Ella's Twisted Senior Year(14)
“Doesn’t bother me,” she says, staring at the floor as she walks. Junior high feels like decades ago, but now that I’m back to walking next to her like I always used to, I get the urge to grab onto the handle at the top of her backpack and push her around just like the old days. She used to giggle and scream and shove me away, but no matter how much she pretended to hate it, she’d always wait for me after class so we could walk together.
“Well I’m glad it doesn’t bother you, but it bothers me,” I say, struggling to think of something else to say. I just want to talk to her, as stupid as it is. “Look, Kennedy and me are—” I stumble over my words. Should I admit we’re done before I’ve told Kennedy?
Ella looks over at me and she’s even cuter than she was at lunch. Her long bangs are swept across her forehead and tucked behind her ears. “A couple?” she says, thinking she’s finishing my sentence for me.
I shake my head. “So how’s your family doing? Do you have a place to stay yet?”
She folds her arms over her chest and stops in front of the art room. “You don’t have to act like you care, Ethan. Sorry our patio furniture got in your pool.”
“I haven’t used the pool in years.”
Her eyes flicker with something like surprise but she quickly recovers and her blank stare returns. This girl is good at making me feel unwanted.
I run a hand through my hair. Why is it so important to have her like me again? Why am I dying to get a smile out of her? She’s the one who hates me and rejected my crush all those years ago. I should let it go and walk away, but my feet stay rooted to the ground.
“You should give me a call if you need anything.”
Her head tilts to the side. “I don’t have your number.”
“It’s the same one from junior high,” I say, realizing too late what her words meant. She’d deleted it.
“I still don’t have it. But don’t worry, I’m fine without your charity.”
She does smile now, but it’s not the sweet kind I’ve been hoping for. It’s a thinly veiled insult as she turns on her heel and disappears into the art classroom, pulling the door closed behind her.
The bell rings and I head toward the locker room. Coach never notices if we’re a little late since we get five minutes to change clothes. After that exchange with Ella, I’m not in the mood to shoot hoops today. Ella didn’t get a phone until a couple years after I did, and by that time she’d had my number memorized since she’d call me on her mom’s phone all the time. The stench in the boy’s locker room is especially horrid today, but that’s not what makes my face fall.
Ella not only deleted my number from her phone, she forgot it completely.
I toss my backpack into my locker and tug on my gym clothes. Maybe running a few laps will help clear my head. I’m just about to slam the locker door closed when I hear my phone vibrate. I lean in, ignoring someone telling me to hurry up, because right now all I can think about is the possibility that maybe Ella just texted me.
Maybe it was all a lie, or she was just messing with me. She has my number after all. My heart races as I tear through my backpack, finding my phone. I slide open the new text message and see Mom’s name on the screen instead of Ella’s. I groan and click to read the text.
Good news! The Lockharts are going to stay with us for a while!
Chapter 9
There’s still three months left in school but Ms. Cleary seems to have given up on teaching us seniors any new artistic skills. Every day for the last two weeks have been free days, and I stick with my watercolors even though they totally suck. I am not an artist. You know those abstract canvases in art museums that sell for millions of dollars and people look at them and claim they could paint the same thing?
Yeah, I couldn’t make one of those.
I lean over my table, sitting on my knees on the stool, hovering over the cardstock I’m using as a canvas. I’d grabbed a set of different shades of orange and now I’m attempting a sunset. Only I can’t really focus on the brush strokes because I keep noticing all the artwork around the room. There’s clay projects and canvas paintings and stained glass work left here from students over the years. One of my favorites is a paper mache earth that’s beautiful on one half of the globe and the other half is on fire with orange tissue paper flames sticking out everywhere.
But that’s not the art that catches my attention. It’s the collections of sketches on the wall, way up near the ceiling. Five square pieces of art, all drawn by the same guy. I see the prints on t-shirts all over school. Ethan’s artwork has the same irony from the sketches he’d make as a kid, but now the jokes are about pop culture references, like the cartoon coffee cup that has a face and a stick hand that’s holding a wand. It says “Espresso Patronum” in Ethan’s scrawly handwriting and I see that freaking T-shirt all over the school.
I don’t own any of his shirts for obvious reasons, but there are several of his designs that I’d love to wear, if things were different.
I have to physically shake myself in an effort to stop thinking about him and our conversation in the hallway. Why is he trying to be nice to me? Maybe he just feels bad for his girlfriend’s actions. Even though he’s only gotten hotter since eight grade and he’s one of the most popular guys in school, he’s probably still the nice guy he’s always been. That must be the reason behind his sudden need to remember that I exist.