Page 46 of Fruit
CHAPTER NINE
The day is bright and clear as we walk through the pop-up gallery, protected by the white, open-walled tent. I can’t help but look at Sebastián’s face as often as I do the paintings. I like to watch him as he takes the art in, his eyes lingering on certain pieces, body stilling as if he’s letting the colours wash over him. His eyes are so intent and serious. I want that gaze on me, want to memorise the lines of it.
My hands itch for a brush of my own to capture that look, but it’s almost as good to be in its presence.
“What do you think?” he asks once we’ve gone through the whole maze of paintings, continuing our walk through the park.
“It was good. I liked the collection of iceberg paintings in pastels,” I say, even though I’d been a little too distracted by him to appreciate the art fully.
“Yeah. And the urban one, with the graffiti scenes. Joshua would have loved that one.”
“I’ll tell him about it. Maybe he can bring Hugo on a little date,” I say teasingly.
“Don’t say that to his face. He’ll combust.”
“Those two are too cute together. Makes me think of my own awkward teenage crushes. Stumbling over words…passing notes in class…having the loser I was chasing tell me he liked me on MSN and then claiming his brother had written the message…good times.”
Sebastián snorts. “Sounds great.”
“I bet that was you in high school. Sending girls notes and then being all like, ‘Oh, it wasn’t me’.”
“Not even close.”
“Do tell.”
“Nothing much to tell,” he says, looking slightly away from me, across the grass dotted with people lounging in the sun. “I didn’t really have much…I was doing other stuff, I guess,” he says after a slight pause.
“Like what?”
“Getting into trouble, mostly. Getting into fights, vandalism…that kind of stuff.”
My eyebrows raise a little. It shouldn’t be a surprise. He went to juvie, so a good guess would be he was getting into trouble. But… “I have to admit, that’s a little hard to imagine, you being easily pushed into a fight.”
Sebastián smiles, but there’s nothing joyful in the expression. “I had a terrible temper. Angry at everything. At the world.”
“Why? What made you so angry?” I ask.
Sebastián takes a deep breath. His shoulders are tense as he looks down, our pace slow as we wind down the path. His mouth opens for a moment before closing again, head shaking. I try not to feel disappointed he doesn’t want to share more with me. The decision has nothing to do with me, really, but I have the sudden urge to dig, to know everything, to know what makes him tick.
“You don’t seem so angry anymore,” I say instead of pushing. Sebastián looks at me from the corner of his eyes, quirking his lips at me slightly.
“Sometimes, I don’t know if that’s true. But if I am, I can compensate for it now. It was learning how to control it, or…lose myself to it, I guess,” he says.
“It’s kind of ironic, in a way. It’s probably one of the things that makes you so good at your job,” I say.
He raises his eyebrows at me slightly in question, and I elaborate.
“A lot of the kids in the club are angry too, you know? But, anger…it, like, it comes out in behaviour, doesn’t it? I mean, a lot of emotions affect behaviour, obviously, but anger is like, super outward. It’s showy. And I think a lot of adults can look at a kid who is acting a certain way and just see the behaviour and label them as a bad kid instead of an angry kid, or, better put, a kid who’s feeling angry. And when you reduce someone to that kind of behaviour—I wouldn’t be surprised if the kid starts believing it, you know? And it’s a lot harder to change ‘I’m bad’ than ‘I’m angry’. So. Like. You understanding that probably makes you interact with the kids in another way. That calms them down instead of going straight for punishing the behaviour, you know? So…yeah.”
Sebastián looks at me quietly. I bite my lip a little.
“Not that I’m saying, like ‘Yay, that happened to you’, but, you know—”
“No, I get you. And yeah. Maybe.”
We walk a few moments in silence.
“So, seriously, no awkward dates when you were a teenager, then?” I ask. “Come on. There must have been at least one,” I poke.
