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Jimmy did say I should be with someone more like me, right? Well, look here, Jimmy Strong. Mr. Donovan Pane is also an artist. I have more than discovered common ground with the new guy in town. Maybe Vann is the answer to everything.
Mr. Schubert returns just then from outside to begin class, and everyone hushes to pay attention. Vann, surprisingly, flips the page of his sketchpad to a fresh one, then starts taking notes as Mr. Schubert lectures on. I quickly follow suit, trying with all my might to keep my attention on the teacher—and not on the beautiful, brooding artist seated next to me.
An artist I’m inevitably going to kiss on a stage in two months.
Wow. What a difference a few minutes and a brief exchange of words make. Suddenly, I feel light as air. I feel less alone. I feel a spark of hope. I even feel permitted to smile, should I decide to.
These are all feelings I didn’t expect to have today.
At one point while taking notes, we bump elbows, and though neither of us apologize, there is a very brief moment in which our eyes connect to one another’s, we pull our elbows away, and then we’re back to taking notes like nothing happened.
But in that tiny moment, everything happens for me. I feel a surge of power enter my eyes from that one look he gives me, and my heart breaks into a gallop. It’s a tiny moment of vulnerability, an instant where all his bad-boy exterior is stripped away leaving him exposed, just for that one second, that one miniscule second where through his eyes, I swear I can see straight to his soul. We are both transported to that magical place we found Friday night when the world faded away and it was just us in my little shed.
Then it ends, and we’re just classmates again.
I really wish he’d bump my elbow one more time.
The bell comes before I expect it, and then the rustle of books, backpacks, and chatter fills the room as people leave. Mr. Schubert shouts through the noise, reminding us all to read chapters 4 and 5 in our textbooks before tomorrow. Vann rises from his stool and tucks his pad under an arm. Then he hesitates for a moment, as if troubled by something.
I notice. “You alright?”
Vann eyes me. “So it’s to the gym now, huh?”
I open my mouth to answer, then freeze for some reason. Did I already forget Vann and I will be sharing two periods back-to-back every day? “Yes,” I choke out finally. “Yeah. Of course. Phys-ed.”
“Okay. Let’s go.”
I blink, hugging my notebook to my chest. “Uh … together?”
“Well, we’re headed to the same place, aren’t we?”
“Yeah. Yes.” I slide off my stool, nearly trip over my foot, and miraculously manage to keep my balance. “Yeah, we are. Right.”
“So let’s go.”
I fumble again with my book, then paste on a smile. “Let’s go,” I say agreeably, then proceed to lead the way.
I underestimated how it would feel, walking alongside Vann from the temporary trailer maze all the way through the throat of Spruce High’s main hallway down to the gym. There isn’t a single set of eyes that doesn’t find us. Conversations ebb like receding ocean waves, then rush back after we’ve passed. Faces turn. People move out of the way, nearly shrinking with wariness or fear. Is it the pair of us that has everyone on edge, or just bad-boy Vann? Has news of our joint casting in the fall play gotten around the whole school already?
“I have to stop by my locker,” I tell him when we reach it. “To put away my, uh, things. Do you have to stop by your—?”
“Nah, all I have is this,” he says, wiggling his sketchpad.
“Do you want to just go? Or—”
“I’ll wait.” He leans his back against the locker next to mine and crosses his arms, staring ahead at nothing, smirking.
Wow. He’s … He’s going to wait. On me. To … do my thing.
Faces are still turning as they pass by, noticing us together. I wouldn’t doubt if every person in the school is talking about us. Vann and Toby … friends since the first-day lunch room mêlée … Toby with the scary new murderer kid … Toby and Vann … Vann and Toby …
I’ve lived here my whole life and never realized what it feels like to be the center of Spruce’s endless gossip bonfire.
“You should really get an actual notebook,” I point out.
Vann flinches. “Huh?”
I nod at his sketchpad. “Really? Your chemistry notes are just gonna … live in there next to demon dude and his flaming chain whip? How do you concentrate when you study with … all of your sketches in there?”
“How do you concentrate without your sketches?” Vann scoffs at me like I just made the dumbest point ever. “How do you focus on anything at all without your sources of inspirations nearby? Besides, I already learned all this crap. I did most of my senior year up in New York, and we studied way more complicated stuff than you guys do down here in simpleton Spruce.”
