Chapter Nineteen
A few weeks had gone by since halloween, truth be told things had been a bit awkward between Harry and I since that night. Of course he still made his ludicrous banter with me and made fun of how I could never think of what to paint next but some sort of weird vibe continued to lay between us. Liam hadn't exactly kept his distance either, he continued to walk me to class and insist I had to come over and help him practice for basketball. I had strange feeling we would be doing something much different than passing around a basketball. None the less, I continued to tell him maybe sometime soon. I had sat with Harry at lunch only one more time just because Charlotte was out sick that day and I wasn't exactly thrilled with the idea of sitting across from Liam and Niall as they talked basketball.
My days at the park had come to an end as the weather had taken a turn for the worse and the breeze was way to cold to stay out. Matter of the fact, it was dark by the time I had finished my homework. I visited Harry a few times at the diner each time he would just take one glance at the fact I had come in and he'd come back out with my coffee. It truly amazed me how he picked up such silly things. He wouldn't stay long to chat but none the less any conversation with him made me happy.
As I walked out the door that morning my Mother had called me back into the kitchen, she sounded quite thrilled matter factly.
"Mom, I'm gonna be late." I groaned dropping my bag on the island and walking towards her into the kitchen.
"You're never gonna guess what came in the mail." She smiled greedily.
"Another college application?" I replied.
"No, silly." She rolled her eyes, just like a teenager. She turned the paper in her hand around as I read the first few words;
Dear Miss Fray,
We are excited to notify you that you have been selected to show an honorary piece of art at the local art show on November 16th, 2014.
My Mom flipped the paper around and continued to read the print as I just stood their listening to her words. I should have felt excited, I had wanted this ever since I was a freshmen with silly little doodles in her notebook. I had a solemn feeling in my stomach. The only thing I could think about was whether Harry had gotten the letter too.
"Isn't this great?" My Mom smiled pulling me into a hug.
"I haven't even finished one painting since the year began." I shrugged letting go of her body.
"You've still got until this saturday, I'm sure you'll be fine." She reassured. "But, Alex. This is such an honor, you've wanted this since you were a little girl."
"I guess now that it's happened it doesn't feel real." I said walking back over to grab my bag from the island.
"It'll sink in eventually." She spoke. "Do you think Charlotte recieved one?"
"Doubt it." Charlotte was wonderful but her art was kind of the opposite. She tried and tried but her artistic vision was lets say, lacking.
"Okay, well have a good day at school sweetheart." She told me. I nodded giving her another smile before I headed towards my car for the drive to school.
_______
When lunch finally came around I was feeling antsy. Charlotte hadn't mentioned anything about recieving a letter but yet I really wanted to announce the good news. I had hoped when we had finally all sat down to lunch the oppurtunity would fall into my lap.
"Hey, Alex." Niall greeted as I sat next to Charlotte at the lunch table. It was too cold to sit in the court yard any longer so we'd moved back inside to one of the tables in the middle of the lunch room. The only disadvantage was it was quite close to where Harry sketched all alone. The idea of sitting with him taunted me through the whole lunch, it was rather distracting.
