Between the Lines

- 7 -

Kendal

My face burns again and I slap my hands down over the paper, because that doesn’t sound like a compliment.

That, right there, is the worst part of a paired writing assignment, because when I write, sometimes it feels like I can’t even control what spills out of me on the page, but the words that wind up there definitely reveal parts of me that I’m not sure about sharing with the world. Having Mrs. Buchannan read something I’ve written is one thing – and a non-fiction essay on a topic I’m not so invested in is okay, too. But sharing the rough draft of a love story with this guy whose name I didn’t even know an hour ago is starting to seem like a really bad idea.

“I meant that in a good way, you know.” He says it so quickly that I know he means it – but also that means he knows I didn’t understand him. It’s becoming less of a mystery why people don’t trust me with sarcasm. Apparently I don’t even speak teenage English.

So I shrug. “At least there’s something on the page,” I say. “We can always change it later.”

“No, seriously. It’s incredible. I have no idea how you did that. I’m in awe over here.”

I look back down at the paper, trying to see what he sees, but I don’t. All I was trying to do was focus on writing so I didn’t have to think about how humiliated I was. And given how well the whole communicating-with-words thing was going for me today, there’s no way anything coming out of my brain is actually good. He’s either lying or stupid.

After the way I’d treated him today, he doesn’t have any reason to lie.

But then… I think of how quick he is with a witty response, and the way he has an actual word to describe what he thinks of his own writing. Even if that word was “sterile” he still said it in a way that had to mean he actually has thoughts about his writing, unlike Kyle, who asks me to proofread his papers, but really he just wants me to check the spelling and punctuation. Just finishing the assignment and pulling a ‘C’ is good enough for him; he’d never even wonder what his writing voice sounded like.

Kyle would have never signed up for a creative writing class in the first place. This was an elective.

Anyway, I really don’t think Braden is stupid. It’s true that I can be bad about remembering people, and that I somehow had the wrong name for him stuck in my brain a little while ago, but now that sitting here with him feels relaxed and not mortifying, some things are starting to come back to me. Like a vague memory of a field trip for acting class last year, standing on the steps outside of the Evan’s Heights Performing Arts Center after a terrible performance of Cats.

I’d thought it was terrible, anyway, and so had he… he’d done this hilarious impression of one of the scenes, with the voices and everything. Maybe it was a little crude, but it was spot on. Only I’d been standing there with Alicia Dunmeyer, and she’d been gushing about the play. I think I said something stupid that day too, and I push that memory away as far as it will go before anything else comes back to me. Hopefully he doesn’t remember.

So, really, I don’t think he’s stupid or lying, but that leaves me with a third option of… what?

I sigh. Whatever it is, I can’t force anymore words out of my pen while I’m wondering, so I slide the notebook over toward him. “Your turn.”