Reasons To Stay

SIX

"I need to confess something," Lance said.

I raised an eyebrow. "And what exactly would that be?"

Lance was walking me back to my house. We were taking the long way, and for a second I thought of suggesting the short one, but then decided against it. I liked spending time with Lance. And now that I knew he liked me too, I liked it even more.

"I... used to watch you draw during lunchtime sometimes."

I smiled. I had noticed him doing it a couple of times and I figured he thought I was weird. Now that I knew the real reason why, however, the memories made me smile. "You stalked me?" I said, feigning horror.

Lance was very quick to defend himself. "No, I didn't! I was just... amazed by your dedication to your passion."

I slapped him playfully in the arm and he chuckled. "In other words, you stalked me."

"Hey, I wasn't the only one. You drew me," he said, and he sounded so proud and arrogant that I almost slapped him again.

"Just twice," I defended myself. In reality, I had tried very hard to draw him many times, but it was very hard to get everything about him right, just like with Ro. He also had a personality that I wanted to capture so badly yet struggled to do.

"Yet in both of my drawings I looked lavishly handsome, unlike Jack Ferris, who I believe is the hottest guy in school according to every girl."

He was right about Jack. He was very pleasing to the eye, yet Lance wasn't being fair with the comparison. In the only drawing I had of Jack Ferris (mostly because I hated drawing popular people, they just didn't seem very interesting), he was wearing a tutu and dorky glasses imagined by me.

"In my defense, he had pushed me in the hallway that day and I was pissed off."

I expected Lance to make a snarky remark about having to remember to never pissing me off or the fact that Jack should wear a tutu more often. Instead, he surprised me by being serious. "You should stop hiding and show people who you really are."

"What does that mean?" I asked softly, partly confused and partly scared of what his answer might be.

"Well, look at you today. You look beautiful, yet you go everyday to school with worn out clothes that are way to big for you. I'm not saying you should change your style or wear a bikini to school or anything like that," I laughed at that, since some girls wore clothes that looked just like a bikini, "but I think that you don't do it because you want to be confortable. I think you do it because you are trying to hide."

I was surprised by his analysis of me. And I knew he was right. But I wasn't ready to think about it, let alone talk about it. So, instead, I tried to change the subject. "You sure have been stalking me a bit too much."

Thankfully, Lance didn't push the matter any further.

"Your favorite color is blue," he said, going back to his teasing self.

"Scary. But wrong." I didn't have one. I liked all of them.

Lance chuckled.

"You look very pretty tonight, Trish."

I stopped immediately. Right there in front of me, on the other side of the street we where in, was my sister, wearing a very tiny dress and talking with two full-grown men. On a dark street. At eleven o-clock in the night.

"Thank you, Mr. Whales," my sister said, her voice sounding off, like it wasn't hers. Like something was wrong.

"Let me take you home, honey," one of the men said, grabbing her softly by the elbow.