One Road

Chapter 2

I sit in the art room by myself, half eaten panini sat on the plate beside my canvas. Jess has gone off to talk to one of our friends about make up and hair, and a load of other crap I don't understand. I mix some paint together, looking at my plain canvas and imagining the flowers from yesterday. How they caught the light, how their petals spread open beautifully, how they made me smile by the simple beauty of them. I twirl my paintbrush in my hand and dip it in the paint, reaching over and starting to paint the basic flowers.
Bang.
My hand slips, streaking paint down the canvas. I look around just in time to see a football fall down after hitting the window. Cursing, I pick up a cloth and wipe away the mess of paint as best as I can. I walk over to the sink by the window, washing my cloth and peering outside. Jake stands with his friends who are kicking around the football, hands in pockets; as cool and relaxed as ever. He catches sight of me on the second floor and raises one of his hands in a wave.
I scowl and pull the blind over the window, wringing the water out of my cloth and making my way over to my painting again. I put my headphones in and listen to 'To Die For' by Tonight Alive as I paint, my knee bouncing up and down to the beat slightly.

"That's nice." A voice says behind me. I pull a headphone out and look around. Tyler Dark sits on the desk behind me, leaning back on his hands and looking at my painting carefully.

"Thanks." I say, wiping a smear of yellow paint off on my dark leggings. "You're new, right?"

He nods and pushes his hood off his head, as well as brushing his hair out of his amazingly blue eyes. He holds his hand out to me. "Tyler Dark."

I take his hand carefully and shake it, surprised by how soft and warm it is. "Briana Calle."

"What are you listening to?" Tyler asks, gesturing to the one headphone I still have in.

"Oh, it's just a band that I really like."

He raises his eyebrow at me. "What's their name? I might have heard of them."

"They're called Tonight Alive."

"Oh," he nods. "I like them. What's you're favourite song?"

I frown in surprise. "You know them?"

He smiles faintly at my obvious surprise. "Yeah." He pauses and my song switches over to 'Ten Times Better'. "So, favourite song?"

I shrug. "Too many to pick, they're all really good."

Tyler nods again. "I know what you mean. I quite like 'Revenge & Its Thrills'."

"Oh yeah. 'Fake It' and 'Rooftop to the Street' are also good." I say, putting my paintbrush behind my ear and tucking my hair back as well. We fall into silence for a minute.

"Any other bands that you like?" I ask him. "I quite like The Beatles."

"Me too. I blame my parents for that."

I laugh slightly "Yeah, I do too."

I make eye contact with him again, before laughing awkwardly and looking away. Tyler runs a hand through his hair as I fiddle with my necklace and cast a look around the room awkwardly.

"So," I say slightly croakily. "How come you just moved here?"

"Ah well, I lived in a big city and my mum just decided that we should move somewhere, you know, quieter." He said, not meeting my eyes. I'm pretty sure he's lying about something, probably about why they moved, but I don't pressure him into telling me anything. I just nod and take my paint brush from behind my ear, and start to paint on the canvas again.

"How come you're here? In the art room, I mean." I ask, correcting myself. I curse inwardly. I must sound so stupid.

"Oh, the room looked empty. Plus I was just looking for somewhere to draw."

"You draw?" I ask in surprise, stopping and turning around to look at him.

"Uh, yeah." He runs a hand through his hair embarrassedly. "I've got a few drawings with me. Er... Do you want to see?"

"I'd love to." I say, smiling.

Tyler reaches into his bag and pulls out a sketch book. He sits down beside me and flips through the pages slowly. Amazing pictures of people, animals and still objects show on each page, their details and mood captured perfectly.  Some drawings are just lyrics or and inspirational messages surrounded by abstract swirls or doodles.

"Wow." I say. "These are amazing Tyler! Does your art teacher know you can draw like this?"

"I actually haven't had Art yet. In fact," he checks his time table. "I have it last lesson today, with Miss. Shaw."

I grin at him and push my blonde hair out of my face. "Me too. Miss. Shaw is great, don't worry. She'll love your work." I pause. "What have you got next?"

He checks his time table again. "I have Science with Mr. Green. You?"

"I have Science with Mrs. Florentine. What room are you in? I can meet you outside of it after class and we can walk to Art together, if that's okay with you."

"C12."

The bell rings suddenly and I put my paintbrush away, leaving my painting where it is. I pull my bag strap over my shoulder and grin at Tyler.

"Let's get to Science then." I say, picking up my notebook and holding it sort of tucked underneath my arm.

We spend the whole walk to our classes talking about music and art, which is fun. A nice change from talking Jessica about her makeup and how she looks fine, not at all fat. A few people throw us odd looks but I ignore them, not caring if they think that Tyler looks strange and that I must be weird to talk to him. Jake walks past us, grins at me and then sees that I'm talking to Tyler. His face sort of flickers with confusion and he waits patiently while I say goodbye to Tyler as he goes into his class. Jake follows me to our own class.

"Why were you with the new kid?" He asks curiously, glancing at me quizzically.

"His name is Tyler, you know." I say coolly. "And we were just talking about art and stuff."

"Art? Why were you talking about that."

"Because we just were." I reply impatiently, entering our class and sitting on a stool at the back next to Jessica. Jake goes over and sits with some of his friends, still looking at me with a quizzical impression.

I glance at the clock. Hopefully this class won't go as slowly as Maths.