Page 13 of Sweet Punk
I let out a pent-up sigh as I tuck the paintbrush I’m using behind my ear. Focus. I need to fucking focus. I only have so many art studio sessions before these paintings are due.
“That was quite a sigh.” Ryleigh eyes me from her painting station about five feet away but doesn’t say anything more. This girl will wait me out. She knows me too well. If it’s something I need to say, it’ll eventually come out. Not always verbally, though. Sometimes it’s obvious in whatever project I work on that particular day, and we’ll discuss it. Or sometimes she’ll just nod, and understand what I’m pouring into my art.
Ryleigh has proved to be a good friend. We’ve been in art classes together since we started at Shadow River. She’s a talented artist, and that’s what’d caught my eye at first. I couldn’t get enough of the images she created. And then we started talking more and more during our studio classes—well, as much as two quiet people talk, anyway. She gets me—and it’s in a different way than Hawk and Maddox do, so that helps sometimes, though I don’t know if she’d blindly go along with something I asked of her like they do. But she sure as hell will tell me the straight-up truth, and I appreciate the hell out of that. And now it might be nice to have a female opinion. Especially from someone who I know is completely and totally invested in their own relationship. She’s been happily dating Matty Montclair, SRU’s quarterback that Hawk hangs with all the time, for several years now. Honestly, she’s like the sister I never knew I needed. Considering the shitty relationship I have with my younger brother, it’s refreshing to know I have someone in my corner who feels like family.
With a shrug and a sigh, she looks back at her painting, tapping the end of the wide paintbrush she’s been wielding against her lip. “What do you think? What does this say to you?”
Our current project is supposed to be a trio of paintings demonstrating a range of emotions. The trick is that the group of three works is also supposed to be cohesive in some way or another. Whether that’s via color, brushstroke, or some other method, it’s up to us how we think we can best express the feelings we’re hoping to evoke in the viewer. It’s an interesting project—especially since we don’t have to tell anyone until the big art show at the end of the semester what it is we’re expressing. There were no other instructions given, so we have free rein to tackle the assignment in any manner we choose, so long as the medium is paint.
I stop to look at what she’s doing, and it’s gorgeous as usual. Bold, vibrant colors applied to the canvas in lush, sweeping strokes. “Mm. Happiness. Or love, maybe.”
Ryleigh gets a goofy look on her face. “Yeah. I’m so obvious.”
I give her a little smirk. “What’s obvious is that you’re happy. That’s not a bad thing. I like the way you’re using that wide brush. I’ll be interested to see the other two pieces once they’re all complete.”
She wrinkles her nose. “I think I probably need to go for something not so mushy on the next one, huh? Maybe something that’s polar opposite.” Very delicately, she sweeps the paintbrush she’s just reloaded over an area of her canvas.
I laugh. “Well, maybe a little different, at least—but you could totally shake things up and go for something like envy or wrath.”
“Ooh. Like one of the seven deadly sins? But then how would I keep Matty as my muse?” She jerks to a stop, her paintbrush held midair and her eyes going wide. “Oh. Oh. Oh.Wait.What aboutlust?”She wriggles her eyebrows at me and shoots me a wink. “Do you think Professor Zara would count that as an emotion?”
I wasn’t expecting that one to pop out of her mouth with such glee. I cough to hide my surprise, bobbing my head. “That could be interesting.” It’s not the worst idea. Actually it’s a great idea, conceptually. Love versus lust versus…? Hmm.
The funny thing is, I don’t know why the word lust popping out of Ryleigh’s mouth had left me openmouthed. Ryleigh looks sweet, but every once in a while, she’ll spring something on me. Like the day not too long ago when she asked me if guys really like foreplay as much as Matty seems to or if they’d rather get to the main event. And then she’d gone on to say that he spends a long time going down on her and wondered if she should feel weird about that.Holy fuck.I assured her that if she’s enjoying herself then it sounds like he knows what he’s doing. So, yeah. Not sure why I’d been surprised at all by the wordlustpopping straight out of her mouth, or that she’d consider using it as the theme for one of her paintings. “What about hate for the third piece? Maybe put lust in the middle?” I shrug. “Just a thought.”
“Oh. That’s a good idea. I’ll mull that over. But I’m liking it. There’s a thin line between love and hate… and I think lust resides right smack in the middle.” She pauses for a few seconds to set her paintbrush down. “So, what’s going on over there?” She nods at the painting I’ve been working on since last week.
I hadn’t quite known what I was doing when I started it, but now that it’s coming along, it’s made itself obvious—at least in my head. The overriding emotion that I’m attempting to demonstrate is—
“Fear. You’re totally doing fear.” Ryleigh looks at me, excited. “Am I right?”
Oh, shit.Star’s fear, to be exact. Not that Ryleigh knows whose fear I’m using as my inspiration, but I was trying to capture what I’d seen in Star’s eyes—the wild frenzy of emotion she’d radiated. It’s the feeling I got each time I experienced her panic for myself. The terror had flowed through her and shot right out of her eyes when she aimed that pepper spray at me. Absolute shock and fright had taken over her entire being at the Halloween party when she’d stared at me across the room. And last but definitely not least, the creeping, crawling anxiety upon the discovery of her ransacked room.
They say the eyes are the window to the soul. And if that’s the truth, Star’s soul is horrified by what she’s experiencing, whatever it is. She’s always on edge. Always ready to lash out to protect herself.
A voice whispers in my head,But she trusted you enough to ask you to sleep in the same bed with her. And look what you fuckin’ did.
I press my lips together, scanning over my work again. “Yeah. It’s definitely fear.”
“But not yours.” Ryleigh’s brows raise. “Because I don’t think you’re scared of anything.”
“It’s hard to be afraid of much after having experienced certain things.” When someone makes you feel so much less than. When they abuse you mentally and scar you physically. When that person is supposed to be one of the people who cares for youthe most.My throat constricts with emotion.
“Sorry. I hit a nerve.” Ryleigh blinks at me from behind her owlish glasses, which only serves to remind me of Star.
I hurt Star. I know I did. All I know is pushing people away. All I’m worth is nothing.
Ryleigh dips her brush into the paint on her tray, making slow, intentional strokes onto her canvas. “Art is great therapy. But you know, actual therapists are helpful for this sort of thing, too. I mean, I know you pour your emotions into your work already, even without this assignment. And I know you don’t like talking to people much. But maybe it would help. Or… if not that, I’m happy to listen. I hope you already knew that. But you know, if you need someone. I’m here.”
I nod and begin to work again as well. “Thanks, Ry.” It’s several more minutes before I say anything else. This isn’t abnormal for us. Not when inspiration strikes for either of us. Not when we let it take over and get lost in what we’re doing. We know better than to interrupt each other. Satisfied with what I’ve done, I pause, then wait for her to do the same. “I’ve never seen anyone. Therapy-wise, I mean.” There are certain things I just don’t talk about. Can’t.
“Um, so don’t answer if I’m being too pushy. But if this painting isn’t about you, then… who?”
The only way it’s about me is that I saw this fear, right in her eyes. My breath hitches, and I set down my tray and brush, and pick up a cloth to wipe some paint off my hands. “Does it have to be someone in particular?”
She looks at my canvas again and raises a brow. “You’re telling me that’s not personal?”
“Okay. Maybe it is.” My artalwaysmeans something. Sometimes I don’t even know what I’m doing until it’s complete and I’ve had a chance to step back and examine it. But not this time. This time, I’m well aware of what I’m painting, as every stroke of my brush across the canvas burns inside me.
