Gia Love, who painted hope. Oxuanna, who learned to see it.
The next morning, Gia found a small note tucked beneath the mural’s frame. It read: I wanted to ruin this. I’m sorry. —O. gia love and oxuanna envy
Gia read it twice, then folded it carefully into her pocket. She didn’t tell anyone what had almost happened. Instead, she found Oxuanna at lunch, sat down across from her, and said nothing for a long while. Then she offered her half of an orange. Gia Love, who painted hope
The breaking point came at the spring festival. Gia had spent weeks painting a mural for the town’s anniversary—a sprawling field of wildflowers under an open sky. People gathered to watch her add the final strokes. Oxuanna stood at the back of the crowd, arms crossed, chest tight with something she couldn’t name. It read: I wanted to ruin this
Oxuanna lowered the can. She sat on the cold ground and cried—not for what Gia had, but for what she herself had become. Someone who would rather destroy beauty than learn to create it.
It started small. A whispered comment here, a cold shoulder there. When Gia won the art scholarship, Oxuanna said it was because the judges pitied her “sad, soft drawings.” When Gia comforted a crying freshman, Oxuanna rolled her eyes and called it performance. But no one else saw a performance. They saw Gia, real and good, and that only made Oxuanna’s bitterness grow.
Oxuanna, by contrast, lived in the shadow of that glow. She and Gia had been friends once, in the careless way of childhood, before envy took root. Oxuanna was sharp-tongued and quick to feel slighted. Where Gia saw abundance, Oxuanna saw scarcity—as if every smile Gia received was one stolen from her.