Puddle Jumping(5)

He was quiet and I stopped walking, turning back to see where he was because he wasn’t by my side. He was kneeling down, face to face with a tiny patch of flowers. I walked back over and knelt down next to him, checking out the clump of weeds.

Colton silently focused on them before finally, finally turning to gaze at my lips. “Did you know your name means ‘beautiful’?” My mouth must have fallen open because my tongue instantly went dry and I couldn’t form words. He just looked back down at the plant and whispered, “Beautiful grace. I looked it up.”

His stare averted so quickly, it made my cheeks burn bright red and my hands go sweaty.

He’d inadvertently told me I was beautiful.

And I kinda believed him.

Despite the scar on my arm I’d been teased about for years that made me feel like a freak.

Despite the fact that I wasn’t as pretty as my best friend.

I like to remember that moment at the fair. How I felt that day.

Colton was just so quiet and we didn’t talk much, though he stared and watched me for what felt like forever.

Eventually, I couldn’t take the awkward silence anymore. “So, you’re a big famous artist, huh?”

I just remember vividly how damn sweaty my hands were at the time.

Colton stopped walking and was staring into the trees, his hands shoved deep into his pockets while he gazed above our heads. I wanted to touch him or just be close enough to him to feel his arm brush against mine, but was so freaking nervous about it all I couldn’t form a coherent sentence to save my life. For a second he looked like he was going to reach out and touch my arm, but as quickly as his hand lifted, it went right back to his side.

That was essentially all the time we had together before a short train came roaring by and Colton covered his ears like he had all those years ago in the rain. His eyes were squeezed shut and when it passed, I could hear his mother calling for him. Frantically. He dropped his hands and walked in her direction as if it was what he was expected to do. I fell back, my feelings hurt that he would just run away from me at the first chance he’d gotten.

Because it was all about me, after all.

When I cleared the trees, I worked my way back to his tent, my hands yanking on the hem of my shirt and my brain screaming that if I was someone pretty, like my best friend, then maybe he wouldn’t have abandoned me back there.

Harper was a little off to the side from where I had left her and she was definitely making out with the guy she’d made her moves on before I’d taken a walk. He was skinny and tall and his pants were halfway down his ass while his hand was halfway up her skirt. She was kissing him in that sloppy way that makes me throw up in my mouth a little.

I cleared my throat and she pulled the lower half of her face out of his unhinged jaws long enough to smile and pop a bubble with the pink gum from the center of her sucker.

“You ready to go?” I asked, trying to only look at her and not back at the tent.

Since it wouldn’t have been obvious to anyone within a five foot radius that I was looking every damn place except the huge tent of pretty paintings set up directly to my left.

It would have been funny, what with the way I was looking toward it but then above and around until I was sure my eyes had cleared the top so they could land just on the other side. Except, I was trying not to cry.

Harper introduced me to her new suck-face partner, Clay. And with as much as I didn’t like him then, I’m thankful for him now. Because he had some information I’d been missing.

Clay looked me over and must have noticed me purposely not looking at Colton’s tent. His stare moved from me to it at least a half dozen times before he licked his lips and nodded toward the art on display.

“Can you believe this kid?”

I started to look over my shoulder but stopped in time before I made that fatal mistake.

“Who?” Harper asked.

Clay pointed and I wanted to punch him in his junk because now it would be super obvious if I didn’t follow his movement. So we all turned and looked toward the tent and I bit my tongue to stop from saying something stupid.

“The Neely kid does these crazy paintings that are selling for major cash.”

Harper’s eyes went wider than I’d ever seen them before as she turned to face me. “The kid who saved your life? Colton, right?”

He nodded. “Yeah. He’s some kind of art whiz.”

“What does that mean?” I asked, not because I was an idiot, but because he was being weird about it.

Clay gave me some stupid look that made me want to shove him in the top of the spin-art machine and watch his head whirl around and around and around . . .

What? You watched late night movies on HBO with the sound down so your parents didn’t know. Don’t lie.

“It means he’s a genius with paint or something.” Clay’s eye rolling just added to my mental horror movie.

“Geniuses are smart, right?” Harper was playing up the dumb blonde bimbo for this moron. I mean, come on . . .

“Yeah. Smart. He’s also ‘special.’ ” He held his fingers in air quotes.

“Special . . . like . . .” I was so not following the conversation, you know? “Didn’t your mom ever tell you that you were special? Mine does.”

“Special like he’s not normal.” Harper answered for him.