I filled the page with an array of greens and blues. My heart rushed through my fingertips to create an abstract swirl of colors on the page. I finally felt like I had a spot to fit in at school. My new friends included me. We would laugh everyday about homework and teachers and boys. Life was how it should be.

Red paint dripped from the side of the canvas, staring back at me like blood. My heart beat with my messy cluster of symbols and letters, combining to a pattern of nothing. The harsh words stabbing a knife through my soul. I had to tell my friends why I wasn’t at school recently. They were the ones that noticed my symptoms in the first place. I had to tell my friends about my brain tumor.

Black. The girl in the painting was surrounded by a black darker than night. The color was caressing her like a snake, tighter and tighter with every breath. Over something I was already self-conscious about, my friends continued to laugh at my asymmetrical face. I would fake laugh with them, trying to make my “good” side not work like my “bad” side. My craniotomy is in a week. “Hopefully your face will be back to normal after surgery!” My friends informed me. I nodded in response, not wanting to show them the pain that covered my abnormal face.

I stared at a blank page. I had nothing to paint; not after surgery, not after going back to school, and especially not after realizing my tumor will never be removed. Tears rolled off my cheek and soaked the white. They didn’t save me a spot at lunch. How did they know that my face wasn’t beautiful again? How could they tell that I was going to come back different? How could they forget about me in one month? I tried to push my way into their group; slowly realizing that I was never strong enough to get through their tight barriers. Slowly realizing that they couldn’t live with me and my tumor.

I traced the dark grey around the mess of branches. Focusing my attention towards the strokes of paint clustering my thoughts. I continued meeting with world-renowned, unfamiliar faces; each one telling me that symmetry was beauty. Then informing me that my smile would likely never be symmetrical again. They told me that you can’t tell that half of my face is different unless I smiled. So, I stopped smiling. I didn’t have any friends to smile to anyways.

The deep purple beat through my paint brush onto the canvas. I covered each corner with an array of lights and shadows, trying to discover their perfect harmony. I found the rhythm of my strokes peaceful, helping me escape from my past of harsh people. I stared at the page, and smiled; crookedly. But that didn’t matter. My new friends liked my crooked smile. They thought of it as unique. They thought of me as unique. I was starting to think of myself as unique, too.

I painted the yellow brighter now. The vibrant sunshine filled the painting; my hands took over my soul’s new perspective. I sensed the world shift. Being with the right people made me forget about the tiny mass on my brain. I showed my friends my paintings; watching them admire my story like I admired theirs. Realizing, now, that we all have our black and blank stages. All consuming their own lives like my tumor consumed mine.