time together, I filled up at least five sketchbooks with drawings of him, and it got to the point I could paint him by memory. Xane has a perfect face, I must say, so it wasn't exactly a chore. My favorite painting of us to date came from then, painted from reference of a photo of us posed together under a cherry tree in peak bloom. But I'm getting sidetracked.
Back to graduation! It was awful. Even though my grades had improved, I still wasn't the kind of student that was going to any fancy colleges, and I didn't have the money for it anyways. Xane, on the other hand, had won a full ride business scholarship to Cambridge University. In England. I had never been so upset to see him succeed. We promised to keep in touch, to stay together. The two of us had become inseparable, crazy in love, and I knew it was the real thing but we thought that meant that we would last, even when he was an ocean away. Needless to say, we didn't.
Without him to help motivate me to study, college was a living nightmare. Still all I wanted to do was art, and in England without me, apparently all Xane wanted to do was work. Daily video chats became weekly phone calls, which soon became monthly texts. And then eventually he just stopped replying, and I knew it was over. Soon after, I decided college wasn't for me and I dropped out, accepting a job at as a hostess at a nice restaurant in town. For seven or eight years that was my life. I could never hold a job for very long before I did something dumb (usually in the form of being a clutz or not paying attention), so I took whatever would help me pay rent for a month and lived one day at a time. Even now I hadn't learned my lesson, and I painted more than I worked. My apartment is a cluttered graveyard of art that no one will ever see, but in my eyes, there was always room for more. It was what I loved to do, and my life philosophy had always been that if you didn't make time to do what made you happy...well. I don't remember the end of it but that just seems dumb, doesn't it? You should love what you do. Everyone has a right to that.
For eight years I didn't hear anything from Xane, and when we met again he was the last person I expected to see. I was working, serving as a waitress at a fancy gala taking place at an art gallery in town. As usual, I spent more time looking at the art and fantasizing about seeing my work up on the walls, and I didn't even know the name of the thing I was serving. Something French, I think. Too fancy for me. Not too fancy for Xane, though. Not anymore.
He had risen to the top of the business world faster than anyone had ever seen. At twenty-six years old, he was a successful entrepreneur of a new technology business, quickly approaching millionaire status. He was at the gala considering an investment, and I didn't notice him. We never would have crossed paths if I hadn't gotten distracted looking at an especially beautiful painting, but of course I did, and it was like...starting over. I bumped into him. My tray clattered to the ground with a deafening
crash, and, apologizing profusely once again I bent to pick it up, not meeting his eyes and not knowing that the man whose perfect face still found its way into my pictures was only a breath away. But he knew. Later, he told me that it was my hair that he recognized on sight- he still loved the red.
"Ally?" I knew that voice anywhere, and I stopped in my tracks. "Ally, that's you, isn't it?" Slowly, I turned back around, this time daring to look him in the eyes.
"Xane?" He asked if I would meet him for coffee tomorrow, and just like before...the rest was history.
Sometimes I feel like I'm in a movie. We aren't perfect. Growing up has changed things, and I won't say that it's exactly...well, let's just say I wish he wasn't a millionaire while I can barely make rent and we'll leave it at that. But some things are the same. Some things will always be the same. Sometimes after his work he'll come to my apartment and we'll snuggle up on the couch and watch movies like we used to (but this time with wine- wow!), or sometimes I'll try to paint him until he gets bored posing and decides he'd rather kiss me instead. Which, by the way, I'm totally fine with. I always melt, now as much as ever. We always look strange walking down the street, him in his thousand dollar suit and me in a sweater and old jeans I've been wearing for three years, but our differences are what balance us out. He motivates me to work hard, and I remind him that everyone needs to take a day off once in a while. We're good for each other, and I love him so much. I'm not letting him go again.
