Art on Monday hadn’t been what I expected. Miss Vent had been sitting at her desk with a paintbrush in her hand until about halfway through class. The clicking of her heels was unnaturally loud for some reason and I wasn’t sure if I wanted to know why. So I kept my head down and continued to sketch the hand.
For some reason I’d decided to get a larger canvas when I had thought that doing the pier was a brilliant idea. Now I was regretting the larger canvas as I tried to sketch the hand to scale. What added to the difficulty was how delicate and pretty the hand needed to be all the while crushing something fragile. From the hand, the viewer had to see how enticing this girl was.
“You’re blocking my light,” I grumbled as a shadow covered the fine outline of what was going to be the thumb. The shadow moved back, allowing me to continue drawing. With the full outline finished, I added a thumbnail before the shadow covered what I was doing again. I turned angrily on Miss Vent, her prying eyes never leaving the drawing. “Hi…yes. I’m trying really hard to draw this.”
Miss Vent smiled, “I can see that from the attitude you gave me at first. It was nice to see you continue to be so dedicated, but…your form is a little off.”
Form? What the absolute…had she finally gone nutty?
I gave her my best smile before I turned around and started back in on the curvature of the forefinger. Fifteen excruciating minutes later, I called it a day. My hand was starting to cramp up from holding a pencil so long was the main reason. The other was because the bell would interrupt me in the middle of drawing the next finger. And that would do more than make me mad because I’d have to finish it and then be late for Speech.
As I put my pencils and such in my hiding place—yes, I hid them because I bought them and they were not cheap—, Harry walked by me and not so casually slid something into my back pocket. My eyes shut as I fought the urge to turn around and smash his face in with a vase—Miss Vent must be doing pottery in one of her classes.
Quietly I returned to my seat to gather my things before I took the thing from my pocket. A note? What kind of child slipped someone a note?
With a roll of my eyes, I opened it to see his handwriting was surprisingly neat and legible. There was almost a hint of something…it reminded me of someone else’s handwriting for some reason. I shook of the feeling quickly and read it closely:
Meet me at the field during seventh hour. –H
Field…soccer field? As in the same field that he’d won a battle in our little war? Did I honestly want to go back there?
No but something told me that I should. He may want to talk about what happened Friday, resolve it in some way. Reece or Bennett could have talked to him over the weekend or in one of the classes that we weren’t in together. Hell, there may be an apology involved!
I folded the note up and slid it back into the back pocket of my jeans. It took everything in me not to look at him to see if he was looking at me. Somehow there was this feeling that he was, in fact, staring, but I had thought that in homeroom and third hour. Every time I’d gone to check, he was busy doing something.
Homeroom had been awkward this morning. A lot of the guys didn’t know what had happened at Howie’s and if they did, they didn’t care. People were talking casually and making conversation with everyone as if they didn’t know the tension between the four of us. Bennett and I tried to keep things as light as we could, but there was something lacking. By the end of the twenty minutes, Angelina was asking me what was going on with Reece and then at the end of government, Harry. I didn’t know how to answer so I gave her a shrug and my best look of confusion.
After the bell, I was rushing out of the room, trying not to look for him or seem like I was waiting on him. I forced myself to keep busy until Speech started. This was to be, yet again, another awkward class for I sat towards the back of the room with Reece on one side, Bennett on the other, and Harry in front of Reece. We were all pretty quiet throughout the class, never looking at one another for too long if we happened to glance in that direction. The note burned in my pocket whenever I caught sight of Reece. It felt like betrayal.
But I had to talk to Harry even though I didn’t want to.
I packed up a few minutes before the bell and asked Mrs. Haymaker if I could use the restroom. With a smile and a nod, I was gone. My feet moved away from the bathrooms, away from the classrooms, away from people. It was chillier than the last time I’d been out here but nothing like those rainy days. I was comfortable in the ripped jeans and leather jacket with the slight breeze picking up my hair every so often as I walked to the opposite side bleachers. Climbing to the top, I sat down, letting my eyes wonder.
It was nice here, warm and humid. It wasn’t Louisiana hot which had always had Susanna complaining even on the chilliest of days. The girl had never really become accustomed to the heat and humidity after living in Oklahoma for the first five years of her life. Apparently a dry heat was so much nicer than a humid one. I couldn’t imagine how with record highs being in the low hundreds, but I let her have it.
Those were simpler times when I wasn’t so angry, so tired, so everything.
Creaking of the old metal bleachers guided my thought process in a new direction. It was more Harry focused in his all-black attire with those silly dog tags beating against his chest as he swung his body up the seats. The sunlight caught them every so often, making my obsession with them grow fonder.
Did he wear them all the time? Were they just for show or did they stand for something? If they did, whose tags were they?
Harry stopped on the bleacher seat one below me and sat. Casually, he leaned back so his upper back rested on the bench I was on. His eyes found my face but no words were said. My eyes turned up to the sky, admiring the few clouds here and there.
“Why’d you come?” Harry asked.
“Mr. Ferry doesn’t know how to teach,” I said without looking down at him. This time I was sure he was staring at me. His eyes burned holes into the side of my face just like he’d done the first time I’d met him. Just a week ago…Just a damned week ago. “Why’d you tell me to come?”
“I need to know why you stopped him.”
A sigh. I looked away from the clouds and down at him. He was still in that casual position without looking so casual. Tension riddled his body. The way he clenched and unclenched his jaw led me to believe that there was something more here than there had been Friday night.
“I thought you knew all about me,” I said, looking away from him and to the grassy playing field.
“That’s why I’m confused. The girl from Manchester would have kicked back and placed bets,” he said, leaning forward and turning to look at me.
Not once had I ever placed a bet on a fight. I had enjoyed watching them but never enjoyed the outcome. No one knew that as well as Lottie and Gemma because they were the two I could fall back on when Louis had bruised knuckles and a cracked lip. Everything about Manchester was toxic for me.
“I’m not the girl from Manchester, Styles,” I said. He eyed me for a moment as if he expected something more. So I took a moment to move down beside him and got as close as he had yesterday, then I said, “I’m the girl from New Orleans.”
&&&
It's so short. I'm so sorry but that's exactly how I wanted to end the chapter.
Dedication to maddie_styles07 for adding this to her library. Thanks for being super chill!
xoxo
(Get your friends here! It'll be great to be able to talk to them about what you're reading about! Don't be scared to predict what's going to happen next! It's all part of the fun!)
Also comments get dedications!
YOU ARE READING
Nightmare {h.s | au}
Fanfiction"I soon realized the only thing to be scared of was me."
