The Place To Be ✔️

chapter 19

1st November 2016

Johns POV:

Ahh, art class. Such a refreshing change from my early morning History class. This is a lesson that I can relax, concentrate on my work and let my music from my headphones take me into a mindset of pure bli-

"FUCK!" I find myself shouting as I'm hit in the head by a bottle of acrylic paint the moment that I walk through the door. Maria comes up to me, giggling.

"Sorry John, I guess my aims a little off, I was aiming for Peggy." She points her thumb to my left where I see Peggy sheepishly standing, a guilty grin on her face. Somehow, despite class not having started yet, she already had paint smeared across her left cheek. I rolled my eyes, dismissing this as another of Peggy and Maria's usual antics.

I'm joined by Peggy as I haul my heavy folder full of current projects over to where we sit and start to dump out the contents of my bag of supplies onto the desk.

"What are you going to work on today?" She queried, leaning on her elbows and looking up to me with sparkling eyes. Peggy has always loved my work, similar to Alex. She always tells me that I'll be a big artist some day, that I'll be bigger than Vincent Van Gogh. To this, I always roll my eyes and tell her that she is just as good as me, but she always dismisses it.

"Well, I was thinking about doing this piece first," I started, pulling out my sketchbook that held most of my pencil drawings and flipping to one of the most recent ones, an unfinished, yet still highly detailed drawing of Alex that I'd taken at the coffee shop. "I really need to finish off some of the stuff in here."

Flipping through my book, I noticed how my art had improved since I started dating Alex and he had become my model. It always seemed like he was worth the extra detail and extra time that I had to put into the drawings.

"Hello? John?" Peggy waved in front of my face.

"Huh?"

"You've just been absentmindedly flipping through your book for the past five minutes, ignoring everything I was saying." She chuckled as she saw the blush form on my cheeks.

"Oh, sorry." I mumbled, opening my book to the right page and pulling my laptop from my bag to get up my reference photo of Alex.

"I don't blame you to be honest, if we were single I'd probably try to get Alex myself." She teased.

I snapped my head to the side and gave her a death stare. "Mine." I hissed before focusing my attention back to my sketchbook and grabbing my pencils.

Peggy shuffles away from me and grabs her own sketchbook. Whilst my art is more realistic, Peggy's is way more creative, she incorporates a lot of different media in her work and it all seems a lot more interesting than mine.

Just as she grabs her bag and takes out her watercolour paints and brushes, a man walks through the door. He looks about 50 years old, with short grey hair and wrinkles on his forehead. Despite the heavy bags that sit beneath them, he has very kind eyes. He looks around our room and smiles as he stands at the front of the room and clearing his throat.

"Good morning class, as you may notice I am not Mrs Washington." He joked, gesturing to his body and causing a few people to chuckle. "As some of you may already know, Mr and Mrs Washington's surrogate mother had their child a few days ago and subsequently will not be here for a while. Therefore, I will be your art teacher for the time being. Formally, I am Mr Hamilton, but I always hated referring to teachers by their last names so feel free to just call me James. Anyway, enough from me, I'm sure you all have important work to do so I'll leave you to it. I'll be at my desk if you have any questions." He smiled brightly, scanning the room once again as he walked to his desk and started typing on his laptop.

"Woah, his last name's Hamilton, that's cool." I whispered to Peggy.

"Yeah, who knows, maybe he's related to Alex, like his uncle or something?" She replied, shrugging her shoulders.

"Maybe, but I remember him saying that by the time he was thirteen he was living with Aaron because he had no family left." I mumbled.

"Oh, well I don't know then. You should ask him at lunch." She responded, turning back to her work and plugging in her headphones.

Barely a few moments later, I was lost in a mix of my own music playing in my ears and the calming task of drawing Alex. Any concern that I'd had before about the mysterious James Hamilton quickly left me as I relaxed and let my pencil do all the work.

- - -

I unlocked the door to my room and walked in to see Alex sitting in his desk chair and typing, from what I could see, a long rant on his phone. His face showed pure rage as his thumbs frantically tapped on the screen.

"Careful, you'll probably set that thing on fire typing at that rate." I drawled, setting my bag on the ground by my bed. He ignored me, somehow speeding up. Frowning, I walked over to him and snatched the phone from his grip.

"No! Give it back! Somebody online is wrong." He demanded, clawing at my arm as I held his phone above my head. I glanced up to see what he was arguing against.

"Alex, they used the wrong your, do you really need to write a 5000 word essay in response?" I sighed.

"John, you know I do."

"Whatever, I need to ask you something, so get off of me for a second."

He growled, staying exactly where he was.

"Alex, it's important, I'll give your phone back to you afterwards." He still persisted in attempting to climb me to reach it. "If you don't stop I'll never kiss you again." I threatened.

He acquiesced, quickly clamouring off of me and sitting back down in his chair

"Go ahead, ask away." He said casually.

"Do you have any uncles or something called James?" I questioned, sitting down on the corner of my bed.

"Uh, no, my dad was though, and so was my brother, but they're both long gone." He muttered darkly. "Why do you ask anyway?"

"Well since the Washington's are away we have a new teacher and his name's James Hamilton."

Alex's eyes immediately widened. "I-I, uh, w-what does he look l-like?" He stuttered.

"Um, he has grey hair and really bright blue eyes... he didn't really have any discernible features from what I could see." I shrugged, leaning back on my chair.

I scanned Alex's face, trying to pick out an emotion, but his expression was unreadable. Just as I went to reach out to hold his hand, he shot up and ran out of the door.

"Wait!" I shouted after him, but it was too late. He was already sprinting towards the art department.

1st October 2017