3 Sides to a Circle

by Janna Watts

  Reds and oranges are spread together in what seems like a big mess, but as I look closer, I can see a person behind them. An eye, a nose, half a face on the four-foot tall canvas. In the thinnest lines separating this person’s face from the shocking colors, he’s captured something so intense that I don’t have words. I’m not sure what he used to put the paint on the canvas, but even the idea that this emotion came from him, and that I can see the strokes of paint, lays him more bare than I’ve probably ever felt. Now I just hope people recognize what a genius he is when they see what he’s created.

  I glance back at Sawyer with wide eyes.

  His body is rigid, and his hands are in his pockets as he watches, making me wonder how long I’ve been standing here staring. His jacket is off, and his trendy plaid shirt is rolled to the elbows giving him a sort of funky vibe that I don’t even think he tries for.

  I continue to take in each painting, and I’ve been standing long enough that my feet hurt. I can’t believe this night is still happening. I can’t believe I asked to come here and that he brought me and that I don’t feel terrified to be alone with him. And the longer I look at his paintings, I start to realize that these people posed for him, just like I do in front of the camera, but not one of these feels impersonal. My perception of being the object begins to shift.

  “These are…” I’m not completely positive how to continue. “Really, really incredible.”

  It’s the first time I’ve seen confidence fade from his face. I finally let my coat slide off and I set it on a chair, and my eyes focus on each one again. On the mess of shelves with buckets of paint and small bottles of paint and brushes.

  I tilt my head to the side and sigh as I see a blue-green and a couple outlined with foreheads together. The comfort, love, and passion, even in blues and greens, squeeze my chest and sort of rocket Sawyer into maybe the most amazing person I’ve ever met—even though I know so little about him. It’s that I feel like I know him deeper than all the checklist stuff of where he grew up and how many siblings he has and what he eats for breakfast, because I’m looking at his artwork and I’m getting it. For real.

  “No one actually looks. Or very few people do,” he says quietly.

  “How can they not?” As soon as the words are out, and he smiles, I realize it’s the perfect compliment for him.

  I’m not sucking at this. Finally. And a little part of me wishes Libby could see because I know she’d be proud.

  “Let me show you my favorite.” He reaches out his hand and I take it, even though the room isn’t all that large and I probably don’t need him to lead me anywhere.

  Just like when we brush against each other, that delightful warm, electric feeling runs through my hand and up my arm, and it’s almost as if I’m really liking someone for the first time ever, rather than being with someone because I’m lonely or because it’s convenient, which has been my experience until now. Again, I chose this. To come here. And then the more unbelievable thing—he seems to want me here too.

  We walk next to his bed, navy blue sheets in a tangled mess and a tan comforter in a heap at the bottom. He snatches the comforter up over the sheets and I start to wonder what he wants from me. If this was all just something to get me here…

  “What…?” I stop, ready to back away.

  “No.” He points to the ceiling. “Up there, but to really see it, you have to be here.” He jumps into his bed and scoots against the wall, staring up at the ceiling.

  “So. This is how you get girls in your bed?” I tease as I take a step closer, but there’s some truth to my question as well. He could just be really good at the ‘getting to know you’ phase of dating.

  “It’s not like that.” He frowns a little, almost like I’ve offended him. “I painted this a few years ago. My dad was diagnosed with cancer my first year here, and I painted this to help me calm down enough to sleep at the end of the day. He’s fine now, but it was still scary being away when he and my mom were going through that.”

  My heart thumps a few solid times as I slowly sit on the edge of his bed, and then it takes a few deep breaths before I can calm my heart enough to lie down, as far away from Sawyer as I can be and still be on his bed.

  His fingers slide through mine again, and he points at the large portrait of his father, barely edged out of the masses of blues and yellows.

  Panic creeps in again at how intimate it all is, but Sawyer gives me a squeeze, which incredibly, slows my heart down a little more.

  Neither of us speaks, we just look at this painting of his dad, whose outline is startlingly like Sawyers. He probably sort of understands what it’s like for me to have my dad so far away after going through that.

  “Thank you,” I whisper, still staring.

  Sawyer turns to look at me, but I’m engrossed in the painting because right now, lying on his bed, I’m trying to slow it all down and take one step at a time.

  “For what?” he asks.

  “Letting me come here. Letting me look. This is very…” I swallow once, hard, to try to get out what I want to say. “This is just… It’s all you and personal and thank you.”

  His thumb traces over the back of my hand a few times sending more waves through me. “I wanted you to see. And I feel like you’ve done more than just see.”

  I have done more than that. I feel like I’ve experienced him, or his art, or both. Finally I turn to face him and instead of panicking like I almost expected to do, I smile and squeeze his hand. “I miss my dad. He’s in the Middle East, and this just made me think about him a little.”

  “You must miss him and be worried about him all at the same time. I get that.”

  And I knew he would. I lie on my side, needing to see Sawyer now more than the painting. And lying on his bed together like this, smelling him on his pillowcase, and holding his hand should be scaring me more, but it’s not. He’s so much more exposed in this moment than I am.

  Sawyer’s eyes travel over my face, and he lets go of my hand to trace lines on my palm and up my arm. His eyes follow the trail of his fingers for a while before finding my face again.

  “I want to know everything about you,” he says.

  And before giving my brain a chance to lock up on me, I start to talk. And he talks. And there’s so much for us to tell each other. Like, he’s missed out on my whole life so far, and I want to catch him up. I talk about growing up on the ocean because my dad’s always been in the Navy, and how moving around is supposed to make you all out-going, but it has sort of done the opposite for me. And that I’m an only child, which sometimes makes me sad.

  “And I model.” I pause to see his reaction, but he’s still just listening, and I’m not even sure what prompted me to tell him. I wouldn’t have told Libby or Toby if it hadn’t been forced by my Skype session. “Like I’m trying to decide if I want to do it for a living because I think it would be…terrifying, but maybe very cool. But it’s still more terrifying than cool.”

  “You’ve done this a while?” Sawyer doesn’t get all weird and embarrassed like Toby did, just watches and listens.

  “Since I can remember.” I smile. “Colgate ads, and book covers, and some print stuff, and my big deal was a denim campaign for Seven Jeans last year, which maybe opened doors.”

  “I can see this weird sort of fear on your face. Does it scare you to jump into that world?” he asks quietly. “Because it sounds brutal and I’m not sure I could do it.”

  Again. He gets it.

  “My mom is…beyond excited, you know? I’m still on the fence, but leaning that way.” And I didn’t even know I was leaning that way until the words left my mouth. “The problem is that I don’t feel like a person when someone is taking my picture, and I don’t like it. It’s not even that I’m exposed, it’s that I’m de-humanized for a while, and it feels…not good. Not yet.”

  “I have to say that I think it’s kinda cool you’re this super hot girl who digs math.” He smiles, but it’s relaxed and I take ano
ther deep breath and let myself sink farther into his bed. “And I bet for a photographer, you’re art, you know?”

  “Maybe.” It’s something to keep thinking about anyway.

  And then I just keep talking, and he keeps talking. I tell him about how often people think I’m snobby when I’m really just terrible around new people and then hope that he realizes that’s why I sometimes freeze. And he listens, and he doesn’t interrupt except to ask a few questions because he’s actually interested.

  I learn a million things about Sawyer too.

  He and his mom talk enough for him to laugh when she texts instead of cringe.

  His dad appreciates his art and supports him even though he doesn’t totally understand it. He runs a construction company, and Sawyer’s helped build more houses than he can count.

  At the age of twenty-one, and with his hotness and artistic ability, he’s only slept with two girls—both of who he claims broke him when they left. There’s no weirdness when I tell him about the two guys I’ve been with. Stereotypical jock hotties, and not the kind of guy I’d want to be with again.

  The biggest thing is that we’re lying on his bed, holding hands, and he hasn’t made one move to kiss me. It speaks volumes.

  Our lifetimes pass between us in the space of a few hours.

  I stare at the side of his face as he once again studies the painting that he knows in more detail than anyone else ever will. He painted it. He knows the story behind each brush stroke and every line and its purpose, and he lies here most nights and stares at it.

  “I’m okay if you want to kiss me,” I say, because after learning about him inside and out, I want more. I want to be a part of who he is.

  His eyes flash toward mine. “Be careful what you ask for. First kisses only happen once. It’s this thing that you can’t do over, can’t take back, and living in that great space of anticipation is a very cool thing.”

  I think about how many parts of that statement Libby would disagree with. I think about my first girl kiss, and I think about how different it would be to kiss Sawyer. “Thought a lot about this?”

  “How about we have our first sleepover, since it’s morning anyway, and a first kiss on the cheek?” His fingers brush across my cheek and slide my hair behind my ear. “Because I’m not sure how much self-control I’m likely to have if our first kiss is on my bed. And we can say that we want to anticipate that moment for a little longer.”

  “Okay. Maybe on the cheek then.” I point as I smile even though I’m sort of amazed by this guy and want more, and that’s a first.

  He grins and leans in, but I turn my face and catch his lips with mine. His kiss is soft and unhurried, even though his lips are barely parted. He turns until his cheek is resting on my face, his eyes still closed, and our lips so close they almost touch. I almost lean in again but I start to feel what he meant. The anticipation of really kissing him soaks through me, and maybe I do want to live in that space for a while.

  When he pulls away he lets out a long sigh, opens his eyes and smiles. “Well played, Honor. Well played.”

  I’m high from being next to him, but the warmth of Sawyer and the exhaustion from my crazy night are starting to pull me under.

  His fingers slide down the side of my face again as he whispers, “One day you’re going to let me paint you.”

  “I’m not ready for that.” And I’m not. I think about how intense it is to just be around him, but to also have him paint my soul the way he does with his other models? Too much. Too soon. But at least the thought of it doesn’t feel as weird as the first time he mentioned painting me. I’m getting somewhere.

  He’s careful to kiss my cheek as he leans over again. “Just tell me when you are.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Toby

  I’m shaking as I walk in the opposite direction of the stoplight. Shaking. It’s like everything I want is so close, but I can’t figure out how to get it. It keeps twirling away from me like Libby on the dance floor.

  I should’ve known she would’ve pulled something like this. I don’t want to hate her. I like Libby way too much to hate her. I like Libby too much to stay sane. But Jesus, my head hurts when I’m around her. She’s so many steps ahead of me, I feel like I can barely catch up.

  I’m suddenly exhausted. From the night. From the party. From the energy required to spend time with two girls who are way out of my league. The air outside is cold enough that my eyes actually water a little when I head down Main Street. Campus is the other direction, but I’m starving and don’t want to go back to the dorms yet. I thought a single room would be awesome. Which it is. But there are times that the aloneness of it is overwhelming. Especially on a Saturday night when everyone is gone.

  I stop at the Kwik Mart and buy two Butterfingers, which I devour in less than three minutes. There’s a midnight movie fest going on in the lounge of the dorm, but mostly it’s gonna be the D&D crowd who basically takes over the lounge every weekend and I’m not up for it. So I guess it’s the library.

  Here’s the cool thing about our library. Five floors that actually get progressively quieter as you move up. So everyone’s yammering on the first floor and it’s sort of the place to study break. It’s got all these study lofts and couches and it’s like a giant PeeWee’s Playhouse for college kids. The second floor is for people who are maybe working on projects together or whatever. By the time you get to the fifth floor, it’s so quiet you can’t even open a granola bar without getting the death glare from people studying there. And forget about actually eating it. Most people on the fifth floor are pulling all-nighters and the only sound allowed is pencil on paper, fingers on keyboard, or page-turning. That’s also where the really good books are kept. The collector’s items.

  The library’s open twenty-four hours during the semester. And it’s never weird to be seen there no matter when it is.

  I’m walking toward it from Berry Street when a car pulls along side me. I lean over to see who stopped, but before I can even get a good look at faces, two of them are out their doors and on me. My face splits in half on the first impact of knuckles to cheek. It stings like nothing I’ve ever felt and I taste blood. I raise my hands to cover my face, and I’m hit in the stomach so hard I double over. Then pushed. And kicked. In my back. In my face. I’m screaming and can’t see because my eyes are squeezed too tight from the pain. Pain I can’t imagine getting much worse.

  The guys are yelling at me, but I can’t make out what they’re saying. My ears are flooded with my own screams and the blood coursing through my body and onto the sidewalk. Every time I move or roll to protect myself, they come at me again. And I think I’m going to die. I’m sure of it because every part of me hurts. My breath is ragged and tears are possibly coming out of the corners of my eyes, but I can’t tell because of the blood on my face. I start to go numb from the pain, and I think they might actually be slowing down until the bat comes out, and then it’s a crippling swing at my side followed by blackness.

  I wake up in the hospital and everything feels impossibly heavy and excruciating. Like I can’t even pretend this is anything close to fine. I blink and it hurts. There’s an IV drip connected to me, and I watch as a nurse comes in to adjust it. I can’t breathe right. Only short shallow breaths. The nurse writes something down and when she opens the door to leave, I see Honor and Libby in the hall. It’s a brief glance. No more then fifteen seconds as the door closes again. It’s fuzzy because I don’t have my glasses, but I think I see Honor in tears and Libby freaking out and flapping her arms at a cop who is standing next to her.

  Then my eyelids get too heavy, and I’m back into morphine-induced bliss.

  They release me with three cracked ribs, a face that looks like someone used me as a punching bag, and enough valium to last me through the rest of the semester. Mom came down for a day when I finally got the strength up to call her, but I sent her back to Nebraska. Nothing to be done and she has my siblings to watch over.

&nbs
p; Libby bursts into my room the minute I get back to the dorm.

  “Everyone is talking about it. They’re even talking about doing an open forum about town-gown relations. Apparently, this isn’t the first attack.”

  I rub my hand over my eyes beneath my glasses and sit carefully on my bed. “I know. The police told me. So did the university president. They need to stop making such a big deal out of this.”

  Libby gapes at me. She huffs and paces and a light tap at my door brings Honor in.

  “How are you feeling?”

  I smile, but I’m sure it looks messed up because of the state of my face. “Like someone came at me with a bat.”

  Libby swirls around. “Don’t be flippant about this. This was a hate crime.”

  “Don’t be so dramatic, Libby.”

  “It was. They thought you were gay. They wrote DIE FAG on your arms.”

  This is the worst part, I think. On a lot of levels. Not that I was mistaken for a gay guy, but that I’m going to a school in a town with such open animosity toward gay people. It’s like being in small-town Nebraska all over again. And it means that really no one is safe. I can’t help thinking about Libby kissing Honor and now instead of turned on, I’m just scared.

  “I don’t want this to be a big production. I want to go back to classes and try to make up my work. I want to finish the semester. I want to be…”

  Safe.

  I don’t say it, but it hangs between us and I know that Honor, at least, sees it in my face.

  “You should be pissed off,” Libby says. “I’m pissed off for you. I mean I’ve been all over the cops in getting them to find these guys.”

  “How’s that working out for you?” I catch Honor’s eyes and she gives me a small smile. We both can guess what the cops think of our purple-haired pixie friend.

  “They’re stonewalling me. Which is why I want to get the administration involved.” Libby’s pacing again.