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50. Portraits

Knowing that Ryan isn't on campus calms my nerves slightly. In art, I hear the whispers of everybody as their eyes flicker back to me.

I run my pencil along the paper, creating a soft line of lead. I pick up the paper and push it away from me, trying to get a better view of it.

"That looks magnificent," Ms. Puerto announces from behind me. Her hands are clasped behind her back.

"Thank you," I glance down at the paper in front of me and tap my pencil against the desk.

"For anybody specific?" Ms. Puerto speaks again, her head tilted over my shoulder.

"I actually planned on keeping it for myself," I smile down at the paper and try to ignore my subconscious as it repeats the word creeper, over and over again.

"You know, when I assigned portrait work, I expected a self-portrait." She pulls out the stool beside mine and takes a seat.

I frown at her and drop my pencil to the table, right beside the edge of the paper.

"I have no need to look at myself or draw myself," I try to contain my agitation.

"That's fine," Ms. Puerto smiles kindly at me, sparking some guilt for my attitude, "so what are you going to do with this?" She reached over and lightly taps her finger against the paper.

"Fold it up and keep it from the subject," I say sarcastically, though, I think I might actually do that.

"Why? It's lovely," she grins at me and then blinks, "she's lovely."

I look back down at the large paper in front of me. My phone rests, unlocked, beside it with a picture from my camera roll open on the screen.

I had drawn Paige. The photo of her sitting, reading, in my bedroom chair it's sketched in lead on the paper. I was thoroughly unimpressed with it, but Ms. Puerto's look of adoration towards it made me want to think differently.

The hardest part had been her hair. In the photo it gleams in the light coming from the windows on either side of her. There was no way I would be able to capture that with a #2 pencil.

There was absolutely no color on the drawing. It was all black and white with some accidental smudges from my finger tips running along the lead. From my seat, I'd seen people furiously coloring with crayons on their stick-figure-drawings.

"If you choose not to keep it, I'd love to hang it up in case in the front office." Ms. Puerto's slightly accented voice snaps me out of my daydream.

"Actually, I think I will keep it," I rest my hand possessively on the corner of the paper.

With one hand on my shoulder, Ms. Puerto stands from the stool and leaves my table. I sigh and glance back down at the paper.

It doesn't look too bad, I think. What would Paige say about it?

After I fill in some gaps in the drawing, the dismissal bell rings and I fold up the paper and place it in my back pocket.

Just like she said she would, Paige rests up against the light pole between our two cars with her ankles crossed, her nose in a thin book.

As I get closer, I notice the familiar red and white cover. She's reading Catcher in the Rye.

"Hey," I say as I make my way in front of Paige. She sticks a bookmark in between the pages and shuts the book in her hands.

"Hi," her smile is bright and her cheeks are pink.

"Whatcha reading?" I poke her hand as it clasps around the spine of the book.