Page 3 of The Art of Us

He gave her a sort of smirk that proved he had a good sense of humor. “Probably. You just distorted my whole belief system regarding you.”

“Wow. A belief system, huh? I don’t know that I deserve a whole belief system.”

“It’s nothing complicated. You’ve been sitting next to me since September. That’s what? Five months? I just wasn’t aware you had a voice box until right now.”

Direct hit. Ten points for honesty. “Yeah. Sorry. I’m not talkative.”

Kal shifted in his seat so he was facing her more. “You aren’t talkative in the way a tree isn’t talkative.”

Oof. He was not pulling his punches. “Maybe you just hang out with the wrong sorts of trees?”

He laughed at that, a sound that vibrated deeply and melodically. Could a guy’s voice be called melodic? Ireland decided that it could. Why not? Kal lifted a shoulder in a half shrug. “You’ll have to introduce me to some of your treessometime. I’ll bring my phone because talking trees? Might be worth something. It’s Ireland, right?”

“Right. And you’re Kal?” She said it like she was asking, but she wasn’t. She’d thought about talking to him since the first day he chose the seat next to her and smiled at her. She hadn’t smiled back at the time, which now seemed like a shrew kind of move. But she hadn’t thought she’d be in school with him for as long as she had been. Once she’d started off being a little prickly, she hadn’t been sure how to do a course correction even as the weeks of sitting next to him turned to actual months. Now she knew she was in the school until the summer break. She couldn’t keep up her solitude; she needed to talk to someone besides the spiders in her bathroom. And shewantedthe someone to be Kal.

There are two types of new students in high school: the ones who gain immediate popularity because they ooze charismatic vibes and the ones who are completely overlooked. She definitely belonged in the camp of the uncelebrated, while Kal basked in the glow of effortless acceptance. A guy like him could have easily let that acceptance go to his head, but Kal didn’t. Again, he was a genuinely nice guy.

“So why now?” he asked.

She shrugged, her fingernails nervously scraping up the side of the raised letters on the Bic pen she’d found on the ground near her gym locker. It was a glide gel type that wrote smoothly and made even hurried, sloppy handwriting look a little tidier. “I wasn’t sure if I’d be sticking around long enough to get to know people.”

The excuse sounded weak, but sometimes the truthwasweak.

His smirk widened into a grin. “It took you half the year to decide you were sticking around?”

“Yep.”

“Huh. Well, good. Your art rocks.”

Her face warmed. He’d seen her art?

Though she hadn’t asked the question, he answered as if she had. “Whenever Mr. Nichols is droning, you sketch in your sketchbook. You’ve got some mad skills.”

He’d noticed her sketching. The warmth that someone was paying attention to her trickled from her head and down her spine until she felt entirely filled with the sensation. She’d always assumed she was basically invisible, but he’d seen her. “Mr. Wasden gave me the sketchbook. We turn it in every few weeks for a grade.”

Kal laughed. “Wasden’s all right. But don’t shred what you do by saying you only do it for a grade. That kind of skill comes from doing it more often than you’d need to for homework.”

“Maybe,” Ireland said and then decided that if he could be so forward, so could she. Because the truth was that she paid attention to his comings and goings in more than just the history class they shared. “I guess it’s the same with you and music? Your band is really good.”

Had she thought his smile was wide enough to be a grin before? Because now that smile split his face into two separate sections. And the dimples dug their way into the deepest regions of his cheeks. “You’ve heard us play?”

“It’s why I crave pizza on Friday nights.” Was she flirting? She thought that maybe she was and hoped she was doing it right. And she wasn’t even lying. She craved pizza even if she never actuallyboughtany from the local pizza joint, Geppetto’s, where they played. Who had money for that sort of thing?

But she stopped in sometimes to hear them play. Since becoming homeless a few weeks prior, she’d gone into scavenger mode. She remembered from her few times of going out to eat that sometimes people left slices of untouched, uneaten food on their tables. She figured pizza would be the easiest to grab-and-go since the crust was like an edible plate and she didn’t need silverware. She’d scouted out a few pizza places and decidedGeppetto’s was her best option because of its door locations and lighting. She’d gone there three times to forage for food. If she went in through the side door and made her way to their public restroom and waited a while, she just looked like a regular customer returning to her table. She chose the tables in back because it was darker there and around the corner from the main part of the restaurant.

She’d listen to Kal’s band, then sneak a few slices before leaving the same way she’d come in. She knew she couldn’t do that all the time because if she became too familiar to the workers, they might catch on to what she was doing. But on the nights she went to bed hungry, she could close her eyes and daydream about what it had been like to sleep on a full stomach.

Ireland hadn’t eaten since yesterday afternoon. She had three hours and twenty-two minutes left until lunch. Her eyes must have glazed over as she imagined the food because Kal was looking at her as if he expected her to respond to something he had said.

“Sorry,” she said. “I must have wandered off a little.”

“Hazards of being an artist. I was wondering if you’d want to come listen tonight. It’s Friday, after all. Maybe hang around until our break. Joe, the owner, gives us free pizza for playing. So you can get dinner out of the deal.”

Did he know that she needed dinner? Had he seen her stealing slices of pizza from empty tables? But no. He couldn’t have. She’d been careful. She instantly felt defensive. Her immediate reaction was to say she was busy. But as she opened her mouth to decline his invitation, she remembered that she was trying to make friends for the first time in a long time. It was hard to do that if she was rejecting the hand of friendship when it was offered. Since the weekend was coming up, she had no solid plans for getting food. Kal’s generous offer filled more thanthe need for friends; it filled survival needs too. “Sounds great. Thanks.”

He only had time to smile in response because Mr. Nichols had finally stood to start class. Mr. Nichols grinned at them all, making his beard hair look bristled as he shoved the sleeves of his sweater past his elbows. He puffed out his pale cheeks and shoved his glasses higher on the bridge of his nose. This stance meant he intended to lecture.

Ireland was self-conscious as she pulled out her sketchbook, knowing that Kal had been watching her draw. But she honestly had a hard time paying attention and focusing unless she was sketching at the same time. She didn’t know how else to learn.

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