Put Me Back Together (5 page)

I approached my easel, smiling contentedly, until my gaze fell on the guy standing at the back of the room by the windows. Suddenly, all the comforting feelings that had been percolating inside me vanished and I swore under my breath.

So much for putting Lucas out of my mind.

The sunlight streaming through the window was falling directly onto his shoulders, lighting him up like a beacon. There might as well have been a huge arrow above his head, pointing him out to me. And, of course, my easel was just beside his.

Great.

As I approached his side, I couldn’t help but take in his tousled dark hair and the worn plaid shirt he wore open over a gray t-shirt that fit him snugly across the chest. He was frowning, his honey-coloured eyes searching the canvas as though they might find some precious secret hidden there. Even frowning he was drop-dead gorgeous. I silently cursed myself for thinking this. His concentration was so complete that he didn’t notice me at all, even when I was almost directly behind him. Looking over his shoulder, I saw that his canvas was completely blank.

I understood the intimidation of the blank canvas—I think every artist does. A part of me wanted to give him some tips to get through it, but another part of me warned vehemently against it. This was exactly what I’d vowed not to do less than an hour ago. In the end, my clumsiness made the decision for me when I knocked over a jar full of brushes, sending them scattering across the floor, including right under Lucas’s easel.

“Oh, sorry!” I mumbled as I fell to my knees and began frantically collecting the brushes. I heard Lucas chuckle and then he crouched down beside me to give me a hand.

“I was just thinking about you,” Lucas said as he handed me a bunch of brushes smiling broadly. His fingers grazed mine as I took the brushes from him, causing me to yank my hand away and nearly drop them all over again.

“I hope that’s not true, considering how hard you were frowning at your canvas,” I said shakily.

We both stood up and I busied myself with shoving all the brushes back into the jar as he looked over at his canvas again.

Calm down,
I told myself.
He was probably just thinking about what a crazy spaz you are.

“I was just thinking how easy the assignments must be for you, with all your talent.”

I gave him a puzzled—and maybe a little resentful—look, feeling my hackles rising. I really wasn’t good with compliments.

“I’ve been in the class since the beginning of the semester, Katie,” he said gently. “You’re an amazing artist. I’ve always thought so.”

“Did you realize we were in the same class when we met last week?” I demanded, crossing my arms. I might have been overreacting, mainly because I felt bad. He’d noticed me before last week, but I hadn’t noticed him at all.

“It took me a few minutes to place you,” he said. “But I figured it out. Your paint-spattered fingers reminded me.”

I glanced down at my hands, rubbing at the red paint on my index finger. Emily was always chiding me about it. When I looked up at Lucas, his eyes were also focused on my hands. He took his time raising them back to my face, his gaze leaving a slow trail of heat up my body. I shivered involuntarily.

Now my hackles were up for real.

“What are you doing taking introductory fine art, anyway?” I said, my words taking on the tone of an interrogation. “You’re not an art student, are you?”

Surprisingly, Lucas didn’t seem the least offended. He shrugged lightly. “I convinced them to make an exception for me,” he said. “I wanted to try something new.”

I couldn’t exactly fault him for that. I cast around for some other way to chastise him, but couldn’t come up with anything, especially not while he was watching me so closely, the beginnings of a smirk at the corner of his lips.

“So what’s the problem with the assignment?” I said instead, pointing at his canvas, drawing his gaze away. We were restricted to using a limited colour palette, and, as always, we had to paint from a photo. The painting itself could be of anything.

“I just can’t decide what to paint. I’ve been going through my photos for over an hour but…I can’t settle on one,” he said, and there was disappointment in his voice. He sighed as he looked down at the photographs in his hands. For some reason this block was really bothering him.

“That happens to me sometimes,” I admitted. “Usually when there’s something on my mind, something I could paint but I don’t want to.”

The look he gave me was full of recognition before it drifted back to the canvas in front of him.

I wondered what it was he was trying to avoid.

Settling myself in front of the easel next to his, I said, “You’ll get better at getting past blocks like this as you paint more. Just keep telling yourself to pick the photo that matters to you, the one that makes you feel something.”

“You mean I should paint what I love?” he asked, and was I imagining it, or did his eyes linger on my lips as he said it?

I cleared my throat. “I mean paint from the gut,” I said. “The best artists always do.”

“Is that what you do?” he asked.

This time I avoided his eyes. “No,” I said. “I paint the past.”

Then I put in my ear buds, turned on my iPod, and tuned him out. It was easier than I’d expected. Within moments I’d slipped into what I liked to call my “artist trance,” losing myself in the act of painting and letting the rest of the world just fade away. Sometimes when I did this the painting sitting on the easel when I was done looked entirely foreign to me and I had no memory of creating it at all. Those paintings were often the most abstract, full of dark, angry strokes and spatters of paint. I never showed them in class or hung them on my wall. Truthfully, they frightened me.

A little more than an hour later I turned my music off. My painting was by no means finished, but I’d made a good start. I wasn’t working from a photograph, which I knew would get me into trouble, but I didn’t have much choice. Even if I could go back to that place and take a picture, I knew I never would. Luckily, I didn’t need a photograph to paint the scene. It was seared into my brain.

Today I’d worked on the sky, which didn’t pose much of a challenge for me. I’d become an expert at painting the fading light of day, the lingering blue, the peeking stars. I’d painted that sky a hundred times. No matter what I did, even if I painted a daytime scene, there was always that sky hanging over it, scattered with darkening clouds.

I could never escape that sky.

Looking around, I noticed Lucas wasn’t at his easel. Instead, he was leaning against the counter behind me. As I turned around, I caught him looking at my painting and a wave of panic shot through me. How long had he been watching? Had he seen me in my artist trance? I had no idea what I looked like when I was in that state—probably like I was high or a little mad. To cover my embarrassment, I jumped from my seat.

“Let’s see yours!” I said, stepping over to his easel.

“It’s not finished,” Lucas said hesitantly, and he was right; it wasn’t. The right-hand side of the painting was mostly blank. But he’d recreated the trees in his photo with surprising skill. I was impressed by the way he’d managed to make it seem as though the sun was shining through the branches. His style was more realistic than mine, but far more advanced than I’d expected. I couldn’t quite believe it.

I turned to him and he raised his eyebrows at me. He actually looked anxious to hear what I thought. I’d never seen him look anything but relaxed before.

“It’s really good,” I said with a genuine smile and he seemed to let out a breath he was holding. “I love your use of light here.” I pointed at the branches. “I can’t wait to see it when it’s finished. I had no idea…” I shook my head.

“No idea what?” he asked.

“You surprise me,” I said simply.

My certainty that the attraction I was feeling was entirely one-sided crumbled in an instant as Lucas stared into my eyes, making my stomach flip. He looked at me like he’d never seen anything like me before, like I was the only girl in the world, like I was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen.

Nobody had ever looked at me that way in my entire life.

“Go out for coffee with me,” Lucas said, his eyes locked to mine.

I didn’t even take a second to think about it.

“Okay,” I said.

4

I convinced Lucas to go to a local coffee shop I knew of on a side street off campus. I told him it would be less crowded, when really I just didn’t want to be whispered about for the rest of the day for having a coffee date with Lothario Lucas. If he had any idea I was lying, he didn’t let on, which left me feeling a little buzzed with relief. I didn’t bother asking myself why it mattered so much to me if Lucas thought I was a liar.

We passed one of our cat flyers stapled to a telephone pole, flapping depressingly in the wind. In the end Lucas had insisted we put his number on the bottom, just in case some kook ended up calling, but he said he hadn’t gotten any calls.

As we walked through the door to the coffee place, my cell buzzed in my hand.

Em: Econ is sooooo boring. Make me laugh. Now. Go.

I considered telling my sister I was about to sit down for coffee with “Lucas Matthews is a hottie,” but decided against it. Knowing Em, she’d probably scream right there in class and hold it against me later. Better to make her wait.

Me: But how? I’m so boring, too.

Em: True. Sighhhhh.

Me: Might have a story for you later, tho.

Em: What what?

Me: Maybe something about a certain hottie…

Em: WHAT!

Me: Oh, sorry, gotta go.

Em: Evil tease!

Me: TTYL :)

As much as everything to do with Lucas felt completely ill advised to me, it was fun to have something to gossip with my sister about, even if I was pretending—it was just coffee; I was pretty sure there wouldn’t be much of a story to tell. She was usually the one coming to me with juicy tales of heartbreak and outrage and adventure. I liked the idea of being able to deliver something back.

It was almost like I had a life.

Lucas had been waiting behind me in line, respectfully not asking whom I was texting with. When it was my turn to order, I got a giant hot chocolate with extra whipped cream and covered it with chocolate and cinnamon shavings. I liked my beverages to be as much like dessert as possible. I collected my drink and grabbed a seat at a table by the window, wondering only after I’d sat down if that was the socially correct thing to do. Should I have waited with him while they made his drink? Should I have paid for his drink? (In actuality, he’d paid for mine, even though he was behind me in line. Was that normal?) I eyed him nervously as he stood with his coat under his arm, chatting with the guy behind the counter. I could say I didn’t check out his ass from across the room, but that would be another lie.

His coffee in hand—he got it black and in the smallest size, like he was trying to make me look like the biggest pig in the world—he walked over to where I sat, and a dozen female eyes followed him.

“Is this how you live?” I asked, fixing him with a horrified look.

“What? Did I spill?” he said checking the front of his shirt for stains, as I glanced back around the room with lowered lids. Now those same female eyes were looking at me instead. Middle-aged ladies and teenage girls and soccer moms. A skinny girl with long brown hair stared daggers at me. Apparently it didn’t really matter if we were on campus or off. Lucas caused a stir everywhere he went.

I took a breath, detesting the feeling of being stared at. I remembered that feeling. Like everyone knew something about you. All of them pitying you. And then, later, like everyone was wondering what the hell was wrong with you.

I felt rather than saw Lucas leaning toward me over the table, my eyes glued to the wooden surface.

“They wouldn’t be staring if you weren’t so beautiful,” he whispered.

What?

I gulped my drink, burning my tongue and getting whipped cream all over my nose and upper lip, which I wiped off with amazing speed, though I was pretty sure he’d seen it. I couldn’t be certain, because I still hadn’t looked him in the eye.

“Uh,” I muttered as I squeezed my napkin into a ball in my fist. “That’s just so…completely not…whatever.”