“Don’t overthink it.Just draw a line and go from there.”
Theo looked at the dark-haired, dark-eyed man beside him.
“Guess you’ve done this before?”
Spike nodded.“Last semester, I took Callie’s painting class.She’s not worried about if your stuff is perfect, she just wants you tofeelit, you know?”
Theo chewed on Spike’s words.Painting class?
“She teaches painting, too?”
Spike nodded.“Drawing, Painting, and Ceramics.”
Theo nodded, letting his hand draw a line on the paper in front of him.It was just a black line.Nothing special.Hardly anything to get excited over.He looked at Lorelai, trying to find a place to start again.
“I have painting 101 this semester, too,” Theo mused as he focused on Lorelai’s arm.
Spike chuckled.“Did you pick thesebeforeor after your speed date?”
“Before.”
Spike grinned.“And you don’t believe in fate?”
Theo shrugged, going back over the line.“I don’t know, honestly.It sounds nice, but...in my life, I haven’t really seen fate working in my favor.”
Spike drew a line on his paper, and it was much more fluid than Theo’s straight one.
“I don’t know, I think fate’s all about perspective.The literal Fates...they work in puzzles and riddles.They don’t like things simple, so sometimes it seems like it’s against you, but...in the end, it all leads you to the same place.”
Theo watched Calliope as she started to circle the room, stopping at each student’s desk.
“If everything is already divined, though, then nothing is left to chance.Everything’s just a game.”
Spike swooshed a large arch, filling in some space.
“Not true.Fate and free will are different.I was meant to find Izzy, but the choices I made, the things I did—” Spike let out a heavy sigh.“Before I got there, that was my choice.I would’ve always found her, but...maybe it wouldn’t have been the right time otherwise.”
Theo watched as Calliope stopped, smiling at a student.She illustrated something with her hands, pointing.
The light in her eyes was beautiful, but then again, so was she.
What had they called her, a...muse?
“I don’t know.I like to think we can choose our own fate, you know?”
Spike smirked.“Or maybe your fate is to discover it.”
Calliope moved steadily along the desks, and Theo tried his best to focus on the model, on getting out some shapes.His doodles had not prepared him for this.
Though, soon, Theo discovered that there was a sort of rhythm to the lines and shapes as he repeated them.He took his time, trying his best to capture what he was looking at, but there seemed to be a disconnect between what he saw with his eyes and what he felt with his heart.
He felt her before he saw her.Felt that undeniable buzzing of electrified energy that always seemed to exist when she was near.
Was it fate?Magic?Theo didn’t know.But whatever it was, it was real.
Very real.
“I did not think you an artist, Theo,” she said carefully.Platonically.Professionally.
