Put Me Back Together(47)

The other students’ paintings paraded before my eyes, but I barely saw them. Later, I could only recall one out of the bunch, the work of a girl named Paula who always wore her curly hair in two braids. The painting featured two children at the beach, one a little black boy with a coy expression on his face, and the other a little white girl in a blue bathing suit and pigtails. The little boy’s face took up a third of the canvas, almost as though he’d run up and presented himself to be painted up close, while the little girl was farther away and had turned her back. The class agreed that it was somewhat over-painted and there wasn’t enough flow, but I found it enchanting, as I often did pictures of childhood. It was the one part of my life I could look back on without having to worry about feeling ashamed. Before I turned thirteen I had nothing to be ashamed of.


When my turn came around I nearly got up and fled the room. I only stayed in my seat because I knew a scene like that would just make them whisper about me more. I’d never felt less inclined to be evaluated as I reluctantly raised my head and prepared to face the onslaught.

“Who would like to begin?” Professor Wilkins said. She raised her eyebrows, her gaze flitting over my face. She was greeted by an avalanche of silence. Normally there were a few students who spoke first, eager to get in their comments before somebody else had the same idea and they had to come up with something new. Not for my painting, apparently. As the seconds passed, all I heard were crickets.

I was really beginning to feel like I might drown in my own misery when a pompous guy I’d never liked spoke up.

“It’s too dark,” he said. “The brightness of the sky distracts the eye and I can’t even make out the figures in front of the trees. I feel like it’s muddled.”

Gee, thanks for breaking my heart, Pompous Guy.

Unfortunately, he seemed to have triggered a reaction in the rest of the class.

“I agree,” said a girl named Haylie. “Is that a woman in the bottom right corner? Or a man? It’s hard to tell.”

“The brush strokes are distinct,” somebody threw in.

“Yes, but what does that matter if you can barely see them?”

“I think it just comes down to poor subject choice. A photograph with less disparity in colour and brightness would have made a much stronger painting. Of course, it would be easier to judge if we actually had the photograph to compare it to.”

I wasn’t about to mention that I hadn’t painted from a photograph.

Professor Wilkins blinked silently for a few moments as the riot of flagellation came to an end. “Does anyone else have a comment to make about Katie’s painting?” she asked politely. Professor Wilkins was always so polite and proper, possibly the most well-groomed artist ever to exist in the world. She didn’t seem to know how to address the communal condemnation of my painting, except to send out the request one more time for the right answer. I wished she wouldn’t bother. I didn’t want some pity comment about the way I’d mixed my colours so well. I just wanted it to be over.

But it wasn’t.

“I like it,” I heard a voice say.

He was sitting off to my left, blocked from my view by several bodies and easels, yet I still leaned back when he spoke, as if that would better hide me from him. I’d thought he’d skipped class because the spot next to me was empty, but apparently he’d been there all the time.

Lucas.

Just the sound of his voice made my hands tremble. I hadn’t seen him since our kiss, though he’d texted me multiple times and I was pretty sure he’d come by my apartment on Sunday night and waited for a while at the door of the building when I hadn’t buzzed him in. Mariella had called to tell me a good-looking guy had asked if he could come in, that he was a friend of mine, but she’d told him that he should wait for me to let him in. I’d thanked her for that. (She wisely had not asked anything more, but I knew that wouldn’t last long.) I wished I was stronger than this, but the truth was I couldn’t bear to face him.

And now we were stuck in a very small classroom together.

“The way she painted the sky is incredible,” Lucas went on. “Both the texture and the range of colour she used. The figures are indistinct, yes, but I think that makes them more compelling. The stroke of red paint here, over the head of this figure, draws the eye, and the darkness of the trees closing in gives the impression of being trapped. Overall, I find it haunting. And beautiful.”

Professor Wilkins thanked him for his contribution then gave the painting her own evaluation, which I hardly listened to. Lucas’s words had stirred up a storm of conflicting emotions in me that I could hardly make sense of, and anyway I didn’t have the time. Class was ending and I had to get the hell out of there. I didn’t have anywhere to be. But I sure as hell didn’t want to find myself alone in the room with Lucas.

Grabbing my backpack, I gunned it for the classroom door without looking around to see where he was. I figured if I rushed, I’d certainly get ahead of him. Lucas never rushed anywhere. But I was wrong. I was the second student to burst out of the classroom doors and there he was, leaning against the lockers across the hall, waiting for me.

I didn’t want to catch his eye. I wanted to brush past him as if I hadn’t even seen him. I wanted to run like hell. But those honey-coloured eyes held me in place and I knew that running from him would be no use. He would only follow me.