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I let out a quiet – and involuntary – gasp of recognition.
His head jerks up.
My instinct is to pretend that something else caused the exclamation. I fight it. “Kind of conceited, don’t you think?” I whisper, and I’m delirious that a good line escapes me.
His eyes widen. But he smiles as he neatly prints the word CAUGHT! underneath his sketch of a gnarled, spiny Joshua tree. I let out a snort of laughter that I turn into a cough. Professeur Hansen glances at me, but he doesn’t give it another thought. Phew.
Josh turns the page and draws our teacher, a teeny version with flyaway hair and the jaunty gleam of madness. Our classmates’ heads begin to fill the space around him. Mike and his bonehead friend, Dave; my snobby lab partner, Emily; and…Sanjita Devi. Who was once my friend. Who is now Emily’s friend.
Josh gives Sanjita her own page. He dresses her in a suit of armour without gloves. The suit is as polished as her exposed fingernails, but she’s looking down and away, as if she’s afraid that we can see through the steel to what’s really underneath.
It gives me the chills. He tilts it in my direction for approval.
“Wow,” I whisper. “Yes.”
Professeur Hansen doesn’t hear it, but Sanjita turns around in her seat to glare at me. Her mouth forms a perfect circle of surprise. Few people know about my crush, but she’s one of them. In the corner of my eye, Josh discreetly turns the page. I hold Sanjita’s gaze. She recedes, battle lost. I clutch my necklace for comfort.
A moment later, Josh extends a slender arm across the aisle. He crooks a finger. I hold out the compass on its long, antique chain, and as he leans forward to take it, his hand carelessly brushes against mine. Or…not carelessly? He cradles the compass in his palm, studying it, head mere inches from my own and…citrus. His shampoo. Oranges, maybe tangerines.
“Ahem.”
We startle, and Josh drops the necklace. It swings back against my chest and lands with an audible thump. Professeur Hansen has surprised us from behind. The other students laugh, having seen the set-up. It’s always amusing when he catches someone not paying attention. Except when that someone is you. He comically raps the back of Josh’s chair. “As fascinating as Mademoiselle Martin’s necklace is, I assure you that the philosophies of Rousseau are far more likely to appear on next week’s test.”
“Yes, sir.” Josh looks apologetic. But not fazed.
“You there.” Professeur Hansen smacks my desktop with his fist, eliciting more laughter. “You can do better than this riff-raff.” He gestures towards Josh.
I’ve sunk into the deepest depths of my seat. They’re waiting for me to reply. The whole class is waiting.
“I know I can.” Josh’s expression is deadpan. “She’s a terrible influence.”
Even the professeur laughs at that. Satisfied, he pushes up his glasses on his nose and launches back into the lesson. My eyes stay glued to him for the rest of the period. When the bell rings, Josh hands me a sheet of spiral-notebook paper. He’s drawn my compass perfectly, down to the filigree on the needle. Underneath it, he’s written: WHY DOES SHE WEAR IT EVERY DAY?
It shakes me to the core.
I place it beneath the cover of my textbook and try to play it cool, try to swallow the thrill of possessing something that he made. And the absolute wonder that he noticed. I move towards the exit, glancing over my shoulder with a smile. I hope it looks flirtatious. “I wear it so that I won’t get lost, of course.”
“Is that something that happens often?” he asks.
There’s a traffic jam at the door. Josh is directly behind me, and when I turn my head to reply, his own smile is lopsided – unquestionably flirtatious – and I can no longer remember my name or my country or even my place in the universe.
“I’m over here,” Kurt says.
Not only am I still staring at Josh, but I’ve also turned the wrong way down the hall. The stupidity blush is immediate. I lower my head and double back.
Amazingly, Josh follows.
“We’re going to the cafeteria,” Kurt tells him. “You’re never there. Where do you eat?” It sounds like an interrogation.
Josh’s smile wavers. “Uh, my room. Usually. Not always.”
“You’ll get detention. We aren’t allowed to leave campus while school is in session.”
Josh’s smile disappears altogether.
“You should join us sometime.” I say it quickly, because I’m embarrassed about Kurt. He’s so rigid. And awkward. But the shame that follows these traitorous thoughts is instantaneous. “Or now. Or, you know, whenever.”
As if I’m any less awkward.
My best friend frowns. It’s not that he doesn’t like Josh. But this invitation would mean a change in our routine, and Kurt is a creature of habit.
Unfortunately, Josh catches the expression. He crosses his arms – uneasiness in every line of his body – and turns back to me. “Yeah, maybe. Sometime.”
My blood ices.
Sébastien.
He was my first, last, and only boyfriend. He attends another school nearby. We dated last winter, and I thought he was a decent guy until I introduced him to Kurt. Sébastien was uncomfortable around Kurt. This made Sébastien aggressive, which intensified Kurt’s nervous habits, which turned Sébastien cruel. Which made me dump Sébastien.
Josh knows that Kurt has high-functioning autism. Everyone here knows. When a stranger misinterprets Kurt’s behaviour as rudeness and reacts poorly, I can usually forgive them. But when someone who knows him doesn’t even want to try to understand him?
No. I can’t forgive that.
My heart plummets with dead weight. “Well. Thanks for the drawing.”
Kurt pulls down his hoodie – laundered the evening of the soup incident, no longer stained – and his sandy hair sticks out in a hundred directions. “You finally saw your portrait? The one from summer?”
I glance at Josh, and he takes a step backwards. “No,” I tell Kurt. “It was a drawing he made in class. Just now.”
Josh rubs the side of his neck. “I should get going.”
“But I wanna see the drawing of you.” Kurt turns towards Josh. They’re both tall, about the same height, but Kurt is broader, and his stare is forceful. “Do you have it?”
“N–no,” Josh says. “No, I’m sorry. I don’t.”
“It’s okay. Maybe some other time.” I press my lips together.
Josh crosses his arms again, and his muscles tighten. “It’s just that I don’t have that sketchbook here. In France. That’s all. Otherwise I’d show you.” And then he rushes away. We watch him until he disappears from view.
“Was that weird?” Kurt asks. “I think that turned weird.”
“Yeah. It was weird.”
But it wasn’t. It was a moment of truth buried inside a lie. I saw Josh’s sketchbook less than an hour ago. He wanted to get away from us. Or, more likely, he wanted to get away from Kurt. My chest constricts. It’s sudden and painful, but I hold back my tears. I don’t want to have to explain them.
After lunch, I resume the habit of not looking at Josh. It’s easier now.
It’s also not easier.
I think he likes me. I don’t even know how that’s possible, but I do know that it doesn’t matter any more. It can’t matter. In physics, I feel his stare – a string as delicate and gossamer as a spider’s web, gently tugging at the back of my skull. I imagine snipping it loose with a pair of sharp scissors. I don’t know if he’ll try to talk to me after class, and I don’t know what I should say if he does. When the bell rings, I bolt.
He’s not at school the next day. I don’t know why.
I don’t see Josh over the weekend. I remove his drawing from my government textbook and carefully place it inside the top drawer of my desk. I open the drawer. Shut it. Open it. Shut it. Open it, and touch it, and worship it.
Slam it shut and feel so disloyal to Kurt.
Open it again.
Josh is back
on Monday. In English, I feel him glancing at me repeatedly. When I finally lift my eyes and look across the circle, he gives me the softest smile.
Oh, it melts me.
The rest of the day is filled with these tiny moments. Another warm smile here, a friendly wave there. Something has changed…but what? On Tuesday, he asks me if I’ve read the new Joann Sfar. I haven’t, but I’m stunned that he remembers our freshman-year, one-sided conversation. And then he’s gone again.
Wednesday.
Thursday.
Friday.
Where is he?
Chapter six
An old man with a busted piano is playing “La Vie en rose” on the street outside my window. He hauls it around this part of the city, from one corner to another, but I’ve never seen how he moves it. It’s early evening on Friday, and the tinkly, fractured music is a bizarre contrast to the rough, powerful memoir I’m reading about being lost at sea.
There are two knocks against my door.
“Just kick it,” I shout from bed. “I haven’t gotten it fixed yet.”
I turn the page of my book, and the door gently swings open, sans kick. I glance up. A double take, and I’m scrambling to my feet. “I’m sorry, I thought you were—”
“Kurt,” Josh says.
“Yeah.”
We stare at each other.
Ohdeargod, he’s attractive. He looks recently showered, and his clothes seem even more carefully put together than usual. Behind his casual American attire, I can always still spot his artist’s eye. His T-shirts and jeans fit, he wears the right colours, the right shoes, the right belt. It’s subtle. But he never just throws something on.
