head in the clouds

twenty; tyler

"Tyler, Jenna." He calls us.

Jen grabs the painting and we walk, shoulder to shoulder, to the front. She places it on the easel then turns to the class.

"What's it called?" Mr. Carson asks.

"Good Day." Jen says.

"Alright, walk us through it." He says.

"Tyler and I focused on the false positivity and how damaging it actually is. We painted our hands, as you can tell, and just placed them all over the canvas, trying to show how powerful our hands actually are."

"And she doesn't mean that in how many weights you can lift." I say, earning a few stiff laughs. "With false positivity comes the act of not knowing how to actually feel. Sometimes it's a suffocating feeling, and our hands are the main cause of suffocation."

"We used bright colors to flow with the "positive" side, and the hands to flow with the suffocation." She finishes.

"Alright, any questions?" Mr. C asks. Almost everyone raises their hand. Expect him. "Mark?"

"Why did you go with false positivity?" Mark asks.

"I see a lot of it in this school, and it's almost normalized to just act completely okay. So we wanted to make this and express it's okay to not be okay." Jen says.

"Pete." Mr. C says.

"What give you the correlation of the hands, suffocation and false positivity?" Pete asks.

"Our hands play a big role in teen depression. Whether it be forms of self harm, or just trying to get better. It kinda just came to me when we were bouncing ideas back and fourth too." I laugh.

"Josh." He deadpans.

"Why'd you call it Good Day?" He asks.

"When we have bad days, stressful days, sad days, we feel horrible. But yet, when people ask how we're doing we say we're good. We say we're having a good day." Jenna explains.

My gaze lands on him in the back row with Brendon. He notices and smiles at me. I freeze for a second then break the eye contact, looking at Mr. Carlson.

"Alright, that's all we can do today." He says closing his book. "Thank you to those who participated, and next class we can show the rest of them."

Everyone starts getting ready as the bell rings, indicating school is done for the day. Jenna starts taking down the painting as Mr. C walks up to us.

"This was very impressive you two." He says.

We smile at him. "Thank you, sir."

"I have one more open slot at an art show I was invited to. You two don't have to be there, but your painting would be entered in the contest and the winner gets $500, I think you two could win." He says.

"Holy shit, what?" I ask, exhaling out of my nose.

He nods and smiles. "I can sign it up under my name, and if you win I'll obviously give you the money. I just think this is really good and deserves to be seen. The message to it, the way you're calling out teen depression, it's just a beautiful piece."

"Thank you so much, Mr. Carlson." Jenna looks at me with a smile and I nod repeatedly. "Yeah, we'd love that sir."

"Okay, perfect. You can leave it in the back and I'll take it with me when I go." He smiles.

"Thank you so much." I say.

"Alright, now get outta here." He shoo's us.

We laugh and walk out, leaving the classroom. We walk up the stairs to the main hallway full of rushing teenagers and lockers.

"Alright, see you later Ty." She says, starting to walk away.

"Bye Jen." I shout to her.

She waves and disappears into the crowded hall. I open my locker, taking off my backpack and pulling out the books I'll need tomorrow and putting the ones I won't need in my bag. A throat clears behind me, making my head shoot up. I turn my head to see Josh.

"Oh, hi." I say.

"Um, I just wanted to say I really liked your painting." He says, awkwardly shifting his weight on his feet.

I smile softly and close my locker. "Thank you. I liked yours a lot too."

He smiles and looks down the hallway before looking back at me. "Uh-"

"I'm sorry I've been so mean to you recently." I blurt. "I know it's been two weeks, but I still really appreciate what you did for me."

"Oh, yeah, I just wanted-"

"To make sure I was safe, I know." I smile.

He chuckles and nods his head. "Yeah, exactly."

"I don't know if I can be friends with you."

"Why not?" He asks.

I look at the ground and shrug. "My dad, mainly. I don't know..." I trail off.

"I don't want to be friends with you." He says.

My head shoots up and my brows furrow. "What?"

"I don't." He shrugs. "If you don't, then I don't. But I don't-" he rolls his eyes and sighs. "I don't know, whatever."

"I'm sorry." I say, running my hand up my arm.

"No, don't be. You have nothing to apologize for Ty." He smiles softly. "Look, I gotta get home but I'll see you around?"

I smile and nod my head. "Yeah."

"Alright, bye Tyler."

"G'bye."

And before I know it, he's gone.