by Sarah Sutton
“How was your dad’s, anyway? How was Harmony?”
I shook my head at him. “You just love Harmony. Are you sure she isn’t your baby sister?”
His lips twitched. “Hey, I’m invested. I’ve always wanted a sister.”
“Well, you’ve got me.”
Simple words, but they cut open a torrent of problematic emotions. He looked back down to the snowflakes, fingers coasting over the edges of the paper.
I knew I had to open up a little to him, since Elijah had decided he wanted to be honest with me. Our silence lulled too thick, and I didn’t want it to continue. “I’m not doing these snowflakes to just help out, you know.”
“Yeah, I know. For extra credit, right?”
Well… “More like if I don’t do them, I’ll fail senior year.”
Those brown eyes widened as my words washed over him. “What?”
My words came out in a rush, a dam broken. “I may or may not be failing art. It’s funny, I’m acing calculus and failing art. Why art is a deciding factor for graduating, I have no idea. Mrs. Keller just hates me.”
He blinked rapidly, like a little bug. It was kind of cute. “She’s a teacher. Contractually, she can’t hate you.”
“Well, tell her that,” I said, slumping in my chair. “She’s the one making me do this. These snowflakes decide whether I get to wear a cap and gown.”
“Why aren’t you more freaked out about it?” he demanded, almost sounding incredulous. “Why are you going to parties and going on dates and not spending every waking moment getting these done?”
Okay, judgey. But I couldn’t blame him. “Art is just not my thing.”
“And procrastination is?”
Well. “Yeah.”
Elijah buried his face into his hands. “Remi…”
I leaned my elbow against the table and dropped my chin into my palm. “I didn’t want to tell you because I didn’t want you to feel bad. Or be mad at me. I know how much art means to you and I didn’t want you thinking I was being reckless.” Even though I totally was. “You just had so much on your plate. I didn’t want you to have to worry.”
He parted his fingers to peek at me. “You should’ve at least told me earlier so I could’ve helped out more. We could’ve been done by now.”
“Well, see, I’m not supposed to ask for help. At least, not your help. Mrs. Keller practically ripped me a new one over the whole papier-mâché drama. Thanks for that, loser.”
Elijah’s mouth tipped into a smile as he leaned back in his chair, stretching his arms over his head. “That was pretty good, wasn’t it?”
I swatted at the air in front of him. “Uh, no. She almost failed me.”
The table separated us, but I wished we could’ve gone back to the part where he touched my hand and I leaned closer. Closer was a good word for what I wanted, but I had to push it down. And that had to be okay because this was our normal. This banter, this conversation—this was us.
“Let’s get to work, then,” Elijah said, swiping up his glue stick. He pushed my piece of construction paper closer to me. His eyes seemed to linger longer than normal, but that was me reading into it, no doubt. “We’ve got a lot to get done before Friday.”
This was us, and this was enough. For now.
Chapter Nineteen
“Remi?” Mom called to me later on that day, after Elijah had left. I’d been sitting at the table alone for a few hours, focused on these stupid snowflakes. “The snow finally stopped. Can you come help me shovel the driveway before it gets any darker?”
I set down the snowflake I’d been working on, looking at my glitter-covered fingers. “Yeah, let me grab my coat.”
It was only a little after seven now, and the sunset shone in brilliant effect, casting the driveway in a beautiful glow. Quite a lot of snow had fallen last night, but throughout the day, it had been more of an on-and-off flurry. The driveway was untouched since Mom stayed home today, her SUV blocked in.
Mom offered the cold snow shovel to me, using her other hand to pull her hat lower over her ears. “It shouldn’t take us longer than five minutes if we’re both working.”
“Thank God for small driveways,” I said with a smile. I hadn’t brought gloves out with me, so the metal of the shovel felt cool against my fingertips. My breath fogged in the air each time I exhaled. “Too bad it didn’t keep snowing. I would’ve loved another snow day.”
“Yeah, I bet you would’ve,” Mom said. “You start down by the road, I’ll start here.”
After giving her a thumbs-up, I made my way to the end of the driveway. My boots slipped a little on the concrete, but I managed to make it to the roadside in one piece.
I glanced down at my laces. “Mom, I think maybe it’s my boots. I think that’s why I’m so clumsy. The tread is probably bad.”
“Remi, each time you hit your head, you weren’t even outside.”
Huh. She had a point. When we had our heart-to-heart earlier, I’d come clean about hitting my head at Jeremy’s party. “True…but can we still get me new boots?”
Mom smiled at me from the other side of the parked car. “You’re ridiculous, you know that?”
I stuck the snow shovel underneath a clump of ice, pushing it horizontally across the driveway. As Mom and I worked, I thought about the snowflakes. I was getting so close to being done, so close to the goal. Things would be so much better as soon as I could put this behind me. I couldn’t even believe I’d gotten myself in this situation in the first place.
“Oh, I’ve got to run inside real quick,” Mom said, and when I turned, I found her looking down at her cell phone. “My client is asking me to resend the mock-up we worked on today.”
“You’re just trying to get out of work,” I teased. “You can stay inside, but only if you make hot chocolate for when I’m done.”
“As soon as you’re finished, it’ll be ready for you. I promise.” She started to head around the back of the house.
I truly didn’t mind shoveling now by myself. And plus, if Mom went inside, I’d have a little pick-me-up when I finished. A win-win.
As I looked across the street at Elijah’s house, the front door opened, and out walked Mrs. Greybeck. She had her head down, an oversized cardigan bundled around her. I watched as she headed down the driveway to her mailbox, putting something inside and flipping up the red arm.
When she turned, she saw me. “Hi, Remi.”
“Hi,” I returned, expecting her to start walking away. She didn’t. “Something fun going out in the mail?”
“Oh, just a letter. I go and see Terry every week, but I think he still likes getting some mail.”
I pulled the shovel up and gripped the handle. “How’s he doing?”
Mrs. Greybeck pulled her cardigan tightly around herself, looking off down the street. “He’s doing fine.”
“How’s Elijah doing?” I asked, wondering if her answer would be the same.
“Didn’t you just see him a little while ago?”
“I did,” I said. “I just wondered if you knew.”
That probably wasn’t fair of me to say, but a part of me couldn’t help feeling a little resentful toward her. She’d left my mom hanging, and she didn’t get how much strain she put on her family, on Elijah. I could still remember the way Mr. Greybeck’s shoulders had slumped in the car that day, as if the mere act of sitting was a relief.
Mrs. Greybeck’s eyes narrowed at me, like she didn’t quite understand what I meant. “Why wouldn’t I know how he’s doing?”
“No reason,” I said glibly, offering a plastic-feeling smile. “I should get back to work. Have a nice night, Mrs. Greybeck.”
She watched me for a moment longer at the end of her driveway, but I’d already gotten back to work, forcing myself to at least look like I was focused on shoveling snow. But all I wanted to do was tell her how much her dedication to Terry hurt Elijah, to shake her shoulders and tell her how much she hurt my mother. So much anger welled within me; I was
surprised it wasn’t melting snow.
Before my composure had the chance to shatter, though, Mrs. Greybeck turned on her heel and made her way up the driveway. A moment later, she shut herself inside the house.
I clenched my jaw shut, wishing everything wasn’t so complicated.
I went into school Tuesday morning absolutely dreading it. Well, maybe not dreading the school day, but dreading seeing Jeremy. Neither one of us had texted the other since Friday, and I didn’t know what to expect. But when I walked past him in the hallway, he looked up and offered me a smile. So maybe not the flirty smile he used to give, but a polite enough one. If I were him, I would’ve been giving me dagger eyes.
At least that I was one less thing to stress about, not that it lessened my caseload by much.
I’d been putting so much time into these snowflakes that I’d let myself fall behind on the sculpture project we were supposed to be working on. And it was due in three days. So during third hour, I begged and begged Mrs. Galvery, my English teacher, that I could go to the art room. I told her that my life depended on it. That was answered with a dull expression, but she did let me go ten minutes before the bell. Mrs. Keller let me sit at a table away from the other students in that period, giving me ample space to work.
The bell rang overhead, signaling the time when I should’ve been heading to lunch, but I didn’t move.
“Remi?” Mrs. Keller asked, walking up to my table as students began filtering out of the room. She had a pink lunch bag in her hand. “I’m going to go on my break, okay? Feel free to stay in here if you’d like.”
“Thank you,” I told her, relieved she’d let me continue to work. I really had a lot to do.
The stupid clay wouldn’t mold to my will. It was some sort of gray-brown material, gross and slimy, and totally not morphing into what I wanted it to look like at all. I’d been trying to create a simple heart-shaped lump—right now, points for creativity were the furthest thing from my mind—but it just looked like a gray-brown piece of poop.
“Are you struggling?” Elijah asked, coming up behind me and peering over my shoulder.
I’d done great ignoring his presence the entire hour, the amount of anxiety brewing within me more than I could handle. I still couldn’t believe that I’d forgotten about this project. The final exam. In my period of art class, I’d worked on this sculpture project some, but it completely slipped my mind that it would go toward my grade. I’d put all my energy into the snowflakes. But the chances of me passing were riding on the snowflakes and this stupid sculpture assignment.
What Eloise and Elijah had said last night was totally true. Procrastination was my thing. It was so ingrained in me that I didn’t even realize that I’d been doing it.
The chair beside me scraped as Elijah pulled it out, sitting down and watching closer. “What are you trying to make, anyway? A soap dish?”
“Don’t make fun,” I said, refusing to look at him. I didn’t want him looking at this crappy thing in front of me. He’s Mr. Pottery Hands, and has been working on his own art project for his contest for weeks now. In comparison, this was a pathetic clump of crap. “In fact, just leave. You’re distracting me.”
I still had so much that I needed to do. I needed to have it fully formed, make sure there were no air bubbles, get it glazed, fire it—and I hated it. Every minute of it.
Elijah stood and walked away, leaving me on the brink of a breakdown. I didn’t blame him. I mean, I did tell him to leave. My face had to have been an icy mask of something scary. I wouldn’t have wanted to be around me either.
But now that he was gone, all I could focus on was the weight of everything. I dug the heels of my hands into my eyes, my clay-covered fingers curling, pushing until stars popped behind my lids.
The table twitched as something clinked on top of it, and I opened my eyes to find a bowl of water at my elbow. “Your clay is too dry,” Elijah said, leaning against the table, taking my hands away from my eyes. He moved to dip my fingertips in the bowl. “You’re not going to be able to shape anything the way you want to with it being so dry.”
Elijah pressed my dripping fingertips to the lump of clay in front of me. “This is stupid. Art is stupid.”
“Art isn’t stupid,” he responded, dampening his own fingers. “You just have to know the ins and outs of what you’re working with. What are we trying to make?”
I tried not to let myself overanalyze the use of the word we. “The assignment is to make a vase in the shape of something. I’m doing mine in the shape of a heart.”
“Anatomical?”
“Do you think I’d be trying to make an anatomical heart?”
From the tone of his voice, I could tell he was smirking. “If you want to make a heart, you have to help the clay out. It’s not like dough. In this state, it’s not so malleable. Water helps. And you make strips.” He reached around me and pressed his slick fingers against mine, pushing harder against the clay. “You roll the strips together and then make your shape. You can’t fire it when it’s a mound or there’ll be air bubbles. Air bubbles aren’t good.”
Sure, yeah, uh-huh. All viable options I could’ve said in response to him.
But don’t worry. I said something much smoother.
“It’s like we’re making a baby.”
Smooth, right?
Ugh.
Elijah burst out laughing behind me, leaning closer. “You’re ridiculous, you know that?”
“Hey, my mom said the same thing last night.”
Elijah took ahold of my fingertips and moved them to a different spot on the clay. I gave him full control. The water made our skin slippery, fingers sliding over each other against the firm piece of clay. The pressure of his hands against mine felt strange, as along with how his chest kept shifting against me. I never thought much about how our hands felt, pressing up against each other. Never, not once. But it was all I could think about now.
If moments like this kept happening, I was never going to get over this boy.
“Think you’ve got it?” he asked after a moment, words as soft as a feather’s touch against my ear.
No, can you just show me for the rest of the lunch period? “Y-Yeah, probably.”
Elijah didn’t move away. “Clay’s my favorite. It’s reliable. Forgiving. If you make a mistake when it’s wet like this, it gives you a chance to fix it.”
Why were we talking about clay again? We should’ve been talking about something else, something like how his hands were so soft against mine, how his chest brushed against my back, how I just wanted to turn around and tell him—
“There you are.”
I startled at the sound of a voice, so harsh and intrusive. Elijah pulled away from me with one sharp movement. “Sav.”
Oh, crap.
Sure enough, Savannah stood in the doorway of the art room, hands clasped together in front of her. Her expression appeared impassive. “What are you two doing in here?”
“Remi needed help with her technique,” Elijah said, and I couldn’t help but hear the undercurrent of defensiveness in his tone. “Figured I could lend a hand.”
Literally.
“You’re so generous,” Savannah said with a smile, tucking a curl behind her ear. “Why don’t you wash up and we’ll go catch the end of lunch?”
Elijah didn’t reply as he walked over to the sink.
Savannah took a step into the room, glancing around. “Where’s Mrs. Keller?”
“She has lunch this period. She usually eats in the teacher’s lounge.” Elijah headed to the doorway, glancing at me, then her. “Are you coming?”
“We’ll be just a second,” Savannah said in a chipper voice. “I’ll be right behind you.”
Oh, no, don’t leave me alone with her. Don’t do it, Eli. But he only wavered for a moment before nodding. “I’ll see you guys at the table.”
I pulled my hands away from the lump of clay, feeling the material underneath my nails. As much as I liked Elijah,
I seriously didn’t relish in the idea of stepping on Savannah’s toes. After all, he was her man—even though he was my best friend, I had no right. “Savannah, he was just helping me, it was—”
“He’s such a helpful person,” Savannah said while bobbing her head. “I’m so excited to go to the dance with him on Saturday. A bummer you don’t have a date.”
I clenched my jaw, looking down at my sculpture. “Yeah.”
“Elijah and I picked out his tie the other day. It matches my dress perfectly. And Jeremy asked Haisley yesterday,” she told me. “Of course she said yes. Who wouldn’t?” She let out a breath, and I looked up to find her smiling. “Well, I’ll let you get back to work. Looks like you’ve got a long way to go.”
And with that, she walked out of the art room.
Safe to say, I didn’t follow after them. I spent the rest of the hour in the art room, feeling a little sick to my stomach.
I hit snowflake 100 on Wednesday night, sitting at the kitchen table freezing to death. Elijah had to prop the door open while he attempted to fix it, letting in a stream of wintery air.
“Can you hurry up?” I called to him. “You’re making my glue freeze before I can get the glitter on.”
“If you helped me, I wouldn’t take so long,” he said evenly, and I turned just in time to watch him shake his head. “You can hand me nails.”
With a sigh, I laid down my cold pair of scissors, huddling deeper in the blanket I’d wrapped around myself. heading down the hallway. “Have you been doing this for hours?” I called to him, heading down the hallway. “Because it feels like it.”
Elijah threw a glare over his shoulder, but from the loose set of his shoulders, I knew he wasn’t really offended. “I hope your fingers have frozen off.”
I stuck my tongue out at him, reaching for the tin can full of nails and screws. Elijah had borrowed a few of Dad’s old tools from the garden shed out back, promptly getting to work when we got home from school. The sun was now falling out of the sky, leaving behind orange and red streaks. They cast a luminous glow against the door, against Elijah’s cheeks.