by Susan Wu
A tiny V forms in between his eyebrows, his concern clear in his tone, “What did she do?”
I sigh, feeling defeated, “It’s nothing I wouldn’t expect from her. But she just took things too far. I couldn’t let her get away with it.”
He snorts, “You mean Mackenzie isn’t as sweet as she lets on?” Ethan steps around me, picks up my bag, and hands it to me. I slip it on over my left shoulder, my right arm throbbing from Mackenzie’s sucker punch with her extremely heavy purse. My eyes unwillingly travel up to the balloons curled against the ceiling, their ribbons just out of my reach.
Ethan’s gaze follows and he leaps up, grabbing the strings. “So,” he hands them to me without reading the card. His voice is steady, but I think I see a brief flash of emotion in his normally cool blue stare, “Who asked you to Homecoming?”
He runs his right hand through his hair, moving the chestnut strands out of his eyes. His penetrating stare is unwavering, like he is trying to draw the answer right from my brain. I adjust the strap of my book bag and try to look anywhere but at him, “It doesn’t matter who it is.”
“Why is that, Fallon?”
“I'm not planning on going,” I reply curtly. Why am I even entertaining his questions? I just want to go home and let this awful day disappear behind me.
“Someone clearly wants you to go with him. Plus it’s the social event of the season. Or the only event... Everest Heights isn’t exactly a happening place.” For every other girl at Everest Heights High School, school dances were the highlight of the school year. Why couldn’t I be more like them? The reason I was even a target for Mackenzie was because of my outsider status.
I manage a shrug, “I'm not into dancing.”
Ethan gestures toward the balloons, “Well, it looks like you're gonna be disappointing someone today.”
Only myself because I let myself think it was true. “Mmm, maybe. But he doesn't really know what he wants anyway.”
He raises an eyebrow, “And you know what you want?”
I am taken by surprise by his bluntness. No one is ever that direct with me. I pause to contemplate this before I respond, “Sometimes, I think I know what I want. But then again, we don’t always get what we want.”
“No, I guess we don’t.” The longing in his voice is evident. For once, I wish I knew how to comfort him.
This is getting too intense for me, my voice comes out too breathy as I make my escape, “I should really get to class.”
He nods absently, picking his own book bag off the ground. “Yeah, me too.”
“Thanks for, uh... your assistance. I lost my cool. Let Mackenzie get to me, but you’re right. Mackenzie isn’t worth getting expelled over.”
“Yeah, sure thing. Take care of yourself, Fallon.” Suddenly, he reaches out and his fingertips brush against my cheekbone sweeping off a stray lock of my hair. Every nerve in my body is on alert and my intake of breath is sharp in my ears. Then just as quickly, his hand falls back to his side. Did that really happen? I can still feel the tingle of his skin against mine.
“You too. I’ll see you around, Ethan.”
I turn away without waiting for him to respond and start walking down the empty stretch of hallway. I can feel Ethan's gaze on me as I make my way to the foreign language corridor. As soon as I am out of his line of vision, I make a detour exiting the building near the parking lot. Standing in the gentle fall breeze, I release the balloons into the sky, the tainted note floating away with the balloons. As they recede into the sky, I will my desires to float away with them. I have to stay away from Ethan Hayes.
I am thoroughly exhausted by the time my studio Art class rolls around. Even my usually steady hand betrays me today. I am redrawing the same arch for what seems like the hundredth time when the bell rings signaling the end of 6th period. Squinting at the page, I am still dissatisfied and carefully erase the arch once again.
Not moving from the drafting table, I channel all my focus into my project. I have no desire to be in the lunchroom today, not even for a brief minute to buy a sandwich. I don't think I can handle another in depth analysis of this past weekend's game. But honestly, I didn’t want to risk running into Ethan or worse--running into Ethan with Mackenzie. The art room sits empty during 7th period so I can continue to work in peace. The classroom door squeaks open and my pencil slips from its path along the curve once again.
Frustrated, I throw down my pencil and look up to glare at my disruption. Ethan is standing in the doorway and the accusation flies out of my mouth before I can stop myself, “What do you think you're doing in here?”
Disbelief flashes across his expression. “I'm sorry, I didn't know I needed your permission,” he replies, his voice equally hostile. “But this is a small school and there's only one room with a potter's wheel.”
“Shouldn’t you be eating lunch with Mackenzie?”
“Shouldn’t you be eating lunch with Sam?” he mutters under his breath.
He is being exasperating on purpose and I can’t blame him. I wouldn’t put up with my crappy behavior either. I close my eyes and take a deep breath, attempting to soften my expression and my tone, “I’m sorry, that didn’t come out right. What I meant is that I didn’t expect to see anyone else in here.”
“I didn’t know I was interrupting but don’t worry I won’t be bothering you,” he says petulantly. It’s so different from his normal friendly demeanor, I have to bite the inside of my cheek to keep from smiling.
Ethan stomps deliberately across the classroom and hangs up his black leather jacket, snatching a clay speckled, black rubber apron off the hook by the potter's wheel. He makes a point of moving the chair around, dragging it so the legs clatter against the linoleum floor so that he can sit with his back to me.
His presence is more surprising than annoying. Since his back is turned I can stare openly at the back of his head. The overhead lights bring out the golden quality of his chestnut hair as he adjusts the potter wheel. I desperately try to think of something to say to make him forget my rude behavior but I never had a gift for words.
“I really am sorry, Ethan. My behavior is... I don’t know how to... If you haven’t noticed I am kinda of a social idiot.”
Ethan doesn’t turn around but replies with a snort, “You aren’t exactly bashful when it comes to saying what’s on your mind. It's okay, Fallon. I’m sorry too. I shouldn't have snapped back like that.”
“My brain to mouth filter doesn’t work very well,” I confess.
“I would disagree with that.”
“Really? You think I filter myself?” I can be much more candid when his head is turned in the other direction and his eyes aren’t inspecting me.
“All the time. I can practically see your mind whirring.”
His observation takes me by surprise. He hardly knows me. How would he know what I’m really thinking? “Well then I guess I don’t do a very good job of filtering. Sorry once again for my boorishness. We are two mature people, capable of working cordially in the same room.”
Ethan nods in agreement as he pulls out a lump of wet clay from a container, carefully weighing it in his hands. He pulls a little more clay out of the container and rolls them together with his hands. He places the hunk of clay onto the wheel and begins to shape it into a ball. I am mesmerized by his beautiful hands as they mold the clay.
After a few minutes of working the clay, Ethan asks gruffly without turning around or moving his hands from the clay, “What are you working on?”
I look down at the dreaded arch on my drawing board, “Just a rendering.”
“What’s your subject?”
“Arc de Triomphe.”
“How’s it coming along?”
I turn the drawing on it’s side, tilting my head to gauge the lightly penciled in curve. This angle is impossible. “I’m not making much progress. Actually, I am starting to feel quite defeated by it.”
“I seriously doubt that.” I can hear the smile in his voice.
<
br /> “I’m having trouble getting the angle of this arch right. When I close my eyes I can see the line perfectly, but my hand doesn’t seem to be cooperating with my brain today.”
He stops spinning the wheel to turn around and look at me, his voice softening, “That drawing in your notebook the other day... You have an incredible talent.”
I look away, my face feeling hot. I had never liked to show people my artwork. My talent was part of my... irregularity. “It was just a doodle,” I say dismissively.
“Well, it was an amazing doodle.”
“Thank you,” I reply, a shy smile spreading across lips in response.
“So have you been to see the Arc?”
“No. I haven’t really left the Midwest much.”
“My dad is half French. My family lived there for a couple years when I was young. My parents tried to rear me the French way. My grandmother still lives in Paris. We used to visit almost every year. The architecture? Magnifiques.”
Sophia was right, his French accent really was impeccable. I see him out of the corner of my eye as he turns back and starts up the wheel again. His interrogation is over for now and internally, I let out a small sigh of relief. My eyes continue to watch as his hands shape the lump of clay. With Ethan, I have no idea what the future holds. The thought is terrifying.
Ethan and I walk quietly to Psychology together. Our shoulders almost touch in the crowded hallway as we make our way through the throngs of students milling around before the next bell. Emma almost walks into a locker as she stares, openmouthed at us walking past. I almost want to laugh at the preposterousness of the situation.
Ethan holds the door open for me. As we make our way to the back corner of the classroom, the chatter dies down. They turn around and only stare as Ethan takes the desk in front of mine. The bell rings and the class turns around, once again buzzing. There is also a flurry of texting under the desks. The outcast and the new boy sitting together. After my blow out with Mackenzie, Ethan sitting with me is the height of scandal. I peak over at Ethan and he is nonplussed, pulling out his Psychology book from his bag.
Our substitute hands out a worksheet to be completed by an accompanying DVD. Trying to concentrate, I force my eyes to focus on the grainy image on the projection screen in front of the classroom. But Ethan is fidgeting in his seat, he keeps running his hand through his hair or tapping his pen against his notebook as he waits for the answers to the questionnaire.
I am distracted by the movement of his elegant hands. After working in the art room, his hands are speckled with bits of dried clay. I find myself wondering how his hands would feel against my skin.
When the bell rings today, Ethan is prepared for me to bolt. He has his bag slung over his shoulder and is standing by his desk, waiting patiently for me. I put my things away with deliberate slowness, hoping he'll give up and leave. I delay as long as I can but eventually I have to get up. He stands to the side so that I have to brush past him to get through the narrow aisles between the desk. As I leave the classroom, he is trailing right behind me.
As we walk to my locker, he is fiddling with the strap of his bag. “You know I was thinking about what you said about saving the planet and all. So I walked to school today. Let me walk you home, Fallon.”
His uncertain expression almost breaks my resolve. He looks downright adorable. I concentrate on twisting in my locker combination, “I don't need to be walked home.”
Ethan doesn’t respond but he also doesn’t move from his position, leaning casually against the locker next to mine. He just watches wordlessly as I pull out the books I need for the night and stuff them in my bag. I grab my jacket and put it on hastily not bothering to zip it. Walking at a fast clip, I push through the front door into the cold autumn air, turning left to walk home.
My shadow is still with me. Ethan is nothing if not persistent.
Ethan easily keeps pace next to me, walking with an easy confidence. He grins widely at me, “What a coincidence. I live this way as well.”
I roll my eyes and keep walking. Ethan continues trying to make conversation.
“How’s your English project going? Is Sam pulling his weight?”
“Sam’s smarter than you think,” I reply, my tone defensive.
His tone changes immediately, “I didn’t say he wasn’t. I work with Sam every day in Bio.”
My reply is crisp, “I can read between the lines.”
“Hey, I was just trying to make small talk. What’s your problem?”
Frowning, I reply, “I told you I do not need to be walked home. You don't take a hint very well, do you?”
He stops dead in his tracks and immediately I want to kick myself for my harsh words. His voice is soft, “You really have a way with people, don't you?”
I inherited the gift of pushing people away from my father. I curse myself internally and stop walking. Standing in the middle of an empty sidewalk, I turn around to face Ethan. He crosses the distance between us until he’s standing right in front of me. He gazes earnestly down at me, “What have I done to offend you?”
With the backdrop of the crisp fall sky, his eyes are breathtakingly blue. My thoughts scramble in my brain and my heart is racing in my chest, “Ethan, it’s not you. I'm not good with people, okay? It's just that I'm used to keeping to myself.”
“I just want to get to know you better,” he says, his fingers playing with the zipper of his leather jacket.
“I am not like the other girls,” I blurt out. How I have longed for a normal life. Especially at this moment.
His eyes crinkle when he smiles, “That’s why I like you.” Ethan tilts his head, his expression inquisitive.
“You don’t understand. I could never be like the other girls at Everest.”
“I knew that already.”
“Don’t you know what they say about me? That I’m weird. I’m a freak. I’m a bitch. It’s all true. You really should stay away from me.”
He rolls his eyes, “And I know what they say about me. That I’m shallow, wannabe jock. That I’m a social climber. It’s just all the same high school BS.”
“‘Reputation is an idle and most false imposition; oft got without merit, and lost without deserving.’”
His eyebrows shoot up in surprise, “Where’s that quote from?”
“Othello. The subject of my Shakespeare project.”
“You really are different than any girl at Everest. Do you always go around quoting Shakespeare?” he says, an amused expression on his face.
“I just read--” I start to reply.
“Yeah, yeah. You just read a lot,” he says dismissively.
“What they say about me isn’t completely without merit, Ethan. I don’t know how to be your friend,” I confess in a moment of honesty.
“Can we at least try to be friends?”
“I bet Mackenzie would be ecstatic if you walked her home. Well, except she does live on the other side of town. And she drives... But I'm sure she'd really enjoy a spin on that bike of yours,” I am rambling. The thought of them together makes my chest constrict.
He shrugs nonchalantly, “I know. But I didn’t ask her, I asked you.”
A sigh escapes my lips, “Really, Ethan, you should go. You deserve some normal friends. I have a tendency to put my foot in my mouth. It's a very undesirable quality to have in a friend.”
A smirk forms across his perfect lips as Ethan raises an eyebrow, “Who says I'm looking to just make a friend?”
I reply in a small voice, “I really have to get home.” I turn around and start walking away when Ethan's clay speckled hand grabs mine. I gather my determination as I turn around but then our eyes meet. He is radiating sincerity and I stand frozen on the sidewalk. “I really do want to try, Fallon. You... fascinate me.”
A car horn sounds off to the distance and I come crashing back down to the real world. “I'm sorry. I... I just can't,” I pull my hand back and break the strange connection I feel to this boy I barely k
now. As I walk away, he doesn’t try to follow me and I don’t dare look back. I can still feel his stare burning through me as I leave him standing alone on the sidewalk.
When I turn down my block and I am certain Ethan can no longer see me, I break into a run. The thudding of my boots against the pavement fill my ears as I make my way down the first block, then the second, before finally arriving at my doorstep. Or maybe the thudding is the sound of my heart making its presence known, a sound that has been long missing in my chest.
I am gasping for air as the front door clicks shut behind me. Tossing my things on the floor, I slowly sink down next to the closet, drawing my knees against my chest. I focus on taking deep breathes, the painful ache in my chest not a result of my impromptu run. I was playing a dangerous game with Ethan.
It would be best to shut him out completely. It would be for the best that he thought I was coldhearted. Or strange. Or whatever it was that kept everyone else away. Too bad I didn’t want him to stay away. Too bad I was incapable of thinking straight when it came to him. It is probably for the best he hates me now. The thought makes me feel raw.
Slowly, I gather myself enough to get up from the floor. I kick off my boots and hang up my jacket before taking my book bag to to my room. Emptying my books onto my desk, I flip open my notebook and carefully tear out my rendering of the Gothic cathedral. Sliding open the top drawer, I take out a thumbtack. I tack my newest drawing on top of a sketch of Old Laxenburg Castle.
Stepping back, I adjust the drawing just a fraction to make it parallel with the edge of the wall. The walls are covered in literally hundreds of drawings. My drawings are the only things I have always kept the same when everything else in my life changed. Drawing started out as a hobby but now it’s become my therapy. The only time my mind stops working and I allow my hands to take over. Every inch of the walls are covered in drawings of varying sizes, layered several pages thick. I guess I’ve needed a lot of therapy these last few years.
Sitting down on my bed, I carefully wrap my comforter around my shoulders. I sit there for a long time, just staring at the walls covered in paper but not really seeing any individual drawing. Surrounded by all my drawings, I’m in the world of my own creation. A world that makes sense instead of the world that has spun off its axis. My mind drifts off to thoughts of Ethan. I can’t make sense of his desire to befriend me. I have become so accustomed to shutting people out, I wouldn’t even know where to begin.