She was a writer and he was an artist and for some reason she thought they wouldn't quite fit.

Her hair was flaming and flyaway and his was sleek and perfect, a golden halo. She was short, all curves and freckles, and he was tall and angular, with steely eyes and palest skin.

She had a writer's mind, too decisive and quick, and he had the mind of a painter, colourful and abstract and following his heart lazily.

He thought mistakes were nature's little surprises and he framed his worst works because he thought they showed him in all his natural glory. The last time she made a mistake she was eleven years old and she told him she liked him (and never again, never again).

He painted with reds, so many reds, and once gave her an entirely red canvas and told her it was a portrait. (She hid her deepest blush, so red,behind the painting.) She hung it over her desk and wrote him a poem. He laughed and said, "Nothing rhymes with my name," and she whispered, "I didn't use names," so that in the future she could deny falling in love with him.

He kissed her one day, and recited her own poem into the soft, pale shell of her ear and so she kissed him back for it.

She promised him once that when she was older she'd let him paint her naked. She tried once, lying on their bed, pen twiddling in her fingers to keep her distracted. But he'd messed up the colours (your hair is not quite that orange, and look, your eyes are too bright to be painted) and left orangey-red handprints on her skin instead.

And he laughs when she tells him they weren't supposed to work, because really, don't they make a full picture and tell a whole story?

And doesn't make sense when you read the words that she loves and see the colours he adores and they run together like flowing silk?