“What’s the theme?”
“A Night Under the Stars!” He accentuates every word by sticking his hand in the air. “It’s going to be about as fun as you’d imagine.”
“Sounds like it.” I haven’t been to any dances since middle school, and those were pretty sad excuses to corral students in the gym for an hour and listen to “clean” versions of popular songs.
“My vote was for Godzilla Attack, but that was shelved pretty fast.”
“They turned that down?” I pause. “Can’t believe it.”
“My, my, someone took his smartass pills this morning.” Nathan bumps into me with his shoulder. “So spill. What are you doing here?”
“Thomas wanted to come in early to grade some papers. Figured I’d get some peace and quiet while I was here.”
“Oh.” Nathan glances around. “I can leave if you want me to, then.” He makes like he’s going to stand up.
“No,” I say, before I even know I’ve opened my mouth. “I mean, you don’t have to.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah.”
“You know,” he starts to say, relaxing back into his spot, “I sort of thought you might be mad at me for something. If I did something to make you uncomfortable, I’m really sorry.”
“No, it’s not you.” I sigh, wishing it was as simple as telling him the truth. “I’ve, um … just been going through some personal things.”
“Oh.” He spreads out his long legs. Really, how is it even possible for someone to have legs that long? “Want to talk about it?”
“Not really.”
“Okay. So, what do you want to talk about?”
“Don’t know, you got anything on your mind?” I ask.
“Not really? Maybe collapsing in on myself at the idea of dealing with all these school events, and homework, and college letters coming in, but that’s not exactly great conversation.”
“Right,” I agree wholeheartedly.
“So we’ll sit here in silence?” Nathan pushes himself forward a bit, leaning his head back. “I’m cool with that. The world’s too loud sometimes.”
“You’re the last person I’d expect to say that.” I sneak a look at him, grateful that his eyes are closed. He’d make good money as a model, honestly. He has those sharp cheekbones and that smatter of freckles across his nose and cheeks.
Striking. That’s the word.
“Underneath this smooth and handsome exterior lies the soul of an isolated poet, Ben.” Nathan cracks a smile. He’s even got dimples, how is that fair? “Can’t you tell?”
“I never would’ve guessed.”
“Damn. Really?” He laughs. “I should work on that image. What do you think? More brooding? Or should I start wearing black turtlenecks?”
“Definitely more turtlenecks.” I grab my sketchbook again to work on the rose, not even bothering with the reference photo this time. “Don’t forget the black coffee though, and the hipster glasses with fake lenses.”
“Blegh, black coffee? Why would you punish yourself like that?”
“Hey, you’re the bohemian writer. It’s for the aesthetic,” I add.
“Noted.” He lets out a long, slow sigh. “If I fall asleep, you promise to wake me up?”
“Sure.”
“Pinky promise?” He sticks out his hand, pinky finger extended, and for a second, I just stare at it before it occurs to me that he’s serious.
I wrap my own finger around his.
“Pinky promise,” I say.
“This is where you go during lunch, isn’t it?” Nathan asks, his eyes still shut.
“Sometimes,” I whisper after what’s probably too long a silence. “Or I go to the art room.” I’m not quite sure why I tell him the truth. Maybe I owe him that much at least?
“Seems lonely.”
“Sometimes the world is too loud,” I repeat back to him.
That makes him laugh again. “Touché.” He takes another deep breath. “I guess there’s no point in asking you to join me for lunch today, huh?”
There’s this thud in my chest. Make a friend, Ben. Make a friend. “I’ll go.”
He opens an eye. “What?”
“I’ll go,” I say again. “For today at least.”
“Are you serious?” He nearly leaps up from his spot.
“Pinky promise,” I say.
He grins, and he can’t stop giggling as he takes my finger.
“You really want me to go to the cafeteria that bad?”
“It’s the sort of experience you only get in high school, my friend.” He winks. “Besides, Meleika and Sophie have wanted to meet you for a while now.”
“Meleika and Sophie?”
“My friends.”
“Oh.” I’m not sure why I imagined it would be just the two of us, but maybe with more people there the chances of it getting awkward will be diminished? At least a little.
We sit in silence for a bit before. Nathan starts humming a song I don’t recognize, but that dies out quickly. At one point I’m sure he’s fallen asleep, because his breathing changes and there’s a slight hitch. When the parking lot begins to fill with cars, I nudge him awake, but he doesn’t seem groggy or tired or anything.
“Almost that time?” he asks.
“Almost,” I say, closing my sketchbook and sliding it into my backpack.
“Did you finish the rose?”
I stand up and brush the gravel off my jeans. “Not yet.”
Nathan grabs his own bag, checking something on his phone. “Can I see it when you’re done?”
“Yeah,” I say without hesitating.
“Hey, do you have any paper?” Then he pauses. “Any that you don’t use for drawing? I’d hate to steal the artist’s resources.”
I grab my bag and dig through the front pocket, looking for the pack of sticky notes I keep there just in case. In case of what? I don’t really know.
“And a writing utensil?”
“So needy,” I tease, reaching for a pen.
He writes something down and folds the sticky note around the pen, handing it back to me before taking off across the parking lot and shouting back, “See you in Chem.”
I unfold the note and stare at the ten-digit number he’s written inside, along with the message scrawled messily underneath.
Text me ;)
“Can I help?” Nathan leans over the counter in Chemistry to watch me wash the beakers. Today we’ve been messing around with some chemical reactions. According to Thomas, our next big quiz is going to be a lab.
Toward the middle of the period I pretty much took over. Nathan had nearly poured too much of a solution into one of the beakers, which would not have been good considering I don’t think either of us would look very attractive without our eyebrows.
I don’t even mind, really. I like chemistry. Even with the numbers and the formulas, it’s more interesting than math. Except my gloves are way too big for my hands, so I have to keep pulling them up, and then water gets in the tips of the fingers and the whole thing makes them feel totally pointless, but Thomas said it’s unsafe to wash without them, so I guess I’ll have to suffer.