Demons (Jonathan Toews)

Chapter Fourteen

I hummed softly as the small tubes of paint I had scattered in a circle around me were capped and placed back into my bin. Gathering all of my palette knives, I started to clean them off with the rags I had and nicely put them away. The large canvas I had been working on was still on the easel, and as the large streaks of paint glistened in the light, a sigh fluttered past my lips. Getting a wet canvas around campus and into my room without the paint sticking to something or ruining some article of my clothing was nearly impossible.

Once I had finished cleaning up, I shrugged into my jacket, and stared at the canvas, deciding a way to carefully and cleanly hold it. Just as I was about to grab it, a presence appeared behind me, which was soon followed by a small chuckle.

“I never thought I would hear the day when you hummed to yourself”, Professor Jacobs joked as he walked next to me, crossing his arms across his chest and staring at the painting “It still baffles me that the happier you get the more depressing your work gets.” He huffed and turned to me, a playful smile on his face.

“I wish I could explain.” I shrugged.

“Are you ready for Saturday night? Is that boy coming?” He asked giving me a cheeky smile and nudged me with his elbow a little. Laughing, I shrugged and rubbed the side of my arm and tried to keep the bright light in my eyes as I thought about the long period since I had spoke to Jon. “Is there a problem?” he asked after I had stayed silent for a while.

“Oh no!” My voice gained a few octaves, “Everything’s great Professor. I was just thinking about Saturday, it’s nerve racking.”

“Indeed it is, but you’ll be fine. You don’t have to speak to the whole, just whoever wants to talk to you, and when they do want to talk to you, it will only be praise or inquiries on purchasing the pieces.” The thought sparked a fire in my stomach.

We shared a few more words before we parted. I had decided to hold the canvas by the large wooden slab in the back of it, and keep it tiled with the dry edge against my leg and the wet surface tilted toward the ground. I walked like this for a while, at least until I made it from the art building, and as soon as I walked outside, and a heavy wind blew past me, the canvas tilted and I quickly held it in front of me, and leaned away.

“God damn this fucking thing.” I snapped as the wet paint nearly pressed it self against the only jacket I had. The last thing I needed were giant paint stains on my jacket, especially if it was the only one I had for my gallery opening and job interviews. Not saying I was going to have any, but hey, you never know with these gallery people. No matter what I wanted to look as clean as presentable as possible.

Holding the painting in front of me, I wandered a block or two until I reached my dorm building. Just as I was about to walk into the lobby, a car horn echoed through the street and I quickly turned around, my eyes locking on a large black SUV. As the tinted window rolled down a little, I bit down on my lower lip and let my eyes fall on the smug smile of none other than Patrick Kane.

Eyes widening at the realization that he was parked on the side of the street in the middle of the day at the local college, which was filled with Blackhawks fans, I quickly ran over to him and gave him a ‘what in gods name are you doing here’ stare. As he studied his face, he smiled widely and waved me to get in the car.

“My painting is still drying, Pat.” I huffed holding it up a little, “I don’t want to-“

“Throw it in the trunk and quit making excuses, I’m hungry.” He barked and sent me another small smile as the large trunk door slowly opened.

Looking back at him, me widened his eyes and pointed to the now open trunk. As I mumbled, my legs brought my body around the car and I carefully put the painting inside of the trunk and then stuck my box full of paints next to it to keep it wedged in one spot so it didn’t slide around the trunk and infect all of the fabric with it’s colors.