prince of nothing charming (open)

[LENA CALLISTA SANCHEZ]

[Song title from "Prince of Nothing Charming" by Tyler Hilton. www.youtube.com/watch?v=wwuSjhLsrhM ]

Lena sat at an old wooden school table, several books and papers in front of her. Her hair hung in loose waves around her shoulders, and her sparkling blue eyes were focused on the girl across the table in front of her. The other girl frowned down at a piece of paper in front of her, "I still don't get it. Why did Jane leave Mr Rochester to begin with?"

"Well, she had found out that Mr Rochester was married," Lena replied.

"But she loved him?"

Lena nodded, "Yes, she did."

The girl frowned again, "And that's why she came back when she heard Mr Rochester calling her name on the wind?"

Again, Lena nodded.

"But why? Jane didn't know that Mr Rochester's wife had died," The girl put her elbows on the table and looked at Lena.

For a moment, Lena was quiet, "Why do you think she went back, Emma?"

Emma bit her lip, glancing outside at the winter landscape, "She had been gone for a while, hadn't she?" she began, and Lena nodded, "Maybe she was worried about him."

Lena nodded, "So you wouldn't say that she decided that she didn't care he was married?"

Emma shook her head vigorously, "No, of course she cared about that. That's why--" The girl's eyes light up with understanding, "--that's why she left! She wasn't his equal before. She wanted to be a person independent of him, and if she had gone to live with him as his mistress, she would lose all that. Jane would have lost all her self-identity. But when she heard that Bertha was dead...She could go to Mr Rochester as his equal."

A smile graced Lena's face, "And you said you were going to have difficulty writing an essay on Jane Eyre," she said with a small laugh.

Emma returned the smile, "Thanks, Lena. I think I'll give it another go."

"I'm glad I could help," Lena replied modestly as she and Emma packed up, "Call or text me if you need any help, alright?" Emma nodded as the two left the tutoring room at the community center. However, while Emma headed towards the exit of the building, Lena continued down the hallway, then turned left down an unlit hallway. Once she reached the end, she turned right into a room.

Lena turned the lights on, revealing several empty easels and tables. Art classes used to be held there, but ever since they had added onto the building several years ago, it went largely unused. In return for tutoring kids from the local middle middle school, she was allowed to use this room whenever she wanted.

It wasn't that she didn't have an art space of her own. Her parents had given her the giant bonus room over the garage to use as a studio, which she greatly appreciated. But the community center offered nearly complete privacy. Lena loved her parents and her siblings when they were home, but sometimes she wanted a quiet place to focus on her art. Her home was always full of people and noise.

After leaving her backpack and warm, winter jacket (as it was fairly warm in the room) near the door, she walked to the closet on the other side of the room and opened it. Shelves full of art supplies greeted her, but she ignored them and used a small key to open a locked drawer near the bottom. It was here that Lena kept her own stock of supplies. She pulled out her paints and brushes and made her way over to an empty canvas.

After setting up her space, Lena looked in the mirror across the room. Her dark, wavy hair was pulled back into a loose ponytail, though a few stray strands fell haphazardly into her face. She wore a dark grey, bohemian skirt and a white tank top. A large necklace of turquoise beads was the only piece of jewelry she wore. What stuck out to Lena, however, were what she considered faults. Her too large feet. Her small ears. The pale, uneven (and hardly noticeable to anyone other than Lena) splotch of freckles across her nose. Her beautiful, sparkling blue eyes that she felt belonged to someone else, someone with character and with life. Not to Lena.

She turned back to the canvas and began to paint. The focus of the piece was Lena's own eyes, painted in exquisite detail. In fact, the rest of Lena's face was hardly seen at all, as the eyes took up at least seventy-five percent of canvas. At the bottom, the outline of a phrase could be seen, "Whose eyes are you?".

Skirt: bellydanceforums.net/attachments/market-place/3469d1272035239-belly-dance-bra-tops-skirts-fringe-coin-belts-bohemian-skirt.jpg
Necklace: 1.bp.blogspot.com/_VjmNIFUiVd4/TA5h_WIfyyI/AAAAAAAAEwY/uOdYCaAn9KQ/s1600/turquoise+necklace+from+nordstrom.jpg

[JESS MORETTI]

Beads of sweat rolled from Jess' brow and into his eyes. He sucked in another pained breath as he slowly lowered the bar towards his chest. His back arched up, every muscle in his body tensed as he exhaled sharply, pushing the bar back up. His arms trembled and he closed his eyes against the barrage of salty drops that assaulted them. He let out a gasp and a grunting snarl as he set the weight back and dropped his arms.

"Fuck." Jess gasped, sitting up slowly. The, admittedly small, work out room was empty today, leaving him to lift weights uninterrupted and with his own music blasting. Bob Dylan's "Hurricane" was playing presently, on an old stereo in the corner, from one of Jess' many burned CD's that he brought along with him to the community center when he came to work out.

Silently, his lips moved in time with the lyrics good ol' Dylan belted out like a pro. Jess wasn't much of one to sing along to songs, often cringing at the sound of his own voice. No, her preferred not to taint the music with his own mediocrity. While he knew every word by heart, Jess was content to listen and appreciate the music without feeling the urge to add in his own backup vocals.

A hot sigh escaped Jess' lips as he stood, head bobbing as The Clash followed Dylan with "Should I Stay or Should I Go". He snatched up a ragged towel and mopped his face, then the bench, and finally draped it around the back of his neck. He eyed his reflection in the mirror. Still lean as ever, but there was muscle there. Jess flexed, eyes tracing the lines of his biceps and triceps. Satisfied that should he end up in a bar fight he could easily hold his own, he turned to retrieve his CD and turn off the stereo.

It was still fairly early, he observed, looking down at his old watch. Jess began going over a mental check list. He had gone grocery shopping yesterday, carrying heavy paper bags from the center of down all the way back to the apartments. Why he needed to go to the gym after that was beyond him. Today, Faith was at a friend's house. As Jess left for work in the morning, he had discussed with his mother that she would pick up Faith that evening. Jess sat her down and made her promise that she would not forget.

Catherine was slightly scatter brained. There were days she was perfectly fine, but then there were days that Jess' downtrodden mother would not leave the confines of her room. Typically the signs of a good day were the smells of a fresh breakfast in the morning, complete with bacon, eggs, and often times pancakes. Catherine haphazardly managed a small bakery in town, luckily she had a good couple of employees that knew what they were doing who were able to keep the place running when Catherine felt the need to shut herself away. That meant Jess was not the only person bringing in an income.

He shook his head. So long as Faith was going to get home okay, Jess had the day to himself. Slowly he ducked out of the room, light off and door closed behind him. He donned an old Cresting Grove High School pull over hoodie, in the school's colors, but left his legs vulnerable to the winter cold that penetrated the quiet building by simply wearing a pair of mesh gym shorts.

Jess meandered down the hall way, still bobbing his head to the Bob Dylan lyrics that played through his mind. He was happily in his own world, relaxed after some physical exertion. Physical exertion that he did for himself. Not for money, or some sort of chore around the apartment or around town. Simply something he did for his own betterment. It felt good. He skimmed his fingers over the wall and doors as he walked down the hall way...when a light caught his attention.

He backpedaled, pausing outside a door with a small sign that read 'Art Room'. As he peered through the small sliver of window in the door, Jess recognized the dark waves he could just make out through the glass. He tried to reposition himself to get a better view, to confirm that the painter inside was who he thought it was.

"She is everywhere." He breathed, not quite sure what sort of emotions he should be feeling coupled with this information. Jess frowned. His backpack suddenly seemed much heavier, as if the two sketch pads that were stored in there sensed their artist was nearby. He glanced up and down the hall and quietly turned the door handle and slipped inside. He set his bag down on a counter, moving on feet fit for a thief in the night as he watched Lena paint.

[LENA CALLISTA SANCHEZ]

Lena bit her lip, but this time it wasn't because she was nervous. On the contrary, she was felt confident for once. This was a side of the quiet girl that people rarely had ever seen. There were kids who claimed that nobody really knew them, but while Lena had never declared such a thing, it was very true for her. Even her parents, who she loved and who loved her very much, didn't quiet understand their quiet, soft-spoken daughter who at times terrified of her own shadow.

Lena had never blamed them; Miguel and Arianthe Sanchez were were sociable people. They felt energized in a crowd and loved talking other people's ears off, including each other. Her siblings, Nikkos and Ceres, were very much like their parents. Nikkos had was funny, smart, and had a charismatic air about him, and Ceres was flirty and funny, a natural charmer. And then came along reticent, secretive Lena who spoke very little but was very perceptive and saw things clearly that most wouldn't see at all.

After a moment of thought, Lena picked up a very small paintbrush and began to carefully mix black paint with just a little red and yellow to make a very dark, almost still black, brown. She remembered making a similar color like this once while her sister watched on. "Yellow?" she had said in disbelief, "Why are you using a sunny color like that to make brown?" What she didn't understand was that adding in the bits of yellow and red made the dark color not quite so harsh anymore.

Using the minute paintbrush, she began to carefully delineate each individual eyelash. It would have, perhaps, saved her a lot of time if she had used a much larger brush to depict them in mass, but Lena felt that that took something away from the overall painting. She meticulously painted every one of the eyelashes, dipping her brush in various shades of the dark brown to create shadows. Lena blended in the bottom eyelashes into the phrase, "Whose eyelashes are you?".

She was so caught up in her work that she didn't even hear Jess enter her room. There were a few splatterings of paint on Lena's shirt and one small strip of pale blue on the side of her nose, but she hardly ever noticed that until she went home. Arianthe would sigh when she saw the paint, but by this time, she was an expert at getting out random colors from Lena's clothing.

Lena stood back and admired her work, analyzing her use of color and shadow. She decided it was an alright piece, though she could see now in retrospect that she could have added a bit more white to the blue in the eyes to make them seem like they were reflecting light better. It was a small "mistake" that no one other than the artist would notice, but even still, it didn't bother her all that much. After a moment, she nodded and crossed her arms lightly in front of her chest. "Who do you belong to?" she asked the painting, frowning, "Not to me," Lena added in a much softer voice.

Deciding she would let it dry and come back tomorrow, she turned around. A smaller copy of the painting--her own eyes--grew wide as she saw Jess. For a moment, she was unable to speak and merely stared at him, "What are you doing here?" she finally inquired, her tone not accusatory but rather shocked.

[JESS MORETTI]

It was if the entire world had stilled, with Lena and Jess as the exception. In the quiet art room and with the dreary winter weather outside, with nary a person to interrupt the silence, as far as Jess was concerned, he and the painter were the only ones left breathing. Jess’ movements were slow, as if he was approaching a frightened animal—remembering the way Lena had looked at him at the mechanic’s shop, it was likely that he was doing something very similar. However, it seemed that as she painted she was an entirely different person; her back a little straighter, her head held a little higher.

Jess watched as raptly as any spectator at a sporting event, and just as similarly he took note of each movement Lena made and the effect said movement had on the art. Her strokes were made confidently, with an air of extensive knowledge and mastery. She was no novice painter. Jess looked at those blue eyes she created on the canvas, staring back at her with the same innocence he saw in them days before. Strikingly beautiful eyes, they were. Who wouldn’t want to paint them? To capture the look they held?

Gradually, Jess found himself moving closer to the painter and her work. He wanted to see it in further detail…That is how he rationalized it anyways, when he suddenly found himself just three steps away, practically breathing down the poor girl’s neck. She was being painfully careful with the eyelashes. They must be a difficult thing to draw or paint, Jess mused.

His head canted to one side as the many bristles on her brush created the phrase “Whose eyelashes are you?”, just as she questioned the possession the blue eyes. A line creased his brow. It was fairly clear that Lena was painting her own eyes, using her reflection as a reference—it was some kind of miracle that she was so deep into her work that she did not notice the reflected hazel eyes watching her. What sort of question was that: Whose eyes are you? This Lena girl just got weirder and weirder every time Jess ran into her.

He was still busy contemplating the painted questions, as well as her whispered ones, when Lena turned around to face him. Well, there were those big scared animal eyes. He found himself wondering if she walked around looking like that all day, or if it was just with him. Jess’ eyes darted over her shoulder at the painting again.

“If I could hazard a guess, I’d say they belong to you.” He informed her, gesturing towards the painting so she would know he was not just saying random things like a mentally ill person. His lips curled into an amused smirk, intentionally leaving her question unanswered, mostly so he did not have to tell her that he was standing in here, watching her in silence like some sort of stalker. Oh and that he had two of her sketch books stashed away in his bag.

[LENA CALLISTA SANCHEZ]

The blankly shocked look on Lena's face gave away to one of mild confusion. Her delicately sculpted eyebrows furrowed as she stared at Jess in bewilderment. Why was he here? The entire hallway this room was on was pretty much unused. It didn't make sense to her at all. Realizing she was nearly brandishing the small paintbrush like a sword--how ridiculous did that have to look to him, she wondered silently--she lowered her arm and set it down in a cup of water nearby. For a moment, she watched as the dark brown paint mixed in with the clear water, the color swirling down to the depths of the cup. Then her gaze snapped back to Jess.

When he spoke, she frowned, turning to see what he was gesturing at. Her painting. She looked back to him, less confused. Normally, in situations like this, Lena would turn into a human resemblance of a deer caught in the headlights. Right now, however, so close to her art and still filled with the confidence and feeling of purpose that painting gave her, she was not. "You're avoiding the question," she murmured, quietly but clearly. Lena tilted her head to side and tried to figure him out but found that she was unable to.

Lena glanced at the door, and she noticed that his bag was fairly fair away from him. How long had he been here? Had he been planning on announcing his presence at all? What did he want from her? Why had he replied to her then? A twinge of anger sparkled in her blue eyes as she turned her attention back to him and took a step forward. "Yahtee? Why are you here? What do you want?"[/g] This time, her tone was more defensive than anything else. Defensive of her art, defensive of herself.

[JESS MORETTI]

Jess noted the subtle changes in Lena's countenance, still watching her carefully. Her shock slowly transformed into confusion. Why she was so confused he was not sure. This was the community center after all. Jess, as it happened, was part of the community and therefore allowed to utilize the facilities at the community center. Had Lena thought the place completely empty?

Her confusion receded slightly as she looked back to him after observing her painting. Confidence that seemed so very foreign on her person made its appearance this time. She was in her element here, Jess concluded. Just as he felt better in the gym, or even often at the shop. Here she was not quite the timid little bunny rabbit she had been when in Jess' home-court. Surrounded by things she knew, Lena seemed to have the higher ground.

Jess was preparing to stop avoiding her question when suddenly Lena shifted from confidence to a smidgen of anger. Suddenly she closed the gap between them and he caught that spark in her eyes. "All right, Jane. Simmer down." Jess stepped swiftly back away from her. "I saw you in here. And I didn't want to interrupt your painting." He explained quickly, thinking that sounded the least creepy.

[LENA CALLISTA SANCHEZ]

The anger Lena felt did not last long at all. In fact, when Jess spoke, she seemed to recall herself and realize the situation. Her shoulders dropped, and the spark of indignation in her eyes faded away. She took a step back towards her painting, as if that was somehow a magical shield that protected her from him. Lena wasn't sure exactly why she would need protecting from him, though. A frown graced her face, though her face had lost the harshness and defensiveness of before.

"But....why did you come inside?" she murmured finally after a moment, the focus of her confusion coming to her lips. It wasn't that he was in the community center or even really that he had walked down a mostly ignored hallway in it; she was confused as to why he had chosen to step into this room where she was. Instinctively, Lena crossed her arms over her chest, perhaps because she was self-conscious about the paint spots on her shirt; there was little she could do for the paint smear on her nose.

The other part of what he had said suddenly reverberated in her mind. She tilted her head and looked at him, "And...um, why did you call me Jane?" Lena inquired, the name bringing to mind her favorite book, Jane Eyre. She had done several drawings and a few paintings that were based on different scenes that she had read from the book that particularly caught her interest.

[JESS MORETTI]

The muscles in his shoulders eased once Lena had reined in her anger. Jess had been prepared for a sharp flat-handed strike across his cheek. However, no such event occurred. The divide between them broadened as Lena retreated to her painting. Jess watched as Lena threw up her defenses; her shoulders hunched, her eyes averted. He imagined that if she possessed the powers to fold in upon herself, or sink into the floor, she would utilize them.

Why, she asked? Why did there have to be a why? Why could he not just wander in and watch her paint? It was an interesting thing. Why, Jess wanted to ask, did she need a detailed explanation for his presence? "Maybe,"he began instead, a gleam of amusement in his eyes, "I wanted to paint. Or make pottery. Did you ever have to make those coil pots in elementary school art? Bring them to mom or dad for some holiday?" He recalled those art lessons in school with a shake of his head. "Mine were always shit."

Jess prowled forwards, his hands behind his back. He smiled a benign smile at Lena as he diverted his course to walk around her canvas and before the mirror. He observed each of their reflections with the mild interest of a museum goer. Also, he thought, Lena may actually feel better if not directly facing him. If she spoke to his reflection and not right to him, maybe that confidence from early would work its way back up. She was far more interesting like that.

At Lena's question, Jess' lips curled slowly into a smirk. He tilted his head back and rolled his neck as he pondered his response. Best to just be blunt about it this time. "Your Jane Eyre key chain. Most people don't put things on their key chains that they don't really like. So you must really like Jane Eyre. I guess I could have called you Charlotte. Or Miss Bronte." He grinned then and glanced over his shoulder at her, speaking confidently, "But I bet you whatever amount of money I have in my wallet that you identify with Jane Eyre."

[LENA CALLISTA SANCHEZ]

Lena's frown deepened slightly as he began to speak; was he mocking her, or was he being genuinely honest? At his comment about elementary school pottery making, her frown softened. She didn't remember Jess in elementary school--had he come to Cresting Grove after that time period--but she did remember her art classes and her art teacher very vividly. Mrs Hudsonpillar had doted on her, calling Lena her star pupil. While in her other classes, Lena was quiet and shy, in her art classes, she thrived. Most of her classmates didn't exactly look forward to the art classes because Mrs Hudsonpillar was quite an unusual and eccentric woman. Her very curly light brown hair was streaked with grey and was always piled haphazardly on top of her head. Behind her back, people called her Mrs Caterpillar or Professor Trelawney, after the weird divination teacher from Harry Potter.

Her elementary and middle school art classes, which had all been taught by Mrs Hudsonpillar, had been her favorite classes by far. Lena had been crushed by the woman's death right before she started high school. The woman who replaced Mrs Hudsonpillar had been nice enough, but she hadn't inspired Lena that way Mrs Hudsonpillar had. A smile came to her lips as she remembered the beautiful ceramic jar Lena had made with her help. "Yea, I remember making them," she replied finally in a quiet voice.

Her nerves grew as he walked towards her, but when he passed her and walked behind her, out of her eyesight, she relaxed again. Lena still wasn't convinced by his reasons for coming in the room--it was still weird that he hadn't said anything for who knows hold long--but she was no longer as threatened by his presence. It was, in an odd way, thrilling for him to be there. Lena rarely spoke with people she didn't know well, and that circle was very small. She had known of Jess for many, many years--it was inevitably, them being in the same class since they were very little--but she hadn't ever really gotten to know him at all.

When he explained his reasoning for calling her 'Jane', her eyes widened in surprise. Lena had several different key chains on her key ring, and it astounded her that he remembered it. "I...I do like Jane Eyre. I've read it several times," she replied, her voice slightly stronger than before. In fact, her worn and weathered copy of Jane Eyre was currently in her bag by the door. It was her favorite book of all time.

"But I bet you whatever amount of money I have in my wallet that you identify with Jane Eyre."

"Why do you say that?" Lena inquired, the words slipping out of her curious mouth before she had a chance to think, her heart pounding. Whatever she had thought or known about Jess before had never contained the idea of him reading a book like Jane Eyre.

[JESS MORETTI]

Jess, too, was recalling elementary school art. For someone so very skilled with their hands, Jess was not artistically inclined when it came to pot making, or drawing anything very special. As a young boy he would bring these little projects home, not entirely thrilled with their outcome, and present them to his mother. Catherine, ever the good sport and often overly enthusiastic about things on her better days, would praise his skill and place the coiled pot somewhere in the room. One or two of them still survived Catherine's (And Jess') odd fits of rage, and contained pens or tooth brushes.

His fingertips lightly brushed over the surface of the mirror, careful not to smudge the reflective glass. Hazel met hazel as Jess peered into the mirror, with bright blues watching just within his peripheral vision. He turned from the mirror and continued to walk the room at a slow pace, hands held behind his back. "Come here often?" He observed sketches and paintings that were on display, as well as pots crafted far beyond his capabilities. He ran a finger along a counter top, drawing a wavering line through lingering clay residue.

His eyes closed as he thought on her question, carefully considering his wording and also pulling from the last time he had read Jane. "You do not believe your eyes belong to you." He said. Jess turned his head to look at her, eyes traveling up and down her person. "Jane, I believe, describes herself as 'obscure and plain'." He lofted a brow. "You don't think much of yourself, do you?"

[LENA CALLISTA SANCHEZ]

Lena was remembering the first time Jane had met Mr Rochester. Jane had been walking back to Thornfield Hall in the evening when a man on a horse had passed by her and been thrown from his horse. The man had asked her where she lived, and when she pointed to Thornfield Hall, the man had asked about its owner. Once the man had gotten back on his horse and ridden off, Jane had gone on her way, only to reach Thornfield Hall and discover that the man had been Mr Rochester himself. She remembered how Jane had described the way Thornfield Hall had lit up with life and voices once Mr Rochester had come home. The image brought to mind a pastel sketching she had done of Thornfield not long ago; it rested against the wall in the back.

She watched as Jess lightly ran his fingers over the glass, though only through the reflective glass of the mirror. Lena wasn't entirely sure why she became more nervous as he began to walk around the room, studying the random pieces of art she had done recently. There was no pattern to the things she created; there were metal dolphins, paintings of the town, sketches of places that only existed in Lena's mind, her family, her ex-boyfriend, her animals. And then there were some pieces that you couldn't really tell what they were. "The community center lets me, um....use this room," she explained nervously, biting her lip, "In exchange for...for tutoring. Kids."

"You do not believe your eyes belong to you."

At his words, she felt a chill creep up her spine. It was, in essence, what she had written on her latest painting. Unable to reply to that comment, Lena watched him cautiously, her eyes still wide, as he stopped walking around the room and turned his gaze on her. She felt compelled to continue to keep her own eyes on him, though her cheeks must have surely flushed scarlet as he studied her. Self-consciously, she reached up to try to wipe the paint off her nose, but by this time it had already dried.

As he continued to speak, Lena could have sworn her heart was about to burst right out of her chest. Her mouth felt dry, and anything she might have said before completely vanished from her mind. Jane had indeed thought of herself as plain and unhandsome, but Jane had had passion and life as well. "My eyes...they belong to me...," she murmured, nearly inaudible, "But I don't think they should."

[JESS MORETTI]

Hesitant sunlight peeked through the cloud outside, and a small shaft of it shined through the windows, creating a tunnel of illuminated floating dust. Jess watched this thoughtfully for a moment. In exchange for tutoring kids, a whole room was made available for Lena's artistic uses. He wondered silently how often she came here during the center's more off hours and utilized this empty room, delving deep into her element. His eyes turned onto a sketch of a boy, and a line creased his brow.

He was able to remember the face, though he could not put a name to it. Jess' eyes moved over the sketch, taking in the passion and detail she had put into it. In the back of his mind, he remembered the sketchbook in his bag containing a work done by the very same hand, though this one was of him. He didn't need to ask aloud who the boy in the picture was. Vaguely, Jess could place him hand-in-hand with Lena, sauntering down the halls of Cresting Grove High. God how he was glad to be away from that place.

Jess smirked triumphantly at Lena's confession. He turned, placing his hands on a counter, fingers splayed. He watched her for a while longer, thinking. His eyebrows ticked up a notch and he sighed. "You also don't think you deserve to be compared to the likes of Jane Eyre."

[LENA CALLISTA SANCHEZ]

Lena watched as Jess' eyes trained on a sketch of Lena's old boyfriend, Logan. She remembered what they pencil drawing could not show--his dark red hair and brilliant grey eyes that, when trained on her, gave her goosebumps. With him, Lena smiled more. Lena had adored and admired him, though in retrospect, she new Logan had only been using her. 'Just a dare to him. That's all,' she thought to herself sadly. Forcing herself to look away from the sketch, Lena wondered to herself why she still kept it. She couldn't think of a good enough answer to her own question.

His silence unnerved her, and she dared a look at his face. His lips were curled upwards in a smirk, but there seemed to me a thoughtful look in his hazel eyes as he studied her. It made her uncomfortable, the silence and staring, but her feet felt glued to the ground, unable to move. Was it that, perhaps, she wanted to know what he would say? When he did speak, Lena swallowed, her blue eyes darting back to her most recent painting as she considered a response.

It came, several long seconds later--seconds that felt like years to Lena--as she looked back at him, though more at his shoulder. She didn't think she could answer if she looked at his eyes, "Jane Eyre is a f-fictional c-character," Lena managed to get out, "I don't...I don't think anyone could...could be compared to her."

[JESS MORETTI]

"Some say a lot of Jane is based on Charlotte. A real person." Jess tilted his head, a challenge in his tone. Rebut that, it read between the lines. He straightened his posture and continues his turn about the room. "At the very least," he said, turning back towards the counter top his bag rested on, "Jane was created for Charlotte to come to terms with things in her own life." Jess leaned back against the counter, arms folded over his chest.

From this position, Jess once more scanned the art in the room. "Your stuff is good," he complimented off-hand manner. It was not some kind of high, admirable praise. Just a casual comment. "You're not Botticelli or anything. But then again, who is?" He shrugged and turned to rummage through his bag, obscuring what he was doing for the most part with his body.

Upon turning back around, Jess held two familiar notebooks in his hand. He waved them slightly at Lena and set them down on the counter. "Your sketches in particular are good. Do you often draw unsuspecting subjects, or was I just a special case?"

[LENA CALLISTA SANCHEZ]

"Some say a lot of Jane is based on Charlotte. A real person."

Something about the challenging tone in his voice made Lena hesitantly raise her gaze from the floor to look at his face. She knew that what he said was true. Lowood School in Jane Eyre was most certainly based off the school she and two other sisters attended when they were younger. Like Lowood, the school had had very poor conditions, contributing to the deaths of those two sisters by tuberculous, the same disease that led to the death of Helen Burns, Jane's first real friend. Like Jane, Charlotte had also been a teacher and a governess to many children.

"At the very least, Jane was created for Charlotte to come to terms with things in her own life."

Her eyebrows furrowed at this statement, a small bit of her nervousness giving way to intellectual curious. Lena knew that Jane Eyre's title had once been Jane Eyre: An Autobiography, which of course backed up his previous statement, but she had never before thought that perhaps Charlotte had written the novel to deal with her own life, her own personal grief by the deaths of her sisters, her own irritation at the inequality of women, perhaps even her own way to express her love for a man that she might never could have been with. Was Jess insinuating that Lena used her creation of art as way for her to come to terms with her own life? She shook her head slightly at the thought; Lena was at peace with her life was. Wasn't she?

At his compliment, Lena seemed to straighten and become a little taller. It didn't matter that he had only spoken four simple words, and those four words were not at all grand. It was that he had said them at all. Lena very rarely showed her art to people, but when she did, it was mostly to people she knew well. Her parents. Her brother. Her small circle a friends. Occasionally, her older sister Ceres, though that tended to be a rare occurrence because Ceres delighted in teasing Lena. When he mentioned Botticelli, a flickering smile came to her lips, akin to a flame afraid of lighting too quickly in the wind. Of course she was no Botticelli. There could only ever be one.

She watched him, more curious than nervous now, as he rummaged in his bag, presumably looking for something in particular. Lena did not expect to see a singular of her sketch books in his hands when he turned around, let alone too. Her mouth opened in a small 'O' as she stared at the sketch books emblazoned with her name in silver script on the top right hand corner in disbelief. Several moments passed where she supposed she looked rather comical, with her open mouth and eyes wide incredulously, "They're not....not often unsuspecting....," Lena replied at last, her mouth now closed though her eyes were still wide, "So I...I guess...you were sort of a special case."

Another pause went by when she looked back to him, the question that should have been at the forefront of her lips only now making an appearance, "Where...where did you get these?"