Page 9 of Iced Out
I arched a brow. “And Luke?”
Avery sighed. “Still untouchable. Still angry. Still acts like he’s above it all.” She paused. “But he saw you this morning. And trust me—it shook him.”
I nodded once. The memory of that muscle jumping in his jaw came swift on the heels of her words. “Good.”
Her gaze flicked over me. “Careful. Elise might run the socials, but Luke controls the oxygen. When they both target the same person?”
“I become the battlefield.”
“Exactly.”
We stopped outside the classroom. Avery looked at me, a flicker of something serious threading through the teasing. “Don’t let her shrink you. You used to walk these halls like you owned them. You want back in? Take it. And, Mila?” Her hand briefly rested on my arm. “It’s good to have you back.”
I didn’t say thank you. I didn’t need to. Because in that moment, for the first time today, I wasn’t completely alone.
Later during the day, we ended up in the same art class, one of the few places that still felt like mine. She sat at the station beside me, muttering about how she could barely sketch a stick figure. I rolled my eyes, pulled out my sketchbook, and let the rest of the world fade.
The air in the studio always smelled of dusty graphite, earthy oil paints, and the pungent bite of turpentine. Chalk dust clung to the floor. Sunlight poured through the tall windows, bouncing off metal stools and wide-plank hardwood. It wasn’t fancy, but it was sacred. A place where everything else faded.
Our current project was a portrait series—faces, expressions, the little betrayals written across them.
Avery slouched two stools over with a graphite pencil in her mouth and a sketchpad she clearly hadn’t opened. She looked up as I slid into my seat and offered a two-fingered salute, her grin easy. “Let’s pretend I know what I’m doing.”
I smirked. “Fake it till you make it.”
“Fake it till they pass me so I never have to take this elective again,” she muttered, flipping her sketchpad upside down like the pencil lines might rearrange themselves.
I dropped my bag, pulled out my sketchbook, and braced myself. The spine was peeling, its edges frayed. The cover was battered, marked with smudges of charcoal and the faded remnants of a coffee stain.
I flipped through slowly.
A sparring match from the gym below the apartment we lived in last year. Muscle, sweat, rage in motion. A guy with a split lip frozen mid-swing, the blur of gloves I’d rendered with fast, loose lines. Shading where the overhead light cast harsh shadows across his spine.
Then another page—waves crashing against the shore, gulls caught mid-flight. Feet in the foreground, mine, half-submerged as a wave receded. I’d drawn the moment between stillness and pull, how the ocean always felt hungry for something from you.
“Damn,” Avery muttered, leaning over. “I’ve always envied your talent.”
I shrugged. “Drawing helps me make sense of things, that’s all.”
“Should I be concerned if my sketch of this apple looks like a lumpy kidney?” she asked, rotating her paper for me to see.
I choked on a laugh. “First of all, it’s upside down.”
She blinked. “Oh. That explains nothing, but thank you.”
I nudged her with my elbow then turned a few more pages.
Luke. Dozens of sketches of him, scattered like confessions. Profiles. Frontal angles. Full-body shots on the ice. I’d drawnhis smirk once—crooked and smug, as if he knew something you didn’t. His eyes more than once. The way he leaned on one foot, the way he always looked like he was moving even when he was still.
And always, his jaw. It was my favorite part to sketch. Clean, defined, and carved from intent. I’d shaded it so many times the graphite had rubbed off on the opposite page.
I paused. Then turned to a blank sheet.
This Luke was different. The softness I used to know had been carved out, replaced with angles and armor. His silence didn’t just guard him now—it warned everyone else. Even the way he looked at me felt foreign. Like I was a threat. Or worse, a regret.
Even his eyes were colder now—still blue, still beautiful, but no longer forgiving. His hair was slightly longer at the top, his posture more rigid. I sketched the angle of his shoulders first—broader than before. The slope of his neck. The tension in his jawline. I added the shadows under his cheekbones, the set of his mouth that rarely relaxed anymore.
My pencil scratched out the truth in strokes and smears. Smudged the edge of his jaw with my thumb. Used the side of the graphite stick to deepen the hollows of his throat. Layered crosshatching over the collar of his shirt, remembering how he looked that morning in the cafeteria—eyes blazing, a warning flare.
