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20
It’s me.
It’s instantly recognizable as me.
But… the painting is loaded, packed with so many swirls and thick smoke-gray shadows, that it seems like an optical illusion, that my face only appears in the painting when actively hunting for me.
When I want to be seen, I’ll be seen. When I want to stay hidden, I will.
It’s the perfect depiction of me.
The painting is unlike Danny’s others. The color palette consists mostly of grays, dark and light and some tinged with blue. It reminds me of the walls that cloister us in Lochkelvin. The only thing that isn’t gray is the long glossy line of red that bisects the canvas — a line, I realize with a start, that represents the ribbon currently in my hair.
A line that represents too much of me not to insert into the painting of myself.
While the red sweeps across the canvas like a lick of fire, the gray is heavy and claustrophobic. The painting contains dark swirls that do their best to disguise my expression, though I appear to be gazing head-on at the viewer, and there’s something almost feline about the curiosity in my pale eyes among the layers of darkness and hurt.
It’s not pretty. It’s not kind. What beauty is there is dark and steeped in angst. It’s honest and true and painfully raw. It’s my heart exposed on a canvas, my innards fleshed out for all to see — if the viewer wants to. If the viewer can.
Somehow it’s more mature and meaningful — less inspired by comics and more drawn from the heart. It’s the art of a man, not a boy. This is Danny’s style, his personal sense of style — the art from the soul of someone who’s been hurt more times than I can count — wrapped around me, a soul whose abuse is entirely her own.
“It’s beautiful.”
Danny says nothing, observing my reaction solemnly, his gaze flitting between me and the painting as though comparing.
“I’ve never felt seen like this before.”
“You like?”
“Like?” I blink at him. Even after all this time, he still doesn’t believe in his worth. And I know that’s rich, coming from me, the girl who struggles to see anything good about herself, but Danny…Danny. He’s a prince among the rest of the boys here, and he doesn’t need a title or a crown to prove it.
I lean over and kiss him. A thousand words of gratitude spill from my lips, each one embedded in my kiss. I never believed someone could capture the entire essence of a person so readily, and yet with Danny, his painting has offered me a reflection more true than any mirror.
He kisses me back hard, his paint-stained fingers caressing my cheeks. My arms loop behind his neck, drawing him flush against me. The background jazz has turned spikier, sexier, and the only thing I want is Danny in any way he’ll be mine.
“What are we doing?” he whispers, but he’s panting rapidly, the blown pupils of his eyes flitting between my face and my breasts. He licks his lips. “We’re inclass.”
“It’s late. Surely no one will come in.”
Danny gives me a long, lingering look, as though debating with himself. Sensible reluctance mingles with blatant desire, and slowly he peels away from me. My heart sinks. But then I watch as he heads over to the light switch. All oil lamps in the room dim at once until the only light illuminating the vast art room comes from the moon and the stars.
Danny double-checks that the door is closed. And then he walks slowly toward me, rolling up his sleeves and unbuttoning his school shirt.
A hundred butterflies scatter across my stomach. The way Danny’s looking at me… so intently, like Rory normally does. The kind of hunger Finlay wears in secret. The sweet reverence of Luke. It looks so misplaced on Danny, a face I’d have described as adorable and in need of cherishing, but then he’s just pulled out the most powerful work of art I’ve ever seen. He doesn’t need protecting; he’s more than capable of doing so himself.
People underestimate Danny — even me, his best friend. In his own way, Danny’s as strong and as powerful as any other chief.
And in other ways, too. The moonlight sculpts his fine male torso into marble, as though this were one of Danny’s sketches from earlier. The interplay of light and shadow dances across his skin, turning the lines soft at the base, where the low light meets the points of his hips and the belt tightened across them.
I swallow as he approaches me, sitting up on the wooden desk to get a better view. My tartan skirt stretches across my thighs and stretches wider when I part my legs subconsciously.
I want him. I want him so badly.
He meets me, his white school shirt hanging loose in the dark. His deep brown eyes turn to glittering blackness while he looks at me. He strokes the skin of his forearm, which his rolled shirt cuffs have exposed, and I can’t help but follow the gesture with my eyes.
Danny stands right in front of me. His eyes flash with need.
“Are you sure about this?” I whisper, suddenly wondering if Danny would ever regret this. “What if we get caught? What if Arabella’s prowling the halls? What if we’re punished—?”
