Put Me Back Together (20 page)

“Don’t poke out Lucas’s eyes,” I said, mildly alarmed. My sister had once shaved a guy’s head in his sleep. I knew what she was capable of when enraged. And it wasn’t pretty.

“Not both eyes, just one. He’ll still have the other one. He can wear a patch.”

“Well, that’s a relief,” I replied.

I watched as the last of the students from the previous class trickled out of the studio, more evidence that I was ridiculously early. Today was critique day, the day we had to display the painting we’d been working on for the last few weeks and have it assessed by the other students and the professor—otherwise known as Katie’s monthly breakdown day—although this month had been so fraught with breakdowns I was thinking I’d have to change the name to something else.

I hated letting anyone see my work, let alone give me their opinion on it. Letting the professor see it was bad enough. I’d already been through a few critiques during the sculpture module earlier in the semester and knew that most of the students were nice enough—nobody wanted to be too harsh, knowing their head would soon be on the chopping block—but that was sculpture. I knew from catching glimpses in the studio that almost all the students in the class had gone for photorealism for their paintings. Our assignment didn’t require any particular style of painting; the idea was to learn how to paint distance and incorporate two figures from one photo into the landscape of another, keeping the light source and palate of hues consistent. I’d done that; I knew I had. I’d just taken a more impressionistic approach, which would make my painting stand out from the others.

Which was exactly what I didn’t need right now.

“Look, can I be blunt?” Emily said then plowed on without waiting for my answer. “Did Lucas try something Saturday night? Is that what has you so freaked?

“I’m freaked because it’s crit day,” I corrected her, gazing through the window next to us at the pouring rain. Em was going to get soaked when she crossed campus to get to her own class. “And what do you mean ‘tried something?’ Tried what?”

He tried to kiss me, that’s all
, was what I didn’t say.
He tried to love me. He just didn’t realize I was unlovable.

Not that a single kiss meant he loved me. I didn’t think that. Though it might have made me fall in love with him just a little. A lot of good that was going to do me.

“What I mean is,” Em said carefully, putting on her thinking face, “did he try to…touch you?”

Still gazing out the window, I thought about Lucas’s touch, his fingers gently caressing my cheeks, the feeling of his tongue slipping into my mouth, and I felt my entire body flush. I’d replayed those few short moments over in my head so many times in the past two days, and every time I had my body had reacted the exact same way: the ache pulsing to life again in my belly, my every nerve tingling. It was mortifying and thrilling at the same time, and it was happening to me right now.

Luckily, I had only to think about how the moment had ended to make the fantasy come crashing to a stop.

“Katie!” Em cried, shaking me by the shoulder.

“Huh? What? Yes!” I said, focusing on my sister’s face as Lucas’s disappeared into the snow.

“Yes?” she said, her voice rising. “You mean he
did
try to have sex with you?”

Several students from my class turned our way as they filed through the door across from us. I saw Naomi trying not to laugh.

“Shut up!” I said, smacking Em on the arm. “What the hell are you talking about? Lucas didn’t try to have sex with me! We barely even kissed.”

“You kissed!” Em said, her face lighting up, then falling back into a frown. “Oh, wait, so it was a bad kiss? I don’t really see how that’s possible, since this is Lucas we’re talking about, but—”

“It wasn’t bad,” I said, looking down at my shoes. “It was really nice.”

Understatement of the year.

“Then what the hell happened?” Em demanded, rounding on me and forcing me to look her in the face. “I’m your sister. You can tell me. I’m an amazing secret keeper. By the way, forget everything I just told you about Sally and Alex’s brother.”

“I should really go in,” I said. “Class is about to start.”

Em’s face fell and she pursed her lips. “Fine,” she said in that clipped tone she took when nothing was fine at all.

I winced internally. There was no way I could tell her the truth, not about this, but that didn’t make lying to my sister any easier.

“I can’t tell you what happened,” I said to the side of her face, because she was refusing to look at me, “but I can say that Lucas didn’t do anything wrong. So don’t be mean to him. It wasn’t his fault.”

She frowned, letting her eyes creep back over to my face. “Whose fault was it?” she asked.

I smiled weakly. “Nobody’s,” I said as I walked toward the door instead of saying what I really felt—that the fault was mine, as usual, as predicted. The fault was always mine.

“Hey, sis,” Em called in a whisper as I reached the classroom door. “Your first kiss and it’s with Lucas—that’s still pretty exciting, isn’t it?”

I nodded and tried to look thrilled for her sake, my sweet sister who thought I’d never looked at a boy before, who thought her twin was the last nineteen-year-old bastion of purity. My sister who’d kissed dozens of boys, each peck as simple and uncomplicated as the next. My sister who had no idea that though Lucas had been my first kiss, he hadn’t been the first boy I’d wanted to kiss.

If only Lucas had been my first in every way
, I thought to myself as I stepped into class.
Then maybe I could have kept him.

I walked into the studio and added my painting to the others at the front, feeling the hairs rise on the back of my neck as I stood there with my back turned. And it wasn’t because of my painting. Sure enough, as I made my way to my stool I saw more than a few eyes following me. A girl who always spoke really slowly when she asked questions in class whispered to the skinny guy who sat next to her. He nodded as I walked by. My right hook to Buck’s nose and my dramatic exit from the party certainly hadn’t gone unnoticed. I’d had the same experience walking into my art history class yesterday. I’d become a person that got noticed, the exact thing I’d been trying to avoid all along, and this time I couldn’t blame it on any boy. This time it was all me—hitting this guy and kissing that one and destroying everything around me.

I had nobody to blame but myself.

A feeling of incredible defeat fell over me as Professor Wilkins entered the room and we began the critique. Though we were all meant to participate, I didn’t say a word, shrinking into myself instead like Alice after taking a sip from the “Drink Me” bottle, wanting desperately to become so small that I could be lost among the folds of my clothes. I had spent years feeling this way, living this way, years wasted wanting to be nothing, wanting not to exist at all. And here I was thinking I’d been making such strides, that I’d been changing my fate, changing my life, that I was getting better at living. It turned out I was exactly where I’d started: scared and alone and lying about everything and hating myself for it. I really hadn’t changed a bit.

The other students’ paintings paraded before my eyes, but I barely saw them. Later, I could only recall one out of the bunch, the work of a girl named Paula who always wore her curly hair in two braids. The painting featured two children at the beach, one a little black boy with a coy expression on his face, and the other a little white girl in a blue bathing suit and pigtails. The little boy’s face took up a third of the canvas, almost as though he’d run up and presented himself to be painted up close, while the little girl was farther away and had turned her back. The class agreed that it was somewhat over-painted and there wasn’t enough flow, but I found it enchanting, as I often did pictures of childhood. It was the one part of my life I could look back on without having to worry about feeling ashamed. Before I turned thirteen I had nothing to be ashamed of.

When my turn came around I nearly got up and fled the room. I only stayed in my seat because I knew a scene like that would just make them whisper about me more. I’d never felt less inclined to be evaluated as I reluctantly raised my head and prepared to face the onslaught.

“Who would like to begin?” Professor Wilkins said. She raised her eyebrows, her gaze flitting over my face. She was greeted by an avalanche of silence. Normally there were a few students who spoke first, eager to get in their comments before somebody else had the same idea and they had to come up with something new. Not for my painting, apparently. As the seconds passed, all I heard were crickets.

I was really beginning to feel like I might drown in my own misery when a pompous guy I’d never liked spoke up.

“It’s too dark,” he said. “The brightness of the sky distracts the eye and I can’t even make out the figures in front of the trees. I feel like it’s muddled.”

Gee, thanks for breaking my heart, Pompous Guy
.

Unfortunately, he seemed to have triggered a reaction in the rest of the class.

“I agree,” said a girl named Haylie. “Is that a woman in the bottom right corner? Or a man? It’s hard to tell.”

“The brush strokes are distinct,” somebody threw in.

“Yes, but what does that matter if you can barely see them?”

“I think it just comes down to poor subject choice. A photograph with less disparity in colour and brightness would have made a much stronger painting. Of course, it would be easier to judge if we actually had the photograph to compare it to.”

I wasn’t about to mention that I hadn’t painted from a photograph.

Professor Wilkins blinked silently for a few moments as the riot of flagellation came to an end. “Does anyone else have a comment to make about Katie’s painting?” she asked politely. Professor Wilkins was always so polite and proper, possibly the most well-groomed artist ever to exist in the world. She didn’t seem to know how to address the communal condemnation of my painting, except to send out the request one more time for the right answer. I wished she wouldn’t bother. I didn’t want some pity comment about the way I’d mixed my colours so well. I just wanted it to be over.

But it wasn’t.

“I like it,” I heard a voice say.

He was sitting off to my left, blocked from my view by several bodies and easels, yet I still leaned back when he spoke, as if that would better hide me from him. I’d thought he’d skipped class because the spot next to me was empty, but apparently he’d been there all the time.

Lucas.

Just the sound of his voice made my hands tremble. I hadn’t seen him since our kiss, though he’d texted me multiple times and I was pretty sure he’d come by my apartment on Sunday night and waited for a while at the door of the building when I hadn’t buzzed him in. Mariella had called to tell me a good-looking guy had asked if he could come in, that he was a friend of mine, but she’d told him that he should wait for me to let him in. I’d thanked her for that. (She wisely had not asked anything more, but I knew that wouldn’t last long.) I wished I was stronger than this, but the truth was I couldn’t bear to face him.

And now we were stuck in a very small classroom together.

“The way she painted the sky is incredible,” Lucas went on. “Both the texture and the range of colour she used. The figures are indistinct, yes, but I think that makes them more compelling. The stroke of red paint here, over the head of this figure, draws the eye, and the darkness of the trees closing in gives the impression of being trapped. Overall, I find it haunting. And beautiful.”

Professor Wilkins thanked him for his contribution then gave the painting her own evaluation, which I hardly listened to. Lucas’s words had stirred up a storm of conflicting emotions in me that I could hardly make sense of, and anyway I didn’t have the time. Class was ending and I had to get the hell out of there. I didn’t have anywhere to be. But I sure as hell didn’t want to find myself alone in the room with Lucas.

Grabbing my backpack, I gunned it for the classroom door without looking around to see where he was. I figured if I rushed, I’d certainly get ahead of him. Lucas never rushed anywhere. But I was wrong. I was the second student to burst out of the classroom doors and there he was, leaning against the lockers across the hall, waiting for me.

I didn’t want to catch his eye. I wanted to brush past him as if I hadn’t even seen him. I wanted to run like hell. But those honey-coloured eyes held me in place and I knew that running from him would be no use. He would only follow me.

He was standing in almost the exact same spot Emily had stood in earlier, so I walked forward and took my place beside the window. I was next to him now, no longer in his line of vision, but he didn’t turn his head. He just looked down at the floor, his hands in the pockets of his jeans. He was wearing a close-fitting white shirt and his hair was wet—from the rain, I had to assume. He looked so beautiful I had to look away. I’d always found it painful to look with longing at the things I couldn’t have. Instead, I looked out the window at the brown, waterlogged grass surrounding the building. It had shocked me that morning to find the first spring rain melting the snow Lucas and I had walked through. It was almost as though the entire night had never happened. Except that I couldn’t stop thinking about it.

“Thank you,” I said quietly.