A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words // oxo // open

After her grandparents had lectured her about playing her music too loudly, Zella went back to her room. She hummed to herself as she turned on the music—quieter this time, of course, and went back to painting. She hoped that someone would like this one, as she was probably going to end up selling it. She thought it was one of her better paintings too.

She’d sold a couple of her paintings online or to her friends, and made a small amount of money that way, but she hoped to paint as a job one day. It wasn’t that she hated anything she learned in school (with the exception of history because she could never quite remember the named and dates), she just loved to paint more than anything else. She did other forms of art too, but painting was her favorite.

(it’s all good)

(it’s okay!)

Zella’s phone buzzed, interrupting the steady stream of rock music. She paused in her painting, deciding to check it. Someone had tagged her on Twitter in response to a question about her paintings. Zella, intrigued, set down her paintbrush and washed the paint off of her hands in her bathroom sink before coming back to see what was going on.

The person who had asked about her appeared to be a girl named Elara Jupiter. Interesting name. She tried to think of a clever response to the inquiry, but ended up typing:
I’m Zella. I have a couple of paintings for sale right now if you want one.

That would do for now. She set her phone down and turned the music back on, picking her paintbrush back up to continue painting. She was getting close to finishing it now, the azure sky coming into view.

Zella frowned as her music paused again, to the sound of an alert from her phone. It was kind of lucky the first time that someone had tagged her in the post, because she wasn’t the most popular artist out there, but apparently she was well-known enough. She shrugged. Maybe she would just take a break from painting to investigate. While painting was her favorite thing to do, she was also a very curious person by nature.

She set down the paintbrush again, washing her hands, and turned off the music. She sat down in her comfy beanbag chair, looking at Twitter again. The girl’s request made Zella a bit nervous. Meet in person? She didn’t even know this Elara girl.

Thank you, she typed. But I don’t really know you. Are you sure you can’t just email me your questions? Or discord?

Zella stared at her phone as she read the latest message, blinking. Well that was certainly a first for her, and while she was excited that someone was taking that much interest in her paintings, she also thought it a bit odd. Not to mention her grandmother would never let her meet up with someone she didn’t know. She sucked in her cheek, thinking.

How about we exchange numbers and go from there? It feels weird having this conversation on Twitter.

(it’s alright i gotcha)