Page 76 of Wicked Dreams

“That was the most cunning and brutal thing I’ve ever witnessed.”

I swallow shards of glass. Pretty sure my insides are all hollowed out. “Yeah.”

“Do you want to skip?”

I shake my head. “I really wish we had classes together. I can’t skip. I should go in there with my head held high…”

I’ve dealt with mean girls before, remember? At every school, there’s one who thinks they can take the new girl down a peg. The way to deal with them is to show how unaffected you can be.

And that means not skipping.

“Okay. I’ll check on you after our first class and we’ll see how you feel.”

I successfully avoid Amelie and Caleb together for the rest of the day. Caleb is kind of unavoidable—he’s in three of my classes.

First period, he tries to talk to me. Opens his mouth to speak and everything. But I take someone else’s seat across the room and death-glare at them when they try to say anything.

Crisis averted.

Lunch is spent with Riley, who again asks if I want to skip. But Robert, who dropped me off this morning, would absolutely notice my absence.

Sixth period, I sit in front of Liam. It’s not the best solution, because I can see Caleb out of the corner of my eye the entire class. As soon as Mr. McGuire releases us, I bolt… to Robert’s classroom.

“You can’t avoid me forever.” Caleb is positioned across from me, our easels angled to give us a view of each other.

“I can,” I retort.

He scoffs.

My canvas is a mess. I’ve begun applying the shading technique, sketching out the parts of Caleb’s face in shadow and highlights.

It holds only the vaguest passing for human.

Halfway through, Robert calls for us to set aside those canvases. We clean our brushes and wrap the palettes, then face him for the next lesson. Which, in this case, is watercolors. He demonstrates how to blend colors into a smooth gradient, then turns us loose. We sit at actual desks, usually shoved in one corner, because watercolors require the paper to be horizontal.

I take the opportunity to sit far from Caleb.

My two colors aren’t working.

I chew on my lip and try again. Then again.

“You okay?” Robert asks.

I jerk my head up.

The room is empty except for us.

“The bell rang a few minutes ago. Did you even hear it?”

I stare at my paper. Heat crawls across my cheeks. “Sorry. I’ve had a bad day.”

He drags a chair over and sits next to me. He points to one of my groupings, where I’d managed to make green fade into blue. “You did this one right. You can see the blue and the green, but there’s also the middle space where it becomes a new color entirely.”

“I got lucky on that one.”

He shakes his head. “No, it just takes practice. Like this?” He taps his pencil next to the orange-into-pink one. “We don’t see the two separate colors. May I?”

“Sure.”

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