Serenity watched Wrath paint. He stared at each brush, considering their size and use. He could use a large one or a small one. He could pick something with hard or soft bristles. He had an incredible number of options, and he seemed to carefully consider his choice before making it.

When he finally chose his brush, he dipped it in pain and began to make long, sweeping motions over the paper. Every so often, his eyes met hers, but then he quickly moved them back to the paper, back to the project. He quickly began to work harder and harder on his painting. He became completely absorbed in what he was doing, and it fascinated her.

“Teacher,” a little girl called. Serenity moved quickly across the room to help the child with her painting.

“How’s your bowl of fruit coming along?” Serenity asked gently, but the girl wrinkled her nose and her entire face into a big, terrible frown.

“I hate fruit,” the girl said, whispering to Serenity. “So I have a quick question, teacher. Can I just make it a bowl of candy?”

Serenity laughed. “It’s your art, Jennice. You can make whatever you like. I promise it’ll be okay.”

She stood, straightening up, and went back to the front of the classroom.

“Remember,” Serenity addressed all of her students. “No two pieces are alike, just as no two students are alike. What works for your painting might not work for your neighbor, and vice versa.”

Clemecia coughed, but raised her hand.

“Can I do two paintings today?”

“Already finished?”

“Yes.”

Serenity brought her another sheet of paper and took Clemecia’s wet painting away. She moved to the front of the classroom where she placed it neatly in the center of her desk. She turned back to the class.

“Any questions?” She wasn’t surprised to see Wrath raise his hand. He was trying to figure her out. She could tell. There was something different – almost otherworldly – about him. He was just a little bit too normal. Everything about Wrath was designed to make him not be noticed. From his haircut to his face, each inch of him was completely normal. There was nothing about Wrath that made him stand out from other people. There was nothing that made him distinct.

He was just…him.

“Yes, Mr. Smith?”

“What is the most important part of painting?”

“What do you mean? What should you do first?”

“No,” he shook his head, leaned back in his chair a little. “What’s the most important part of creating something? You’ve been teaching for awhile now, haven’t you?”

“I have.”

“So you’ve had a lot of students walk through those doors. If you had to name one key element as the most important part of art, what would it be?”

“Hope,” she said simply.

“Hope?”

“Hope,” Serenity repeated. “When you create something, you’re expressing yourself, but you’re also eliciting emotions. You’re creating a world that exists entirely on a page, and if you’re doing it right, you’re creating hope.”

“Hope is for the weak,” Wrath said quietly, and Serenity was disappointed, but not surprised. Typical man. She only shrugged, and then returned to her desk. The rest of the class was quiet. Perhaps they were waiting to see how she reacted or maybe they just wanted to see the teacher fail. She wasn’t sure. All she knew was that right now, she had a lot of papers to look over and a lot of projects to handle in every aspect of her life.

During the day, she was a paid art teacher, and at night, she taught for fun. It was during these evenings when Serenity got to see what enjoyment looked like. Her daytime students were forced to take their classes, either by their parents or the school administration itself. Those students did the bare minimum because they didn’t like art. They didn’t have time for it. They didn’t appreciate it.

The Bradshaw Community Center students, though, they were the ones who really made a difference, in Serenity’s opinion. They were each unique, each different, and they each had a different purpose and goal.

By the time the class finished, it was well past 8:00. They were supposed to leave at 8:00 exactly, but if they ran over, Bob never fussed at them. It was one of the nice things about teaching at a small center. The community center was so happy to have people teaching classes that they rarely gave her a hard time about her teaching methods or her class times.

Clemecia trotted out of the class with a big smile. She held her painting of apples and oranges up high as she moved into the hallway. Gregory, Tanya, Jennice, and Michael followed her. They each had huge grins on their faces when they left. Serenity said goodbye to each of her students, and then Wrath approached the desk.

“Your painting was very interesting, Mr. Smith,” she said. He made her nervous when he was this close to her. He moved into her personal space bubble as if he owned it, like the idea of her becoming nervous didn’t matter to him.

“Thank you. I made it myself.”

“You didn’t paint fruit, like I asked,” she pointed out. Each of her other students had at least attempted to create paintings of fruit. A few of the fruit baskets were questionable, and most of them were a little sloppy, but overall, the emphasis on fresh fruit was obvious.

“I didn’t want to create fruit,” he said, lowering his voice.

“Mr. Smith,” Serenity chastised him. “The point of coming to class is to learn and to push yourself as an artist. Can you really do that if you never try anything new?”

“Look at what I painted, Serenity,” he said, ignoring her tone of voice. “Really look at it.”

Serenity sighed, but accepted the paper from him. She was careful to grip the edges, but watched her finger placement. The last thing she needed was to get a paper cut and bleed on her students’ hard work.

She looked at the painting Wrath had poured over. At first glance, it really was just a rainbow, but then Serenity looked closer, and she saw what he had been talking about. Each color in the rainbow was a color she had placed in the fruit basket: purple for grapes, red for apples, green for kiwi. His rainbow wasn’t a “real” rainbow so much as it was an expression of color she had, indeed, asked for.

“It’s beautiful,” she admitted. The strokes were each different. The red portion of the rainbow was wide and consisted of many small, short strokes. The purple area had long, lazy strokes bringing it to life. “You’ve studied art before.”

“Never,” he said, but in a way that sounded untrue.

“I find that a bit unbelievable,” she told him, not unkindly. She handed him the painting back.

“I speak only the truth,” Wrath told her, and Serenity looked at him. He was watching her closely, making sure to focus on her eyes. Why was he staring at her eyes? He was making a point not to look anywhere else but directly at her face.

“I’ll see you next week,” she said gently, and he nodded. For a second, Serenity thought Wrath was going to ask her on a date. Wouldn’t that be awkward? How would she explain that one away?

She couldn’t exactly say, “I’m sorry, but my last boyfriend died of a brain tumor and I’ve never gotten over it.” She couldn’t tell him, “Sorry, but I can’t go anywhere near a church because magic hunters will find me and kill me.” She couldn’t tell him, “I don’t date because I can’t bear to lose a lover again.”

She couldn’t tell him any of that.

She just watched him smile, nod, and walk out of the room.

Then Serenity was alone once more.