Alexia and the Beast

Chapter 8: The Artist

RYDER's POV

The next morning went a little better. I took a long shower and a respectable dose of my pills. Today was the only other day I was going to have to seat next to 'Alexia' again this week. We only had art class twice a week. Each lesson is 45 minutes. So two would make 90. Yeah, I could control myself for 90 minutes every week. Right? And it's not like she will seat next to me for the whole year. We change seats every term.

I got into my car and drove to school. I arrived at school and went directly to art class. I already got in my seat before there were even much students in the room. Of course, as I walked in everyone reduced their volume or just stopped talking completely. I sat there and waited for class to start. It was left 10 minutes.

The longest ten minutes of my life.

ALEXIA's POV

That morning when I arrived to school, I kept in thinking about yesterday's events and how weird Ryder was acting. But he didn't stop me from working and he's not going to today.

I walked into art class and found that Ryder was already there. He's punctual today. Weird. I walked and took my seat beside him. I started to feel a bit uncomfortable. There was like only 4 minutes left till class started. So I just sat there and acted like I was trying to think of something I forgot. Just like yesterday, he sat there with a blank expression on his face and stared at the board. Just four minutes I told myself.

The longest four minutes of my life.

After what felt like forever. The bell rang and everybody got to their seats. Mrs. Rose, walked in and simply told everybody to walk on something they were good at drawing or painting. I already knew what I was going to do so I got up to get some paint material to start working on my portrait. Most of the class was kind of lost.

"If you don't have the creative ability to make art, then," Mrs. Rose said, " that's ok. It doesn't really matter these days. Just do anything. I want to see where you are when it comes to art."

When I came back, I found Ryder drawing something in his art book. But I couldn't make a good picture of what he was drawing exactly. His free hand was overly protective and one side of his book was up. Maybe he was embarrassed of his drawing. I wasn't going to pry though.

When time was up Mrs Rose collected all our books and brought them to her table. She barely even looked at them. She just took a quick glance at them as fast as she could and told us to come fetch them quickly because her time was almost over.

"Ok, so I've looked at your works and tomorrow I'm going to make decision based on them." She said.

"What decision?" Someone asked.

"Oh, you'll see," she said smiling.

Then the bell rang. Ryder stood up and left quickly almost as if he wanted to run out. I just packed my stuff and went to the cafeteria. I took out my art book and tried to work on something to pass time. I opened it and found some weird sketch on the first page. I definitely did not draw this.

I turned the page and found many more sketches that didn't have meaning but were so beautifully sketched. I finally concluded that this weren't my sketches. After a while, those sketches started to turn into a girl. This girl at first was drawn like she was some sort of pretty devil. Then in the next sketches she started to have a more soft almost angelic-type of look on her face. Then I arrived to the last sketch of the book and saw the same girl. She had a white shirt which had paint on it. The paint was the first and only color I saw in the book. I was so amazed at how this meaningless sketch was so beautiful. I couldn't stop looking at it and trying to find out who was the artist.

"So it was you," a voice said behind me.

I looked behind startled and found Mrs. Rose looking at the picture.

"What?" I asked.
"You drew this picture," she said, "I wondered who it was for. The book has no name. It's so beautiful. I didn't know you could sketch."

"I'm afraid it's not mine," I admitted. " I think I must of switched books with someone."

"Really?" She said slightly shocked. " Then whoever this person is, they've definitely been hiding their skills from me."

Then Ryder walked up to my table and basically threw a book on the table which startled us. It was an art book. My art book.

"How do you have that?" I asked.
"I believe you have something that's mine," he said ignoring my question.

But then I realized that he was talking about the art book. I can't believe it! It was his book.
I gave him back and his book and he started to walk off.
"Not so fast." Mrs. Rose said.
Ryder stopped and turned to looked at her. He was clearly annoyed.
"You sketch?" She asked.
"Yes miss." He replied.
"Interesting." She said. Then she calmly walked off.

Ryder took the opportunity to also leave before taking a quick glance my way.

He's an artist I thought. I stood there in the cafeteria smiling to myself.

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So Ryder can sketch hun? Will it affect Mrs. Rose's unknown decision next week? Find out in the next chapter of "Alexia and The Beast".

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