Wrong in All the Right Ways

by Tiffany Brownlee

  “Whatever,” I say, rolling my eyes playfully. “Just hand me a brush.”

  He takes me through the basics of mixing colors and then teaches me a couple brushstrokes. It isn’t until he’s guiding my hand over the canvas that I really take notice of how he looks. He has a square jaw, which he clenches and unclenches when he’s concentrating on a stroke. And his eyes are a lighter shade of brown than I originally thought they were. Last night, they looked dark and full of secrets, but today, they are honey-colored and relaxed, almost carefree. I zero in on a scar just above his left eyebrow. He wasn’t lying; he does have a lot of scars. Where could he have possibly gotten them all?

  “You’re supposed to be watching my hands, not my face,” he says as his eyes pierce through the lenses of my glasses and into mine. The pink in my cheeks returns, and I avert my eyes, killing the curiosity, but it’s too late. He’s already seen me staring. “Go ahead. Say what’s on your mind. I can see those wheels turning.”

  I pause. Should I ask him about his past home life? He looks so happy right now, and I don’t want to be responsible for shattering that feeling. “What happened to your family?” I say, looking directly into his eyes. I see his broad shoulders droop, and instantly I regret asking. Setting down his paintbrush, he starts to clench his jaw again, as if he’s fighting the urge to tell me the truth.

  “My mom—” he starts, but gets cut off by the PA system.

  Ding. Ding. Ding. “Please excuse the following announcement,” a woman’s voice booms through the intercom in the art room.

  Dylan frowns. “I guess we’ll have to finish this conversation another time.”

  “All students currently taking Ms. Harper’s fifth- and sixth-period English II classes need to report to room 306 for class today. I repeat, all students currently taking Ms. Harper’s fifth- and sixth-period English II class need to report to room 306 for class today.”

  I can’t help but wonder how anyone sitting out by the lunch tables can hear this announcement. Lunchtime can get pretty loud and wild; sometimes it’s hard to hear the intercom even on a tame day.

  A look of concern passes over Dylan’s eyebrows, and I can’t tell whether it’s directed at his painting or the announcement, but when he drops his brushes in the sink and charges toward his backpack to pull out the cream-colored sheet of paper with his schedule on it, I figure it’s the latter. “Everything okay?”

  I watch in silence as he gnaws at his lower lip while his eyes graze the front of the sheet of paper. “I guess I’ll head to room 306 after lunch today. I wonder what’s going on.”

  “There’s always something going on in this school. It’s probably just a schedule mix-up or misprint. Wait, what room did they say to meet in?”

  “306.”

  “Hold on,” I say, pulling my folded-up schedule from my back pocket. “I could have sworn that that’s where my AP English class was meeting next period. Well, where are we supposed to go, then?”

  “AP English, huh?” He smirks, ignoring my question. “Classic overachiever.” The way he says the word overachiever makes it sound as if it’s a disease that he doesn’t want to catch.

  “Yeah.” I hand him my schedule so he can see how full my plate will be this semester.

  “Are you aware that three out of your six classes are AP courses?” he asks, his voice caked with disbelief. “Chemistry, English, and calculus. And you’re taking honors civics, too?”

  “What’s wrong with that?”

  “Nothing. It just sounds like a lot of work.”

  I have to laugh. “I’m number one in my class right now, so if graduation was tomorrow, I’d be walking across that stage with the valedictorian title.” I see his eyebrows rise in surprise as I speak. “Valedictorians get early admissions and free rides to college, and if AP and honors classes are going to earn me that, then I’m just gonna have to suck it up and power through them, no matter how much work I have to do.”

  He heads back to the sink and smiles, shaking his head. “Well, aren’t you something.”

  I’m not sure if it’s a compliment, but I blush at his words anyway. Before I can think of a sassy comeback, the bell rings, commanding us to make our way across campus to the 300 building, where all English and foreign language classes are held.

  “It’s been a helluva day—let me just start with that,” Mr. Lawrence, my AP English teacher, says, taking a deep breath as if he’d just run a mile before starting class. He rounds the front of his desk and plops down on top of it, crossing his ankles like someone waiting to be checked out by a general practitioner. “I began today thinking that I was going to be teaching five AP students after lunch each day, but, as evidenced by the number of students in here with me right now, that isn’t going to be the case this semester.”

  Dylan must be a lot more vocal in his classes than I am because while I sit back and wait to hear the reason for the combining of two classes, his hand is the first to shoot into the air with a question. “Your backstory is nice and all, Mr. Lawrence, but can’t you just tell us what happened to Ms. Harper?” It’s not the way I would have worded it, but still, it’s the question everyone in this room wants answered.

  “She quit.” A few students start to chatter at his announcement, and it isn’t until he raises his hairy hands, as if surrendering, that we quiet down. “I know. I know. You were all looking forward to an easy breezy semester with the young and fun Ms. Harper, but unfortunately for you—and me, I guess—she checked her lottery tickets during third period. Apparently, she won, and immediately after, she decided that she didn’t need, and I quote, ‘this headache anymore.’ Unquote. Now—”

  “How much did she win?” It’s Dylan again.

  “Enough to never have to work again a day in her life.” Mr. Lawrence loosens his tie a bit before continuing, obviously bothered at Dylan’s incessant interruptions. “Now, as luck would have it, it just so happens that the first book you all were going to read in her class was going to be Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë. The same book that my AP students were going to dive into later this semester.” He raises a medium-sized, fragile-looking softcover book above his head for everyone to see. “Administration was in a bit of a tizzy over her sudden departure, so to buy them some time, I said I’d take on you guys. You will spend the first half of this semester with me, and finish it out with the new teacher they hire.”

  A few boys in the back—football players, judging by the patches on their letterman jackets—start a slow clap, and I have to stop myself from rolling my eyes. This was the madness I tried to get away from by taking an AP class.

  “Yes, I know, I’m like Superman coming to save the day, but we have no time to waste. You two,” he says, pointing to the slow-clapping boys, “pass around these books, and please, people, be careful with these. They’re a little worn.”

  The first thing Mr. Lawrence tells us to do is pull out a notebook and put the date on the top of the page. “Now, obviously, the AP students can’t do the same assignments as you English II folks. My AP angels will have to do a little more work than you guys, but there is one exercise I would like both classes to do as we read this book together: journaling. In order to elevate your thinking with this novel, I want each of you to compile a first-person journal relating to this text.”

  The feeling of déjà vu clouds my mind as I think back to freshman year. We had to do a journaling activity in English I, too, but obviously, with our teacher reading them at the end of each week, we couldn’t be very truthful in what we wrote. Fearing that history is about to repeat itself, I raise my hand, hesitantly. “Mr. Lawrence, are you going to read these?”

  “Not exactly. At the end of each week, you will submit your journals to me, and I’ll check to make sure you are indeed using the ten minutes I allot at the beginning of each class to write. But no, I will not read them. If you’re that worried about it, change the names, but I can assure you, Ms. Ellenburg, there’s nothing that’s going on with you that I haven’
t seen before.

  “Quite frankly,” he says, running his fingers through his head of receding brown hair, “your lives are filled with way too much drama for me … who’s going out with whom, who broke up with whom, and all of the other hormone-induced nonsense that prevents you guys from focusing on your studies. I’d lose my mind if I chose to read every one of your journal entries. God, you couldn’t pay me to go through high school again.” He pauses for a second, probably to recall the good and bad that happened during his high school years. After a minute, he rolls up his sleeves, claps his hands twice, and says, “All right, let’s write.”

  Mr. Lawrence allots us only ten minutes to write in class, which I spend coming up with a recipient name. I can’t just journal without a purpose; I need someone to write to. At the end of my ten minutes, I scrawl two words across the top of my page: Dear Catherine. Catherine Earnshaw is the protagonist in Wuthering Heights, so it only seems fitting to share my private thoughts with her, a complete and total fictional character.

  When time is called, I close my notebook with the promise of picking this back up later at home, and I look over at Dylan’s journal. With a full page of barely legible handwriting sitting before him, he flips through his copy of Wuthering Heights. I can’t help but wonder what he chose to write about. He could have written about his life before us, but he also has many other topics to choose from: his fostering situation … my family … his first day at Cedar Pointe High … me.

  What could he possibly have to say about you? I ask myself as I twirl a few strands of hair around my index finger. Well, he did kinda flirt with you last night, the voice in my mind responds. Very true. Very true, indeed.

  I go back and forth a few more times, but when my curiosity overpowers my better judgment, I decide to sneak a peek. I lean over a little more and squint my eyes to see if I can recognize my name in his microscopic writing, but Mr. Lawrence begins teaching before I can scan my way down his page. Maybe I’m not meant to know is the idea I settle on.

  “This novel may be a classic, but I promise you’ll be surprised at just how much this book will relate to your own lives.”

  “Doubt it,” Dylan disputes under his breath.

  After reading the back cover of my copy and getting a peek at the messy love-hate relationship between Catherine and her adopted brother, Heathcliff, I have an answer of my own, too: I hope not.

  chapter 4

  WHEN THE FINAL bell rings, I rush from the gym to my car and wait for Dylan. Most of the students have already left by the time I see him exit the building with two girls in tow. I want to gag as I watch them follow behind him like a couple of puppies. They’ve rolled their PE shorts up so far that if they bend over, everyone within fifty feet of them will get a peep show. Tasteful.

  After he waves good-bye and thanks them for walking him to my car, he gets in. The first thing he does is dig his hands into his pockets and pull out two handfuls of tiny slips of paper.

  “You weren’t kidding,” he says, letting the slips fall through his fingers and into my lap. “The girls here love fresh meat.”

  I scoff and let out a laugh at the sexual undertones. Once I compose myself, I turn to Dylan and say, “I don’t want to hear about your sexual escapades, especially on your first day here.”

  “As if,” he wheezes, stuffing the numbers back into his pockets. “They’re pretty hot, don’t get me wrong, but most are dumb as doorknobs.”

  “I told you,” I say, cranking the engine. “So no one caught your eye?”

  “One girl did, briefly, but she’s off-limits.”

  “She’s got a boyfriend, huh?” My question goes unanswered as he stares out the window. I imagine that he’s daydreaming about the girl he can’t have. “Yeah, most of the good ones are either taken or don’t care to mess around in high school because they know it’s not going to last. I, myself, fall into the second category.”

  “So you’ve never dated … anyone?”

  “Nope.” I see his thick eyebrows rise up. “Boys are not part of the plan.”

  “‘The plan’?”

  “If I’m going to be a big-time novelist by the time I’m twenty-five, there is no room for dating. It’ll mess everything up. And plus, no one here is worth a second glance. At least not at our school, anyway.” We ride in silence the rest of the way home until he mentions our journaling assignment in English class.

  “Saw you trying to poke around in my journal during class today. Did you find what you were looking for?”

  Flustered, I stutter around, trying to string a good excuse together, but his laughter cuts me off.

  “I get it. I haven’t exactly told you much about myself.”

  My thoughts exactly.

  “One day, though,” he says, unbuckling his seat belt after I pull into our driveway. “One day.”

  “Deal,” is what I end up saying, but what I’m really thinking is, What’s wrong with today? Why not now? We hop out of the car and as we walk up to the house, my dad appears at the edge of the driveway. He waves at us with a grin so large that it looks like his face is going to break if it stretches any wider.

  “Hey, how was school?” At first, I think he’s talking to me, but when he slaps his arm around Dylan’s shoulder and walks him up the driveway, I fall back. “Come inside the garage. I have a surprise for you.” Am I being replaced already?

  I’ve been jealous of plenty of people before, but never at home. At school, there are hot popular kids to envy everywhere. That’s normal. But not here. Our house is my safe place.

  I would never resent Matthew for stealing the spotlight, mainly because it’s never been something that could be stolen. We share it; that light shines on both of us all the time. Over the years, the love and praise we receive from our parents has always been split evenly between the two of us. But now that Dylan is here, I’m starting to feel that pressure behind my eyes grow as the amount of attention I get from them diminishes.

  “Your very own art studio,” my dad says as he opens the door. There are two easels in the center of what used to be our garage, and around that, tons of art supplies. “We haven’t parked our cars in here in years due to all of the clutter. Someone might as well make use of the space, right?”

  I run my fingers over the soft paintbrush bristles and smile, remembering the way Dylan’s hand guided mine over the canvas at school today. The memory overtakes me for a moment, and I almost forget why I was mad a second ago.

  “I got a little bit of everything. Over there, on that back wall, are your paints—acrylic, oil, and watercolor—and in that bin are some bags of charcoal in case you like to sketch with them. In this,” he says, patting his hands on top of a blue-and-gold chest, “is pastels. I’ve hung some of your paintbrushes on the wall, and you have backups in those drawers over there.” He crosses his hands over his chest and sighs, proud of his hard work. “You like it? The guy at the store said these were the best artsy items they had.”

  “Like it? This is amazing!” He wraps his arms around my father to give him a manly hug, and then circles the room to gape at the art supplies that he’s been gifted.

  I personally feel like my dad overdid it on the art studio, but Dylan doesn’t seem to think so. The crater-like dimples in his cheeks cannot contain the warmth radiating through his body, and neither can the caramel-colored gleam in his eyes. I watch as he forces his trembling fingers into his pockets, and bites his bottom lip to hold back tears of happiness.

  “Well, I’m gonna go get cleaned up now. Your mom should be here with Matthew soon, so be on the lookout.”

  “Thanks again, Daniel.”

  “Oh…,” my dad says as his lips press together into a slight grimace. He never lets Matthew and me call him by his first name; he finds it disrespectful. “Oh, it’s nothing. I’ll see you both later.”

  “This is crazy, right?” Dylan breathes when Dad leaves.

  “Yeah. It’s really cool,” I say, trying to match his enthusiasm. “Complet
e with your own stereo system and everything.”

  “I know, I can’t believe it.”

  “So, what kind of music are you going to blast to channel your artistic abilities? For some reason, I’m getting this electronic techno vibe from you. Am I right?”

  “Not even close.” He side-smiles. “I like classic and urban rock and roll.”

  “That was my second guess.”

  “But I probably won’t be listening to much music down here. I think I paint better with conversation than with music. And speaking of painting, now we can continue your art lessons here.” He grabs the two stools from the corner and then pulls on a smock before handing one to me. “You want to join me?”

  His amber eyes are hard to say no to, so I give in. He walks me through the strokes that he taught me earlier and then lets me loose to try it on my own, freeing him up to get started on his own piece.

  “That’s perfect, but ease up on the pressure. You don’t want the paint to bleed through.” Turning away from his canvas, he places his hand over mine to show me the amount of pressure I should be using, and when he does, I flinch.

  “No need to be scared. I don’t bite.” He’s so close that I can smell the soap on his skin. He smells good, I think to myself. But then he reclaims his seat beside me and takes his scent with him, leaving only traces for me to inhale into my memory. Out of the corner of my eye, I watch as he picks up his brush to continue working on a painting of a woman with a young boy sitting on her lap. I still haven’t been able to figure out how he is able to paint so fast and have his paintings turn out as beautiful as they do. At this rate, his studio will be filled with at least a hundred paintings by the time Christmas rolls around.

  “Who are they?” I ask, overstepping my boundaries again.