Breakable (20 page)

“Nope.”
Shrug.

Awkward
pause wherein Dex kept glancing at the easel room and I prayed Mark was out of
sight.

Then
he smiled at me again. “Well, it’s lunchtime. Hungry?”

“Famished,”
I lied.

“Great.
I’ll take you–”

“We
aren’t supposed to leave the room unlocked.” Mark appeared in the doorway to
the easel room, arms folded, no expression on his face.

“You
can stay ‘til I get back. I’ll only be half an hour.” I pulled Dex towards the
door before he could figure out something had happened.

“But–”

Dex
followed easily and I was too busy getting away from Mark’s eyes – from the
almost-kiss-that-wasn’t – to want to hear more.

Chapter Twenty-Three

After
an entire weekend wondering what would have happened if Dex hadn’t shown up,
Monday was a disappointment.

First
period dragged. Mark acted completely normal in second period, so I wondered if
I’d imagined that he wanted to kiss me. At break, by unspoken agreement, Mark
left for the rec room and I stayed in the art room to sketch. Except I ended up
staring at the wall.

I
couldn’t face running the gauntlet of the halls, so at lunchtime I was back. I
pulled my workbook and folders out of my cubby and sat at a table.

I’d
left a pencil between the large pages, so the workbook opened right to the
sketches of Mark. Flipping through them, I pretended to examine technique, when
really I just wanted the excuse to stare. But eventually I pushed the pages
aside and ran into the sketches I’d done in bed that night after the dance.

Karyn
was there. Finn. Mark.

People
were my “thing”. Mrs. Callaghan encouraged me to use the human form in my
portfolio as much as possible, because I was good at it. But I felt most
vulnerable when I drew people I knew. So I’d largely avoided them.

Sure,
I could get the curve of Mark’s dark lashes right, the shape of his eye… but
how did I communicate the warmth beneath his skin in a cold, shades-of-grey
sketch?

I
flipped back to the image of Finn and imagined turning the idea into a painting
– using a spatula for hard lines to depict the sharpness of his features, heavy
thick paint for his rhinoceros skin, fat brush strokes for his eyebrows, like
caterpillars over his eyes, his long mouth a venomous slash of red and purple.

For
Karyn I’d use glossy pastels – waxy crayons that shone on the paper. They’d do
justice to her hair. I could layer red and white and beige and cream to make
her cheeks blush. Then, when everything was done, use a tool to scrape her eyes
out of the heavy wax so they cut through the viewer like they did through me.
Her dimples would be hard to get right. I’d need to cut them into the acrylic,
like her eyes. Holes in a poisonous blanket.

As
her face came to life in my mind, I sniggered and pulled out the crayons to
give it a shot. My hand moved quickly, inspired. A snapshot of possibilities
sprang up on the paper in minutes – a shiny, waxy, plastic face that hid the
darkness beneath.

I’d
run a candle flame along the edge of her paper so it burned unevenly. The sooty
remains would leave a dark stain on anyone who touched it.

My
imagination ran away with me…

I
flipped to a new page and Mom emerged in pencil, smudged across the paper, most
of her face turned away.

Dad
could be the opposing panel. His face an empty shell, just a few simple strokes
without features.

I
tried Mrs. Callaghan next, but her greying waves ended up looking drab instead of
unruly, and I couldn’t quite make her eyes twinkle. She’d need paint – her
lined cheeks highlighted with blues and greens, her nostrils black and red.
Every color of the rainbow in her face – outshining even the gypsy-clothes she
wore. She’d be the only one with color in the background.

Then
I started on Dex, but couldn’t figure out what to do with him. He ended up a
vague, two-dimensional representation of himself. If I hadn’t known better, he
could have been any good looking, teenage guy. A caricature.

Starting
on Mark felt natural, but as soon as I’d outlined his face, my hand froze.

I
couldn’t do it. Drawing Mark this way would be like cutting my chest open and
revealing my heart. The warmth in his eyes would make me feel cold because they
always turned away from me. The gold-silver threads of his smile were accusing
fingers, pointing, taunting my unrequited love.

With
a shaking hand I flipped back through the workbook to the sketches I’d done of
him on Saturday.

They
were rough, piecemeal snapshots of him. But taken together I had almost all his
features from the shoulders up. Only his mouth was left unfinished.

Intrigued,
I pulled the paper from the book and ripped around the edges of each sketch
until I had seven bean-shaped pieces of paper, each with a disproportionate
body part on it.

Taken
together they looked like Picasso’s shot at realism – one eye open and from the
front, the other downcast on profile. His nose was too big and his jaw took up
the space where his shoulders should have been.

Chuckling
and wondering if I should show Mark, I taped each picture to another piece of
paper in the rough arrangement. After punching holes in the side and putting
the whole thing back into the workbook, I stood up, intending to grab my paints
and start work on something worthwhile.

But
the ‘portrait’ caught my eye. From a few feet away, the overall impression was
much clearer. Mark – all mutilated and betwixt – stared at me from the paper.

I
opened the sketchbook again and pulled each of the new sketches out, laying
them across the table, envisioning the finished products and sparking on ways
to strengthen the impressions from each face.

Butterflies
swarmed in my stomach. I had an idea. But I wasn’t sure I had the courage to
back it up. Or the time. It was only a few weeks until the portfolio was due.
It had taken a year to get this far. Then again, each piece had been like
pulling fingernails because they weren’t
real.

But
this?

This
was real.

To
make portraits depicting not what each person looked like, but
who
they
were to me.

To
tell the judges about my predators – and my saviors. They wouldn’t know who
these people were. They would judge only the artistic impression.

No.
No, no no… No, I couldn’t. It was too risky. If anyone here saw them…

But
I could work at home. And Mark would keep my secret – especially if he didn’t
see me work on Karyn’s portrait. I could do all the planning in my breaks, then
use the weekends to draw and paint. I was a lot faster with a pen than a brush.
I could use acrylics, colored pencil,
normal
pencil. It would be harder
to impress, but if I could deliver something special, the simple tools would
only make the work stand out–

“Dear
Lord, Stacy. This is genius! When did you do these?”

I
shied. Mrs. Callaghan stood to my right, eyes wide, staring at my sketches.

“I…
uh… I was just fooling around…”

She
nodded. “That’s when I do my best work too. But even in these strokes you’ve
captured…” she blinked and swallowed, turning to look at me, understanding
dawning on her face. “Has anyone else seen these?” she asked, hushed.

I
shook my head. “Of course not.”

She
nodded, then turned back to the table, her eyes flipping from picture to
picture, flashing with delight when they landed on the one of her.

“I
think if you can work hard and… Stacy, these will be breathtaking.”

She
leaned over the table and gathered the pictures together like a stack of cards,
pulling each from the top to the bottom and examining them individually making
small approving noises in her throat.

Even
though it felt kind of violating since she’d know every face there with the
exception of my dad, a warm blush spread through me in the face of her
approval.

She
stopped leafing through the drawings and looked at me. “Are you brave enough?
Because they’re very…revealing. If any of your classmates see them, they’ll
understand what you’re saying, I think.”

“I
know. I was just thinking that. It’s risky.”

“You’d
have to keep some of them at home.”

I
nodded. “But there’s so little time.”

“Yes.
But if you’ve done these in just a few minutes… Stacy, if you work hard and get
a dozen of these complete, I really think you’ve got a shot at a scholarship.”

I
glanced at the picture of Mom in her hands. “I can’t do all of them at home.”

She
shook her head. “No. You’ll have a bit of a balancing act on your hands, I’m
afraid. But I can help. I can let you come in on Sundays too. By yourself. If
your mother gives her approval.” She flipped to the next page – Dex. “You’re
dating him, aren’t you? The new one?”

“Dex?
No. I mean, I don’t know. But we’ve been out a couple times before. In the
past.”

She
nodded. “Strange that his is the picture lacking life.” She glanced at me,
tapped her lip one more time, then put the papers on the table and turned to
face me. “Okay, this is the bottom line: You have seven weeks to finish your
portfolio.”

Her
finger tapped the top picture. “I’ll let you use the art room all weekend for
the next month if you go ahead with this concept. You’ll have to use every
spare minute because you’ll have to completely rebuild your workbook too. But
you’ve already got that nude which would work alongside these. And it looks
like those pieces of Mark might make up another.

“On
top of that, you
have
to do a self-portrait. I know that’s something you
were struggling with anyway. In the face of these illuminating pieces, your
self-portrait would have to be exceptional.” She glanced at the table again.
“Do you understand what I’m saying?”

Ugh.
Yes.
“I think so.”

“Good.
Then go into the easel room and get started right now. I’ll get you excused
from your afternoon classes, just this once – let inspiration take you while
you have it. By the end of the day I want to see at least half a dozen
developed sketches, canvas sizes and material lists for each. Do you
understand?”

My
heart thumped. “Sure, but I thought most of them would be pencil, charcoal,
crayon. You know. That way I can cut and scrape–”

“You’ll
have to paint at least two of them – and there’s got to be a multi-media. Oh
dear, maybe this is too much–”

“No!
No, I can do it!” I didn’t know why, but suddenly everything else I’d been
working on seemed very pale and boring. “I’ll get the others done first and
finish with the paintings when I know how much time I have.”

“You’ll
have to make the self-portrait the central piece. It will have to be
amazing
.”

“What?!
Why? I thought the Mark stuff…”

She
shook her head. “You’re telling a story with these, Stacy. You’re opening
yourself up to the world. It’s what true artists do. But if you hold back, it
will give everything else the sense of, I don’t know,
plastic
. Each of
these is telling a story about you
.
So you have to be the central piece
the others orbit.” She held my eyes and her gaze was sharp.

I
swallowed. Could I do that? It was hard enough to imagine someone seeing the
picture of Finn or Mark. But
me
?

“I
tell you what. Let’s not make a decision now. You spend this afternoon figuring
this out. You’re going to have to be really organized if you’re going to get
this done in time. So sort out what you’d do, what would go where, and how
you’d put it together. Then we’ll see if it is even worth pursuing, okay?”

I
took a deep breath and nodded.

Mrs.
Callaghan patted my shoulder. “Good girl. The bell’s going to ring in a minute.
Get yourself into the other room and I’ll check on you later.”

Right
on cue, the bell clanged in the hall outside and the door flew open to admit a
couple seniors who frowned when they saw me but didn’t speak up.

I
scrunched the sketches a little in my haste to get them out of sight, but
hustled into the easel room to set up a work station and pray I could convince
Mrs. Callaghan to let me go easy on the self-portrait. I’d do something awesome
with the Mark one. Knock her socks off. Then she’d forget about me.

Chapter Twenty-Four

For
the first time, Doctor looks troubled. I scan back through everything I’ve just
said, trying to figure out which part is bothering him. But then he taps his
lips.

“Stacy,
I think I should tell you: I saw your portfolio. Or rather, images of each
picture. Given the part your art plays in all this, I asked to see them when
you requested to leave.”

“
What–?!
”

“Your
last therapist made a note of them. So, I contacted the school.”

“That’s
not fair! I didn’t give those to you. You can’t just go snooping around in my
life.”

Doctor
grimaces. “I’m sorry I didn’t let you know sooner, but I wasn’t sure I’d be
able to get them. Your teacher was right, they’re incredibly revealing.”

“They’re
art
, not therapy!”

“Relax,
Stacy. I said they were revealing. I didn’t say I was concerned about them.”

Pause.
“You aren’t?”

“Heavens,
no! I wish all my patients could communicate themselves so articulately. I’m
glad you did, they give me a very clear picture of your views on each of those
people – and yourself – prior to your incident.”

I
swallowed hard. “They do?”

“Yes.
Even more than your recollections of events, I think, because your memories are
tainted by your choices to hide things or modify them as you think I want to
hear.” His expression is kindly, but there’s a warning in those words.

“I’m
not lying to you.”

“I
don’t want to accuse you of that…yet. But it’s clear you’re very aware of how
others think of you. You modify your word choices, downplay feelings,
sugar-coat events. I understand that’s because from a young age you grew
accustomed to being ridiculed simply for being yourself. But that’s why I’m so
glad I saw the paintings. They tell me big parts of the story.”

Gulp.
“Like what?”

Behind
his glasses, Doc’s eyes lose their economical glaze.

“They
tell me you were hurt by almost every person you depicted. Deeply. They tell me
each wound was unique, but all left you bleeding.” I flinch, but he waves a
hand. “My apologies, bad choice of word. I meant it figuratively.” He crosses
his legs again. His eyes won’t let me go. “Stacy, your paintings tell me your
story is real and regardless of how others may view it, that your pain – even
before the incident – was extensive.”

Oh
crap oh crap oh crap oh crap. My throat aches. My eyes well up. I’m swallowing
a lump that keeps bobbing back to the surface.

I
can’t cry. I can’t! If I lose it, he’ll think I’m not ready.

I
close my eyes to break his gaze. I can’t respond to what he’s said. I have to
move on. Have to change to the subject. I let my head rest on the back of my
seat and breathe deeply.

“It
wasn’t all bad,” I manage.

“Stacy–”

“Just
give me a minute, will you?”

I
have to get a grip. I can’t let him side-swipe me again.

Mrs.
Callaghan called Mom and got her permission for me to stay in the art room
after school and come on Sundays too.

I
didn’t tell Mark. He noticed the hours I was putting in at school during
breaks, of course. He tried asking me to the rec room once, but I could tell he
was reluctant, and frankly, I thought it best to let things settle down. So I
resolutely said no and hid in the art room. Karyn was always outside after
class, so there was no chance to talk about it. By Saturday I was braced for
him to ask what I was doing with all those hours, knowing I’d blurt it out and
then he’d want to look. But I didn’t want to show him. Except I did.

Part
of me was afraid if he looked at the pictures he’d see the truth. And part of
me wanted him to.

But
he didn’t ask.

I
used the Saturday hours when he was there for planning sketches, working on the
drawings of him, even dabbling in the self-portrait since it was a requirement.
But I kept my head down so much we barely spoke.

Then
on Sundays and after school I had the womb of silence all to myself and I got
lost. I spent so many hours mixing colors, scraping crayon and smudging pencil,
my eyes fixed in the short distance. When I’d look up from the paper, my vision
blurred.

For
those hours I lived in a world where the heavy load didn’t press in like a
vice, wasn’t cracking my surface. Instead the pain that usually stuck to my
ribs and weighed me down was coming loose, breaking up, flowing out through my
fingers and onto the canvas.

Mrs.
C. had been right. I was telling a story about
me
. And telling it was
gluing my cracks back together.

The
moments when I had to focus on something else – the hours in school that
weren’t art, those evening hours when Mom was home – were either a hazy fuzz of
exhaustion, or a frustrating, back-breaking irritation.

And
then there was Dex.

We
had sixth period together and he sat with me. But there was no mention of the
party. He only showed up at the art room one time, on a Saturday, and except
for that lunch, he hadn’t kissed me. Not that he had a lot of chance. At school
our conversations were rare, superficial, and his eyes often strayed away from
mine too quickly. There were a couple times he tried to say we should eat lunch
together. But he was going to the rec room. When I’d invite him to the art
room, try to talk about the work I was doing, share just a little piece of my
story with him, his face would go blank and he’d just shrug.  Eventually
he stopped asking.

At
least spending every break in the art room – or in the library doing homework –
meant I didn’t have to face how alone I’d become. I rarely saw Mark except on
Saturdays, and as the deadline drew closer, we were both working like fiends.

Mom
was never home, and when she was, I had the feeling she was waiting for
something from me. What that might be, I had no idea.

So
everything I had went into my art. I didn’t have anyone. Except Older Me.

Older
Me… Yikes.

For
the first time we were pulling away from each other. She showed up less and
less in the mirror. There had always been times she wasn’t able to come when I
called, but now those times were more often than not.

Every
time I mentioned Dex or Mark, she turned cold and silent.

When
she did talk, I learned she was glad Dex and I weren’t dating, excited about
the art – or so she said. She hadn’t asked to see any of it. Otherwise, she was
vacant. Barely there. Always looking over her shoulder – when she showed up at
all.

A
few weeks after my new portfolio idea, I crossed the quad at the beginning of
lunch, hurrying to the art room to get forty minutes in before the bell. Just
before I opened a door into the building I caught sight of Dex walking with
Belinda, leaning in her ear. She smiled, smug, at her own feet. My heart sank.
He hadn’t called in weeks. And he hadn’t tried to kiss me since a few days
after the party.

As
he and Belinda passed, she gave him a cloying look. Neither of them noticed me.

I
swallowed. It was time to accept that if Dex and I had had anything, it was
over.

He’d
officially been accepted in Mark’s circle – though Mark never talked about him
unless I brought him up.

It
was time to wait for him to stop sitting with me in sixth. To accept that he
was gone.

Gone.

The
word always conjured thoughts of Finn, and the letter, and Finn and Karyn. And
Mark.

I’d
been tempted many times to just blurt it out. Tell Mark what I’d seen and ask
him to follow them. To figure it out for himself.

But
it had been so long… Why would he believe me now?

Moments
like these I always remembered that distant conversation with Finn and Karyn,
when I’d caught them. Their devilish certainty no-one would believe me if I
accused Finn of cheating. Again.

The
whole situation made me sick. So I pretended I didn’t care. Didn’t even tell
Older Me about it.

Not
that I had a lot of chance.

Then,
a couple weeks before the art deadline, the posters advertising junior / senior
prom appeared. I listened to girls in my class talk about how their dates asked
them – or who they hoped would ask them.

When
anyone talked to me about it – eyes sharp with glee because they knew no one
would ask me – I told them I didn’t have time and hadn’t even thought about it.
Which was
so
not true. I’d dreamed about prom since I was twelve.

Oh
well, maybe next year, right? I didn’t want to think about it. It was easier to
distract myself with art.

That
Wednesday afternoon I made the first attempt at Dex. Watercolor. I painted him
in fluid lines, blue skinned and bright eyed. He ended up looking like an alien
life form. That one got pasted into the workbook.

I
pulled out the original sketch of Dex and saw again how shallow it was. It
showed nothing of him – none of his personality. None of my feelings for him.
Then again, what were my feelings for him?

Attraction?
Fear? Hope? Pain?

I
frowned at the paper. There was no point. I couldn’t do this right now. And
besides, I was supposed to be working on my self-portrait.

Not
that there was any comfort in that.

With
a sigh, I looked up and registered the empty art room for the first time. How
many hours had I been here recently?

I’d
been so lost in the art, so busy putting everything onto paper and fabric, I’d
spent myself. I was hollowed out. There was nothing left. Now I was supposed to
come up with some mind-blowing self-portrait?

With
a groan of resignation I dragged myself across the room to rummage through the
storage space until I came up with a large table mirror – rectangle, on a
rotating frame so the angle could be adjusted. I placed it on the table in
front of me and half-heartedly sketched myself.

One
of the advantages of having Older Me around all these years was it gave me
something else to look at in a mirror. But now, with silence around me, and no
one else in the reflection, time on my hands, and nervous tension fuelling the
need to do
something
, I put the mirror in front of me, just to the
right, and stared at myself.

My
neck wasn’t long enough for my round face. All those freckles on my cheeks and
nose made my skin seem blotchy. But my eyelashes were long and curled on their
own. My hazel eyes were light enough to get attention.

Everything
else about me was just… normal. My nose wasn’t too big or too long. My eyebrows
arched below my forehead in never-be-natural brunette because I dyed them every
few weeks. My hair hit my shoulders, but didn’t drop much below them. If it
hadn’t been that copper color–

The
outside door clicked and thumped, like the locked had stopped someone opening
it. Surprised, I looked past the mirror to find Dex, hands cupped at the
windowpane.

Dex
was here?

And
then Older Me arrived in the mirror.

“Hey,
Stace,” she sighed. She looked tired. “Are you in the art–?”

“Dex
is here,” I whispered through unmoving lips. “I have to let him in.”

I
didn’t see her reaction because I pushed my chair back and walked to the door.

Dex
stepped back from the window when he saw me coming. When I got the door open he
stood half-turned away from me, but smiling. His hands were shoved deep in his
pockets, shoulders slightly hunched. He wore that leather jacket again, though
the weather was warming up. His jeans slouched perfectly over his shoes.

 “Hey,
Stace,” he said quietly, chin tipped down, but eyes on me.

“Hi.”
I couldn’t hide my surprise. We’d barely spoken outside class for weeks. Why
was he here?

“You
busy?”

I
shrugged. The answer was yes. But he had to be here for a reason. School
finished a couple hours ago. He must have left and come back.

“It’s
okay,” I said carefully. “I’m just… did you want to come in?”

His
hesitant grin widened. “Sure.”

A
surge of adrenaline hit my system – were the sketches of him still out? I
whipped around, but no, the workbook was slumped closed, on the table.

Shaking
a little, I returned to the seat I’d taken at the top of the U shape. Older Me
remained in the mirror. Her eyes widened when I sat down and she looked around,
but Dex grabbed a chair across from me, out of her sight. I couldn’t very well
move her without it seeming strange, so I just gave her a glance, then turned
back to him.

“What’s
up?” I picked up the sketchpad and started doodling – swirls, spheres, crosses,
stars, stupid stuff to keep my hands busy.

Dex
leaned on the tabletop with one arm and fiddled, rolling a couple of the
pencils around. Now that I thought about it, he’d been talkative in class that
afternoon too. I’d been too busy trying to do the assignment
and
the
homework so I could forget about it over the weekend. I’d brushed him off.