“I said something the other day that I shouldn’t have.” I shrugged a shoulder, trying to seem more offhand.I was mad about what he said to Dalton when I really should’ve taken his side.“Gotta preserve my good karma and apologize.”
Beck swiped up Nellie’s iced espresso off the table, easily getting to his feet. “When’s the next convertible ride, Daisy dear?” he asked me, reaching for Nellie’s hand. “Just say the word.”
“Soon.” I narrowed my eyes at him. “I’m holding you to it.”
Beck winked.
Nellie waved at me as they walked out of the game room, and I watched them go with a soft sort of happiness. I knew she’d been through a lot these last few months, and it was good to see her happy.
With the game room silent now, save for the classical music coming from the speakers, I turned back to my sketchbook.
I stared at Kit, at the eye that I’d just drawn. Maybe that was it? I wasn’t using colored pencils, just plain graphite, but the dark ring around the eye… was it like Jamie’s? Or maybe it was the nose? I had drawn it with too deep a slope; that was throwing off Kit’s entire face shape. I quickly scribbled my eraser across the page, redrew his nose with a less narrow edge, and then stared at it some more.
Not Jamie. Definitely not.
Hesitantly, as if the mere act was forbidden, I leaned forward, bringing my nose close to the paper, and sketched something. My pencil skittered across the page in short, slow bursts. Glasses. I’d never drawn them before, but thatwould prove it. I’d erase them in a second, because Kit did not wear glasses, and they’d look ridiculous on him. Just to test Beck’s crazy theory, just to see?—
I finished the arm of the glasses.
And found myself staring at a sketch of a long-haired James Brighton.
With a gasp, my pencil all but flung out of my hand as I jerked back in my seat, pressing my other palm over my mouth. I blinked, blinked again, but the lines on the page didn’t magically transform.
That was Jamie, who’d Clark Kented himself as my original character.
Iwasdrawing Jamie.
Panic had me launching forward again, flipping through my sketchbook with a fervor that nearly had me tearing the pages. I found a full body sketch of Kit, and without thinking it through, I started drawing more glasses. It was a straight-on sketch, where he was staring through the page as if looking directly at the viewer. I drew the frames low on his nose, the spot Jamie’s normally slid down to, the spot I always pushed them up from.
They were crude because Isodidn’t have practice in sketching a realistic pair of glasses and was drawing them without a reference photo, but it didn’t matter.
Even poorly drawn, they still looked like Jamie’s glasses.
And Kit still looked like Jamie.
“Daisy?”
I was wound so tight with the horrifying revelationthat I’d been secretly drawing my best friend for four years that I screamed at the sound of Jamie’s voice.
The sharp, high-pitched sound wrenched out of me as my pencil scraped across the page, slicing through Kit’s-slash-Jamie’s eyes, and I fumbled to flip the cover shut. Only with my subconscious sealed off and my heart racing did I turn, finding Jamie frozen in the game room’s entryway.
He had his book club book tucked into the crook of one arm, his light brown T-shirt loose on his frame. His eyes were wide behind his glasses. “Uh, you good?”
I was breathing hard; I couldn’t help it.The same character that I’ve been drawing since freshman year is standing in front of me, I thought dimly, the words laced with panic.I’ve been drawing Jamie ever since I met him.
Oh, man. Maybe I really did need to go back to therapy.
I cleared my throat. “Areyougood?”
“I’m not the one who just screamed.”
I actually thought about denying it, as if the echo weren’t still loud in my ears. “You scared me.” I straightened my shoulders, but didn’t move my palm off my sketchbook. “I—I wasn’t expecting you to sneak up on me.”
“And I wasn’t expecting you to be here at all.” Jamie’s gaze dropped to my sketchbook. “What were you drawing?”
I could be nonchalant. “Hmm? Oh, me? Just… something.”You, apparently. I’ve been drawing you. Several times, in fact. Did you know that? Am I just going crazy?
Even more horrifying—hadJamieever noticed theresemblance to him and Kit? No, of course not. It wasn’t like he’d seen much of my sketches before, honestly. I rarely worked in my realism style with other people around—the dark feelings that normally spurred my realism only came out when I was alone—and I didn’t go around flaunting my notebook. Nellie hadn’t thought they’d looked similar, and Jamie was her twin. Maybe it was just me—and Beck.
