The Boy Next Story

by Tiffany Schmidt

  It was the first time either of us had spoken since I hit start forty minutes ago. When I opened my mouth to respond, all that came out was a rusty “Oh.”

  “Part of me wants to ask you to come here and help—but if you do, I lose my subject.”

  “Take a picture,” I answered automatically—because that was the art answer, not the human one. I didn’t know if I wanted him taking a picture of me—here, now, when all my green light emotions felt dangerously close to the surface.

  I also didn’t want to go over there. To perch beside him on my bed and lean over his shoulder, my arm grazing his as I pointed out areas of his drawing he could improve.

  Why couldn’t I pretend he was Huck? Today Huck had stood behind me and propped his chin on my head, an elbow on each shoulder as I offered feedback in the studio. It had been . . . nothing. But imagining adopting that same pose now had me shivering.

  I blinked at the computerized sound of a camera shutter. Toby lowered his phone. “And I can’t figure out how to draw your easel so it doesn’t look like a hulking monster attacking you.”

  Toby moved to sit and I held up a hand. Grinning, he eased back into the same position, looking even more like he owned that spot on my bed.

  “You use foreshortening.” At his what-the-what look, I elaborated. “Draw it smaller. It’s all about perspective. Break the whole object up into shapes and then draw those shapes in a way that shows the distance from you.”

  If he’d been grinning before, he cranked up the dial now—from breathtaking to smolder. He lifted an eyebrow. “Don’t take this the wrong way, Roar, but you talking art is kinda hot.”

  My hands closed around the ledge of my easel, gripping so tight the lip bit into my fingers. My cheeks lit up, but the lump in my throat tasted like anger, not embarrassment. Kinda, because that compliment needed a qualifier. And maybe he hadn’t planned to kiss me at the concert, but he had checked me out during yoga. And we weren’t five anymore, so all the casual touches to boost me on a counter or squeeze my hand—he had to realize he had more mixed signals than the outdated GPS we’d finally made Dad throw away.

  “You’re in my bedroom. On my bed. Telling me I’m ‘kinda hot’—I know I’m not supposed to take that the ‘wrong way’—but what’s the right one?”

  “I—I—I don’t know.” Toby sat up, ruining the composition I’d been working on, but the evening was already ruined. There was no way we were going back to peacefully sketching, not after that.

  I stepped away from my easel, lowering myself onto the window seat. I wasn’t a toy; this wasn’t some game. I may not have a ton of experience with flirting or dating, but I knew Huck and Byron didn’t talk to me like that. Even when Huck and I fake-dated—and a lot of people still thought we were together—there had been clear lines between real and pretend. Toby was blurring all those boundaries. “Maybe don’t say things like that if you don’t know. It’s not fair.”

  He shoved the drawing board to the side and curled his legs up; the vulnerable portrait in front of me was infinitely more interesting than his casual sprawl. Not that I reached for a pencil. Instead I watched emotions drift over his face. “I didn’t mean to—I should’ve thought before—” He dropped his chin. “I’m so confused.”

  “Yeah, well . . .” I wasn’t going to excuse this, but I wasn’t going to accuse him either. I could’ve made a statement about Campbell sisters being a confusing species—but I didn’t want to group myself with Merri. I wanted to be treated as my own entity. I wanted to be seen as me—and if he was discovering my potential hotness, that was fine. But not if he was going to weaponize that realization and use it as weightless, careless words. Because my expectations wanted to sink their claws into any scrap of hope, and that statement was a ball of yarn dangled before a cat.

  I was never the winner in staring contests. Merri dominated. Lilly too. I blinked like a first-time contact user. But if I looked away at that moment, would I ever be able to meet his eyes again?

  Toby lost. He studied the paper in front of him like it was one of those hidden picture puzzles we used to be obsessed with. Only, instead of trying to find a shoe or a toothbrush, he was searching for the exit from this conversation or the answer to our unasked questions.

  Finally he said, “Maybe we should just share our pictures.”

  “Good idea.” I sagged against the window long enough for the icy glass to sink its chill through the fabric of my sweatshirt, then I stood and faced my easel.

  “How are we doing this? Like Slapjack? One-two-three flip?”

  It was as good a suggestion as any, so I nodded, letting him start the count and joining in on “Two. Three—”

  “Wait!” he said. “Changed my mind. I’ll go first.”

  I froze with my hands on the side of the easel, not quite ready to see how he saw me, but even less ready for him to see how I saw him. His hands fumbled as he turned the drawing board to face me.

  Oh, Toby. Despite his love for superheroes, he hadn’t manifested any sudden artistic talent. I knew it was me in the drawing only because I’d been here while he drew it. But he’d tried and it was adorable—if I let myself not be offended that he’d given me a fivehead and creepishly large eyes. My hair was a dozen straight lines and I had no eyebrows. My favorite part was that he hadn’t attempted a realistic mouth but had used a stick figure’s half circle instead—one as wide as the smile currently on my face.

  “I love it.” I grabbed a sticky note off my dresser and did a quick scribble on it. Crossing the room, I stuck it on the upper corner of his paper.

  “Batman,” he said. “I don’t have any stickers and that’s what you—”

  “I used to do that for your drawings. I thought they were the best things I’d ever seen.” He brushed a finger across my sticky-note sketch. “Still do. Can I see me now?”

  I gripped the side of my easel, but suddenly there was a question I needed answered first. “Toby, who did you take to Fall Ball?”

  He frowned. “I asked you. Don’t you remember turning me down?”

  “Right. But you could’ve gone with someone else.”

  “I didn’t.” His expression clouded. “Did you?”

  “No.” I laughed. “I went bowling with Huck.”

  “Right.” His expression tightened. “Well, I went to the movies with Lance. Why?”

  I didn’t have a good answer, so I turned the easel instead. It was an accidental declaration in all its messy glory. Practically a billboard advertising how much I’d failed these past few months. I should have used Gatsbian green pencils, because nothing on that paper expressed friendship. It was a portrait of longing, of love.

  His eyes went wide when I stepped out of the way. His eyebrows flew up and his jaw dropped. I gnawed my lip, refusing to ask the insecure artist’s question Do you like it? I wouldn’t be that needy. His eyes flickered from me to the paper and his lips formed a soft word. “Whoa.”

  “Do you like it?” Apparently I was that needy when it came to him.

  “Roar.” His voice was soft and gravelly. He sat up farther, leaning his elbows on his knees and still gaping at the drawing. “I never realized . . . Do you know how talented you are? That’s how you see me?”

  I wanted to deflect, to point to his paper and ask the same question, because hadn’t we been given the same task and tools and the same amount of time to complete it? But if you sat me in front of a piano and asked me to write a song about him, I wouldn’t be able to put emotion into a tune. We spoke different art languages and that was okay. I didn’t need to translate; he wouldn’t want me to.

  “Does it not look like you?” I joked.

  He stared at the paper, then patted the bed beside him. “I’m just—”

  “Hey, Rory—” My sister froze with the door half open. “Oh. Hi, Toby. I didn’t know you were here . . . in my sister’s bedroom. On her bed? And aww—you’re even wearing matching outfits.”

  Not really. I mean, we both had on gray
hoodies, but he had on jeans and I was in black leggings. Still, my heart surged at the idea that we were worthy of a collective “aww.” I could live for days replaying any comment that grouped him and me together. But I shouldn’t.

  And I couldn’t admit to any of that, and everything inside me was stretched thin and fragile. I narrowed my eyes and snapped, “Did you want something? Or just to bug me?”

  Merri raised her palms. “Never mind. I’ll leave you alone.”

  I shut my eyes and waited for Toby to jump up and take her side, knowing his criticism would make me want to crumple even more than the self-condemnation already looping in my head. But he didn’t—the sound that made me open my eyes was the door shutting as Merri backed out of my room. Toby’s puzzled gaze was on me.

  “Sorry,” I told him. “That was rude. I need to—” I crossed the room. “I have to apologize. I’ll be right back.”

  “I should go.” Toby stood too and then we were both crammed in the space between my bed and the door. I had to step closer to make room to open it, but he didn’t back up. I wanted to stay in this flustered moment of flushed cheeks and eye contact and ask him to end the sentence Merri had interrupted: “I’m just—”

  Instead I pulled the door open and we blinked at the hallway light. All our privacy evaporated into the public space created by Merri’s bedroom being across from mine—and her sitting on her bed, facing us—observing us standing way too close.

  “Girls, dinnertime!” Mom called up the stairs.

  “Are you staying for dinner, Toby?” Merri asked as she came into the hall. “You should. It’s been forever and Dad made it. Mom just had to heat it.”

  I felt Toby’s eyes on me, but I kept mine on my sister, focusing on the fact that I wanted to both apologize and gag her. Guilt and rage didn’t mix well and I choked on the combination.

  “No,” Toby said. He touched my shoulder lightly as he slipped by me into the hall. “I’m heading home. I’ll see you in the morning, Roar. Later, Merri.”

  He made it half a hallway, until he was beside a picture of all of us at a playground—a row of swings, a string of knobby knees pumping. Merri’s eyes on the sky, Lilly’s on the camera, his on the dirt. Mine on him.

  “Oh, wait.” He pulled the drawing pencil from behind his ear and tossed it to me. I caught it in the only way I knew how: uncoordinated, with both hands, against my chest, looking like some ridiculous court lady clutching a favor from a knight. He saluted us both and turned again.

  I waited until I heard his footsteps on the stairs before speaking. “I’m sorry I—”

  “Forget it.” Merri waved a hand to dismiss the whole thing. “I should’ve knocked.”

  “You don’t have to. I mean—” My cheeks were turning red as my words matched my scrambled thoughts. “You weren’t—We weren’t—You didn’t interrupt anything.”

  “Hmm.” Merri tapped a finger on her mouth. “Then it sounds like I came in thirty seconds too soon.”

  “That’s not funny,” I said, but she’d turned and flitted toward the stairs. “Seriously, Merri. Don’t go there.” But I didn’t truly expect her to listen to me. When had she ever?

  “Where are you in Little Women by the way?” she called over her shoulder. “Because . . . Never mind, zipping my lips. No spoilers.”

  38

  “Rory, a word?”

  I was starting to dread the end of English class. On the one hand, it was over, but, on the other, being asked to stay for “a word” had never resulted in anything good. I sat back in my seat and crossed my ankles under my chair, pressing the bones together so tight that they ached.

  Ms. Gregoire stayed standing, watching the classroom empty of my curious classmates. I kept my eyes on my notebook, mentally tracing the lines of all the different doodles that covered its surface. Today I’d added a new sketch, a skyscraper copied from the print of Ms. Gregoire’s dress.

  When the door finally shut behind Huck, who had dawdled nosily, Ms. Gregoire slid into the desk beside mine, her relaxed posture so different from my own. “I won’t keep you long. I just wanted to impart one piece of advice, if I may.”

  Was that a question? And did I want to give permission? I nodded anyway, automatically.

  “I meant it when I said you could read Little Women at your own pace. I gave it to you during exams and I know you had to prioritize studying and repairing some of your grades. But that was Halloween. It’s now December.”

  “I . . .” The book lived in my backpack and I carried it with me everywhere. I hadn’t forgotten, couldn’t forget with the weight of it against my spine as I moved through my school day. But I couldn’t make myself read it. Not just out of procrastination but something else too. Something I wouldn’t or couldn’t name.

  Ms. Gregoire waited for me to make eye contact before continuing. “Avoiding the things you’re afraid of doesn’t make them go away,” she said softly. “I want you to remember that. When you keep them locked inside they have power, but when you confront them, you give yourself the power to fix them and let go.”

  “I’ll read the book,” I promised. I’d do anything to escape the way those words shivered over my skin and settled in my throat like a lump that I couldn’t swallow down.

  Ms. Gregoire gave me a smile full of such sympathy that my eyes started to itch. But it wasn’t allergy season; there was no excuse for them to water and no reason for me to cry. I wasn’t in trouble. I hadn’t done anything wrong. It was a perfectly normal day and yet I wanted to put my head down on my desk and blubber.

  “Sweet girl, I don’t just mean that book. You’ve got a lot going on—and your life’s about to get much more complicated.” She sighed and pressed her hand to her mouth. “I won’t spoil that surprise, but I just wanted to say it’s okay to be scared, but don’t stay frozen in your fear.”

  “I’ll read the book,” I repeated, because the lack of context in her advice made my stomach churn. My hands shook around my notebook as I thought about Toby at the concert, Toby at yoga, Toby and a million moments in his car and kitchen . . . and the way I’d snapped at him in my bedroom last night for calling me “hot,” then retreated before we could have an actual conversation. Instead hiding my feelings behind our drawings and a sham relationship with Huck—avoiding anything real.

  Some fears weren’t worth confronting. Some things weren’t worth the risk. I stood up and pulled on my backpack, sniffing into the shoulder strap.

  “Rory,” Ms. Gregoire said gently. She offered me a tissue she pulled from her pocket.

  I snuffled into a laugh, because every girl I knew would be thinking the same thing right now—That dress has pockets?! Merri called a cute dress with pockets “the holy grail,” and as I squeezed my hands around my notebook, I wanted my sister here, now. To diffuse this situation with a joke and distraction. Or Clara, who kept a running log of all of Ms. Gregoire’s outfits in the back of her planner and would ask where she shopped.

  I wanted anyone so I wouldn’t have to stand on my own and face the way her shoulders curved with such empathy. “Rory,” she repeated. “I’m going to say this now and I want you to hear me—I’m proud of you. Remember that. I’m proud of you and nothing is hopeless.”

  39

  “Aurora!” I’d been walking down the aisle of the Convocation Hall when a voice and an arm snagged my progress. Both belonged to Eliza, who was staring at me with calculating blue eyes like the vengeful cherub she resembled. “I need you to sit right here.”

  “Um, okay?” I waved to Clara and Iris. “I’ll see you after Convocation?”

  The “right here” Eliza pointed to was the section of bench next to her. On her other side were Fielding and Merri, beyond them Fielding’s sister, Sera, her girlfriend, Hannah, and finally Lance and Toby. “Where’s Curtis?” I asked. He was the last member of their squad and it was rare to see Eliza without him loitering nearby looking antagonistic.

  “I believe he mentioned a restroom break. Where he sits when
he gets back is no concern of mine.” Eliza straightened her shoulders, making her blond ponytail sway. She always wore it back, pulled so tight it made her cheekbones appear sharper and her glares razor-edged. If I hadn’t grown up with her, I’d be terrified. I bet even her teachers were intimidated by the genius power contained behind her evil angel facade. I had respect for Curtis and his unsinkable optimism that he could befriend her. I felt a little bad about stealing his seat.

  “Well, don’t just sit there, I need you to talk to me,” Eliza added.

  “About?”

  “Anything.” Her eyes were flickering over my left shoulder. “No, not anything. That’s too vague. About how your classes are going. No one has updated me since we stopped carpooling together.”

  “Um, I’m currently passing everything. Not sure how long it’ll last, but . . .”

  “That sounds promising.” It did? Eliza’s lips flickered triumphantly. I turned to see Curtis pause when he saw me in his spot, then shake his head and chuckle as he continued past our row to find another seat.

  As Eliza and Curtis continued their weird version of fight-flirting, I leaned behind her and tapped Fielding on the shoulder. “At your next family meeting, can you suggest canceling Convocation?”

  He grinned. “I’ll do my best. Any suggestions for what we should have instead?”

  I thought about this while we sang the school song. Merri still hadn’t learned it and was clearly mouthing random words. I tuned out the announcements about winter sports tryouts and leaned over again. “More Knight Lights. Study halls. Or end the day early.”

  Fielding was normally pretty great about paying attention when I talked. He didn’t make me feel like a tagalong even though I was two grades below him and had been an unwilling third wheel on some of his first drives with Merri. But this time he cleared his throat and tilted his head toward the front of the room.

  I repeated my list and added, “I’d be good with any of those.”