Page 54 of The Art of Us

“Sure,” he said. He would have asked her more, but she was kneeling by the flowers she and the mystery painter hadbeen creating and had already gone to work. She looked at an image she’d pulled up from her phone that she was using as inspiration. He peeked over her shoulder to see a picture someone had taken of a gray wolf in the wild. With each brushstroke, a similar image appeared next to the wildflowers under the tree but with a few notable differences. The wolf was small but stood tall and proud, its ears pointed up and its muzzle raised skyward in a howl. As the image took shape, Kal could almost hear the howl echoing through the woods and into the sky. The words she painted inside the wolf’s body were “Howl Out Loud!”

Ireland stood and viewed her handiwork. She sucked in air as if she’d been in gym class, not sitting in the art room. She glanced around at the classroom, which was starting to fill with people, either coming to start class or to check out the mural. She was clearly worried she would be caught painting on the wall, which was weird since they were supposed to be doing that.

“It’s coming along really well, don’t you think?” Kal asked as they went to their first hour.

“What is?”

“The mural. Hey, Ireland, what’s going on?”

“Nothing,” she said.

“You hesitated.” He tugged her hand lightly so they could slow down before entering the classroom, where Mr. Nichols would shut them up.

“Did not.”

“Yes way.”

She scowled at him. “I didn’t say ‘no way’ either.”

Kal kissed the little wrinkle above her eyebrow that made up the scowl.

“I can’t tell you about it.” Her eyes dropped from his.

He fully stopped then, not caring that the kid behind them said, “Dude. Watch it.”

“You can tell me anything, Ireland.”

“Not anything. Some things I can’t.” She shook her head, her long, single dark braid swishing like a cat’s tail.

“Like what things?”

She laughed and shot him a look of incredulity. “If I told you what, then I would be telling you the thing I can’t tell you. C’mon.” She pulled at his hand to try to get him to move forward again. “We gotta go to class.”

“Okay. But I don’t want you to shut me out. I don’t know what I would do if anything happened to you. You can trust me.”

“I do trust you. You are my person—the one person I can count on. But I’m fine. I’ll let you know if that status changes at all, okay?”

He wanted to argue more, but she was right that they needed to get to class. Mr. Nichols wasn’t exactly forgiving of tardiness. And Kal’s dad had been zero times awesome about grades lately. He’d allowed the art and the band because he’d worried about Kal’s mental health after everything with Brell. But the more time that came between that event and the present day, the less Kal’s dad felt like indulging those hobbies and the more he stressed good grades—even though Kal had already been accepted to Berkeley. It wasn’t like his grades were slipping.

Kal understood why his dad worried. His grandpa had spent his life as an artist, which meant there had never been enough money during his dad’s childhood and that Kal’s grandma had to work extra hard to help keep the family supported. Kal’s dad didn’t want that to be his son’s future.

Not that Kal had huge aspirations about being a rock star. And he knew his artistic skills were good, but not as marketable as Mara’s, so he didn’t mind his dad insisting he go to a good school and get a good education. He would have done it whether his dad wanted it or not. He just wished his dad didn’t get so intense about it.

Ireland’s leg bounced in an erratic pattern as she sat through class. Kal could tell she wasn’t paying attention. She spent half the class looking out the window. The other half she spent staring at her hands on her desk as her fingers tap-tapped a rhythm that sounded like the chorus to Taylor Swift’s “Shake It Off.”

If only Kal could be graded on studying the subject that was Ireland Raine. He would be sure to get an A+.

When he got to Wasden’s class, the teacher asked Kal about how Ireland was doing. He did it quietly so that no one who had already come in could hear the question. Kal dropped his voice so no one would hear the answer either. “She’s good. I mean, she used to say that Mara’s a shrew, so she wasn’t thrilled with where she’d landed. But she hasn’t said it in a while.” He glanced around to make sure Mara wasn’t anywhere around because he didn’t want her to overhear and get her feelings hurt—especially since he liked Mara well enough. “I think they’re working it out.”

“That’s good. The Washingtons were the best choice in her situation. They’re good people. Anyway, just checking.”

“’S all good, man.”

Kal breathed a sigh of relief that their conversation had come to an end because Mara did walk in then. A frown creased her forehead, and she took her seat without looking at anyone. Weird.

Her leg bounced up and down like Ireland’s. She was tap-tapping a rhythm too, only this one sounded like Taylor Swift’s “Look What You Made Me Do.”

Apparently, it was a Taylor Swift kind of day. Not that he knew for certain what the two girls had been tapping, but he was pretty good with rhythms and patterns. Whatever was going on seemed like it was between the two of them. He briefly considered asking Mara about it, but if Ireland had shut him down, Mara wasn’t likely to spill.

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