Smoking gun

Artist

Tuesday.
I arrived at school ten minutes early. And I met my friends at our morning spot. There's a little porch at our school by the back door. On one side there's lots of grass and on the other side there's just brick. We stand the corner with brick in the shade. This morning it's no more than 35 degrees F. I pull my leather jacket tighter around me. Andrew frowns "you look cold." Duh, I think in my head. Andrew is so thoughtful though. He puts his arm around me and rubs my shoulders. " So," Ian starts."Kat wants me to take her with us." Everyone stares at him, our attention held by such a frightening thought. Andrew glares at Ian and said"How the hell did she even find out?"
Ian looks a little bashful. "So I wrote Mary a note yesterday about the trip and stuck it in her locker, you know? Cuz she had to leave early?" "Get to the chase." Snaps Kai. " well I don't know how, but Kat found it. Mary forgot something and asked her to get it for her." "And she read it?" I ask. "What ever happened to privacy?" I mutter. Just then Kat skips up to us, with an unusually cheery demeanor. " I'm sooo excited for our road trip guys!!!"she practically squeals in my ear.
We collectively sigh and turn to Kat. "Me too!!!" I exclaim,Hoping my fake smile is enough to convince her she's wanted. I scoot over to let her into the circle. It would be so cruel to turn her away....

                            It's lunch time and My mind wanders to Dean and our little kiss as he leans on the brick wall across from me. It's so funny how we haven't talked about it. I don't really need to. We've never really had to. No matter what we're doing we just have this unspoken connection. He looks up and smiles at me..... his dark hair is getting kinda long, but it's okay, I like it that way. It suits him. He has such deep blue eyes.....I sigh to myself wishing we had more time to ourselves. After lunch I put my stuff back in my locker and in the bottom there's a little drawing. It's from Dean , he must have been inspired by Kai's mistake . It's a little pencil sketch of a Marlboro cigarette box filled with little flowers.
It's so cute. It's shockingly well drawn. He signed it in beautiful cursive........

It's time for art class, a silly extracurricular class taught by a sweet old lady who lets us do whatever we want, as long as it's art related. Dean and I sit next to each other as the class starts. We get to choose between making bracelets or pencil sketching. Dean chooses sketching and I follow suit. After a few minutes of watching him sketch out the beginning of a wolf, I tug on his sleeve and whisper to him. "Teach me to draw like you". He smiles a mischievous smile and whispers back "what should I teach you first?" "Teach me how to draw a flower, a rose". I say thinking of the sketch sitting in my locker right now. I was already a pretty great artist. I loved to sketch. That's something dean and I have in common.....but I still was excited when he showed me how to draw a rose. He wrapped his fingers over mine and lightly traced lines.... ... after I started drawing on my own, he began a sketch himself. And while he sketched with one hand the other crept under the table and landed on my thigh. Without once glancing at me , he massaged my leg with his thumb,like it was second nature. His long black hair fell into his eyes as he drew. It amazes me how he draws without thought, it just flows from his fingers .he does hold the pen somewhat awkwardly though his fingers are so long that he holds the pencil with his middle finger instead of his pointer.At some point Kat who was sitting on my other side, must have noticed deans hand on my thigh because she was practically bristling,and her rage seemed directed towards me. I unphased  ,gleefully Smiled inwardly. I never knew that Kat liked Dean..... this road trip was going to be killer.

                   It's finally dismissal and today is our day to hang out in the woods by the school parking lot. We always meet there to drink and talk. We have a few camping chairs permanently sitting in our spot. No one else knows about this spot, only the selected few who we like. And Kat, she followed me there last week. I made her swear not to tell anyone, or else the whole thing would be ruined. She still seems bitter towards me, but I've decided to act innocent until otherwise necessary. My usual move. As we walk over to our spot I see Andrew carrying a bag with a few bottles, and Kai  laughing at some joke that I didn't hear. As Kat and I walk towards them Andrew announces "the girls are here" to the rest of the crew. There are only about 7 people here. More than usual actually. I see Andrew , Kai , Ian, Dean and Rose.
Andrew is looking at me with a kind of weird look in his eyes, but I shrug off the thought.Dean calls my name, and just as I'm about to go to him, Andrew taps my shoulder and asks me to help him get something from the car. So we walk back to the lot and chat about school, and once we get to the car he pops open the trunk and hands me my favorite, Schweppes with a baby liquor bottle with lime infused vodka. I swear I squealed! "How did you know?!it's my absolute favorite!!!" Andrew shrugs and flashes me a winning smile. He steps closer.  I know what he's going to do, but I still don't drop my gaze. I look him right in the eyes, I can't drop my facade of dominance. Something tells me he's already seen through my defensive show of strength....he without faltering , without breaking eye contact he gets up close to me, my back is against his truck and in that moment I left reality. I escape into my mind and time slows as I think..... I'm not stupid, I know Andrew likes me, but I don't want him.This wasn't a surprise, I knew this was coming.  How would this benefit me? I don't think it would. He kisses me snapping me back to reality . I'm looking right into his eyes.... He's a sweet guy, I can't hurt him. Why don't I like him? He's a great guy,he's hot,he's everything I deserve. Why don't I like him?damn it! What about Dean?....at that same moment I see a blurred fist hit Andrew his lips are jerked off my lips and Deans fist comes dangerously close to my face. I blow out a deep breath, this is my fault for being careless. Dean looks up at me unashamed. "You fucking knew I liked her!" He shouted at Andrew. I should feel guilty, why don't I?..... ( I should have known better, this was a warning......)