The Anatomical Shape of a Heart(3)

But someone else was.

As the bus doors squealed shut, hot boy plopped down across the aisle in the seat facing mine and tucked his backpack on the floor between his feet. He blew out a dramatic breath and slouched in his seat before jerking up a little, pretending to be surprised to see me. “You again.”

“Your target seems to be in my neighborhood. I hope you’re not planning to rob my house. We have no jewels, Mr. Burglar.”

“‘Jack the Burglar’ has a nice ring to it. Maybe I should give some serious consideration to this career path.”

Jack. Was that his actual name? Under the fluorescent glare of the bus lights, deep shadows etched the valleys of his cheeks and the crevice beneath his lower lip. He had a devil-may-care thing going on in the way he teasingly held back his smile.

“You knew the homeless guy, Will,” I said, going into Sherlock Holmes mode as the bus rumbled away from the curb. “That means either you live around Parnassus or you’ve got a connection to either the hospital or the campus.”

“I will eliminate one of those things for you,” he said. “I don’t live here.”

“Hmm. Well, you’re not going to med school.”

“Let’s not be judgmental. Some jewel thieves could have surgical skills.”

“But you made that ‘older girls’ remark, which means you’re in high school, like me—”

“Like you? A-ha!” he said merrily. “I’ll be a senior this fall, by the way.”

“Me too,” I admitted. “So if you’re not taking classes at Parnassus, I’m guessing you know someone who either goes to school here or works in the hospital. Or possibly you’ve been visiting someone in the hospital.”

“Nicely logical, Sad Girl,” he said. “Hold on. I wasn’t the only person who knew Will. He said your ‘old lady’ gave him dinner, so he knows your mom. And since you’re now worried I’m going to burgle your house—”

“‘Burgle’? I don’t think that’s a real word.”

“Sure it is. Burglar here, remember?” he said, raising a gloved hand. “Anyway, you and your mom might know Will, but you don’t live near the hospital, either. Inner or Outer Sunset?”

“Yes,” I said, avoiding a real answer.

Undaunted, he tried another approach. “You never said why you were meeting with the anatomy director who didn’t show. Are you trying to get an internship or…?”

“No, I was just trying to get permission to draw their cadavers.”

One eye squinted shut. “As in corpses?”

“Bodies donated for science. I want to be a medical illustrator.”

“Like, drawings in textbooks?”

I nodded. “And for pharmaceutical companies, medical research, labs … It’s super competitive. Only five accredited masters programs, and to get in those, you need any advantage you can get. A couple of local museums are cosponsoring a student drawing competition in late July, and I want to win it. There’s scholarship money up for grabs, and a win would look good on my college applications.”

“And drawing dead bodies will help you win?”

“Drawing dissected bodies will.”

He made a face.

“Da Vinci drew cadavers,” I said, using the same argument that had failed to win my mom’s approval when I announced my intentions to follow in the Italian painter’s footsteps. “So did Michelangelo. The Sistine Chapel panels are filled with hidden anatomical paintings. If you look closely at the pink shroud behind God in The Creation of Adam—you know, the one where God is reaching out to touch fingers with Adam?—the shroud is actually a diagram of a human brain.”

“Wow. You weren’t kidding about the frog thing, were you?”

“No.” I scratched the back of my head; the pins holding up a tangle of braids above the nape of my neck were making me feel itchy. “All I want to do is draw cadavers after hours. I wouldn’t be bothering anyone or getting in the way. But now I have to come back Wednesday before her lecture. Hopefully she actually shows this time.” Was I talking too much? I wasn’t sure, but I couldn’t stop. I get chatty when I’m nervous. “At least next time I won’t be risking my life on the Owl talking to strange boys.”

“Feeling alive is always worth the risk.”

“Feeling alive is merely a rush of adrenaline.”

He chuckled, and then studied me for a moment. “You’re an interesting girl.”

“Says Jack the vegetarian Buddhist jewel thief.”

His lazy grin was drop-dead dangerous.

You know, I always felt like I was pretty good at flirting—that it was the boys I’d flirted with who just weren’t good flirtees. Jack, however, was an excellent flirtee, and my game was on fire tonight. His gaze flicked to my crossed legs … specifically to the few inches of bare knee peeking between my skirt and boot.

Crap. He was definitely checking me out. What should I do? Earth to Beatrix: This was the night bus, not a Journey song. Two strangers were not on a midnight train going anywhere. I was going home, and he was probably going to knock over a liquor store.

When it came to romance, sometimes I was convinced I was cursed. Don’t get me wrong: I’m not one of those “woe is me, I’m so plain Jane, no boys will ever look my way” kind of girls. Boys looked (like now). A few even stared (seriously, like right now). It’s just when they got to know me—or saw my oddball medical artwork—that things usually went south.