It’s Wednesday and Luke has been absent from school the whole week. He texted me, saying that he is sick, and I insisted to come over and to keep him company, which he had to refuse because apparently he looks ‘terrible’. I hardly doubt that, I can’t imagine him looking anything other than perfect. It was the third period, or was it forth? I have no idea to be honest, but I’m absolutely positive that I had art class. I walked into already familiar classroom and found my way to my usual place in the back. The dark figure sat next to me and I instantly knew who it was.
‘’Matthew’’ I greeted him without making the eye contact. I stared at my white canvas and hoped that Mr. McScott will give us something fun to do today.
‘’Kitty.’’ He used my old nickname witch made my stomach flip.
‘’You promised you won’t call me like that anymore’’ I rolled my eyes and turned to face him. His lips formed a smirk.
‘’Did I?’’ He raised an eyebrow. Before I could reply to him Mr.McStott walked into the classroom. He was really young ,about 24, and to be quite honest, he was really handsome. I looked around the room and I noticed all the girls staring at the teacher. I chuckled slightly at the sight and turned to Matt, who still had his eyebrow raised. I sighed and playfully hit him on the shoulder.
‘’So, today we are going to do something different. You’ll choose your partners first, and then I’ll explain your assignment.’’ My eyes immediately met Matthew’s and that just proved that he was thinking about the same thing as I did.
‘’Partners?’’ He asked and I nodded.
‘’Partners.’’ I replied and he gave me a small smile. The class turned into hysterical mess as everyone was trying to find partners and to sit next to them. Mr. McScott was just drumming his pen on the desk and watching the chaos in front of him.
‘’Okay, so now that everyone has partners, I can tell you what you’ll be doing for next 2 and a half months in this class. I’ll give you a different theme for each class, but the themes will be about you. So If the theme is ‘flowers’ for example, you’ll have to listen to your partner talking about his or hers favorite flowers , then you’ll have to draw the flowers the way you partner sees it. At the end of the semester, you’ll have to portrait your partner based on what you learn about him or her over these 2 and a half months. Does that make sense?’’ The class nodded.
‘’Today is just about getting basic information about each other. Like how many siblings the other one has, or what is their favorite pizza topping. Just random stuff. You can play with colors today, and just find the right shade that describes your partner’’ He declared and I immediately looked over to Matt who was already staring at me.
‘’So, Kitty. What’s your favorite pizza topping?’’
‘’Spinach. Yours?’’ He eyebrows knitted.
‘’I never thought you were a spinach kind of girl.’’ He winked and I felt my cheeks turning red ‘’Pepperoni.’’ he added.
The awkward silence suddenly appeared and we just stared at each other. I’ve been in Australia for a month already and I did hang with Matthew, but I never noticed how much he has changed over these 7 years. His sky blue eyes turned into dark blue . His body was covered with muscles from football and his face got longer and more serious. I think he dyed his hair black, because I swear it was much lighter when we were kids. Everything about him just seemed more mature. Even the way he stands and walks and the way he talks. The only thing that remained the same was his smile. That probably sounds very cliché, but it’s true. His smile is the only thing that reminds me of Matthew I knew. Matthew who used to read comic and talk about Iron Man with the passion of thousand burning suns.
