Counting Raindrops

Chapter 22 of Counting Raindrops

Today had been a very calm day to say the least, Mr. Goodman was in a good mood so it made first hour set off nicely. He decided to not give us any homework and just had us work on a word search instead of starting a whole new unit.

I was relatively good at finding words in a random mess of letters, but Jayce not so much . . . Every two minutes I would hear his whisper as well as felt the table rock as he scooted his chair closer to mine; peaking over my shoulder at the lines crossing through the words. "Did you get this one?"

Sighing over dramatically I pushed my paper around to face Jayce so he could copy what he needed. I only had a couple more words to go anyways.

Once my paper was straight again I knew that Jayce didn't need it anymore . . . Well for the moment at least.

I glanced over at Jayce for a moment to see how far he had gotten, but saw that his paper was flipped over with him drawing something. I shouldn't have been surprised, really.

As I looked at the drawing a little closer I noticed that he was drawing a girl standing with her head hung low, letting her hair cascade in front of her in such a way that hid her face. She was wearing a dark sweatshirt and jeans that were slightly torn at the knees, her hands stuffed in her hoodie pocket. She looked unbalanced as if she was about to fall. To say the least the picture looked incredibly realistic. I was awe-struck and just purely amazed by his ability to keep such a steady hand when drawing tiny, intricate details.

"You're amazing . . ." I whispered unknowingly, he didn't reply at first he just looked his picture over and bit his lip,

"Thanks." You could tell he was focused on his drawing, much more than answering to me for sure. As I watched him, he added shading to her hoodie to define the creases and folds to the sweatshirt and also erased small thin highlights into her hair to make the picture look better.

"Why aren't you in art?" This truly shocked me, I mean, he could definitely ace the class without a thought.

Within seconds he gave me his reasoning and just listening to his words made me want to slap him across his face, "and get stuck with those losers? I'll pass," he mumbled staring at his amazing drawing before adding little details to the rain; showing how the droplets shown, or her clothes; the way they creased or folded.

"Um, excuse me, I'm in that class . . ."

He looked over at me then, nodding, "I know, that's my point." If I hadn't seen him flash a quick half smile I would've thought he was serious and he would've had a very red cheek.

I just stuck my tongue out at him then returned my eyes to the page on our table. He had added a bit more detail to her jeans before making an odd outlining shape that looked like another body, it was broader and taller than her so I had already gotten the impression that it was going to be a man standing behind her. And as he continued to draw a more define and delicate detail to the figure I was assumed right.

Jayce had made the man wrap his arms around the girl, his hold looking secure and protective as he held her up; refusing to let her fall.

As the minutes passed, Jayce had accomplished to show that the man was wearing a light T-shirt and dark jeans as well as defining his face. He wasn't anyone specific so I assumed that the girl wasn't either. The man's head was tilted down the slightest bit giving the thought that he was watching the girl, maybe even trying to comfort her.

After he was done shading and highlighting I could've sworn that it was just a black and white photograph. "Are you done with the word search?" Jayce's voice sounded quietly, breaking through my deep trace of thoughts that involved the possible story of these two people.