Best Friend

Chapter Three

As I was walking out of my gym class on my way to lunch, I heard someone call my name.

"Mia!" I hear Jeff's footsteps approach me in a hurry, and turn around. He looked pretty out of breath.

"Hey. Okay, so I was gonna ask if I could draw you for my art class because we are supposed to pick a person, and I asked Sarai and tried to draw her, but I just didn't like the way it turned out. It just didn't look right. I already started on drawing you, and so far it's absolutely perfect to me. I just wanted to ask, is that alright?" He rambled on.

I laughed and looked at him like he was stupid.

"Of course you can draw me, J. You didn't even have to ask. But is it really perfect? I mean, you should just use the drawing of Sarai and then give it to her as a present or something," I said as we approached the cafeteria.

He looked deep in thought, and when we sat down at the table he shrugged said, "I don't know, I didn't like the way it looked. She was doing this weird pose for me, and yeah, I just like yours better. Do you wanna see it?"

"What picture of me did you even use?"

And before he gave me an answer, he already pulled out his sketch pad and a bunch of different pictures of me taken from his phone fell out.

"So I tried to use one normal picture of you just smiling, and it looked too forced to me, and I tried all the other ones, but I needed something that really expressed you. I want people to see you the way I see you. So I took this picture of us at this year's homecoming, and cut myself out. This is how I see you, and it was my favorite one of you."

He flipped through the little pile of pictures of me and showed me the one he was talking about. Immediately a smile plastered onto my face because it was my favorite picture of us that we've ever taken. We were standing next to each other when we were taking homecoming pictures, and at the time he told me something funny and I laughed at him. My mom just happened to take the picture as it was happening. So while our friends were standing in order with perfect smiles, me and him weren't even paying attention and were just laughing at each other. Thank goodness my mom was just focusing on us.

He showed me the beginning sketch of me, and it looked absolutely amazing.

"Jeff, this is freaking amazing! I knew you doodled and stuff, but this is so beautiful! I love it so much!" I saw his face lighten up, and he smiled back.

"I was hoping you would like it, I worked really hard on it the past few days," he said while he held it in his hands.

I took the sketchbook from him and started flipping through the pages. Inside I found the normal pictures of me he started to draw, and then I found the one of Sarai. Now it wasn't terrible, and not trying to be mean, but it just didn't look like mine. Mine was genuine, and he was right, she just didn't look right, it didn't feel right looking at it. He must've seen my face, because he said, "I know, it's not good. I didn't like it either. I need to find a way to tell her that I can't use it. She was so excited when I asked her."

I smiled a little inside. Even if he likes her like crazy, it's nice to know that I'm still on the top of his list.

"Hmm.. Well just tell her you weren't feeling it. An artist needs to love his work in order for his work to be loved. And I'm honored that you chose me. You're definitely gonna get picked for the art show, no kidding," I said.

He looked at me sincerely. "Thank you, Mia. It's really not that hard when your subject is really genuine," he said with a smile.

I wanted to laugh because does that mean he doesn't think that Sarai is genuine? Hm, way to be cute towards the girl you like, J.

I took out my lunch and took a bite out of my sandwich while he went up to the lunch line to get what he gets literally every day. A bag of chips, a muffin, and a can of soda. It honestly makes me feel fat because I always eat a full lunch with a sandwich, a bag of chips, and water.

When he gets back, I am drinking my water, and swallow it wrong. I begin to cough like crazy, and I can feel the water get caught in my throat. He comes rushing back and starts to pat my back gently, with little force. I swallow more water in an effort to wash it all down, and when I finally calm down, I feel a huge sigh of relief escape from his mouth.

"Mia, are you alright? You sounded like you were literally dying! I got scared for a second!" He says with worry.

I swallow one more time and say, "I'm good! I just swallowed the water wrong. Thanks for caring. I'm literally the clumsiest person ever, no joke."

He laughs. "There's no disagreeing with that one."

He opens up his bag of chips, and we talk about what we can fit in the rest of our short lunch hour. I told him a story about how cute Christian was today like I do everyday, and he puts his hands on his cheeks and teases me like he does every time. We were beyond comfortable with each other, and it was just so beautiful. It honestly terrifies me to know that one day it won't be like this anymore. We won't be seeing each other everyday and we won't be sitting down for lunch at the same time everyday. One day everything will change and we'll go our separate ways. I almost cry at the thought of it. You know you've become so attached to someone that you've gotten used to talking to them on a daily basis and they become a part of your happiness. But when he leaves, my happiness will be gone.