See Dot Smile

Hurdles

I told Joshua to meet me in the art room after school.

I love art.

I also hardcore suck at it, but I don't care. It feeds my soul. And the lead art teacher, Mr. Bressler, adores me. At least three times a week last year I stayed after school to help him tidy up supplies or hang student work in the main lobby for display. It made me feel useful. And distracted me from feeling everything else.

The art room is my sanctuary. It's by far the biggest classroom space in the school and it's just brimming with dusty old projects, shelves of oil and tempera paints, rusted cans filled with worn to the nub brushes, charcoal pencils, and Exacto knives, splattered clay hardened onto table legs, and paper of every shape, size, texture, and color you can imagine.

There's also a huge storage closet in the back that rarely gets explored. I've fantasized about bringing Joshua in there so many times that just putting my hand on the dented brass doorknob gives me heart palpitations. I plan to spend a lot of time in the art room this year. And with any luck, some time in the supply closet with Joshua, too.

It's 3:15 and I'm getting impatient. I head to his locker and discover him trapped in a heated discussion ... with her.

I want to run, but that might be more conspicuous than leaning here, faux casually, against the fire extinguisher box, scrolling through my phone apps to disguise the fact that I'm spying on them.

I almost forgot how ridiculous they look as a couple. Ali is at least 5'10, in flats. She plays basketball and runs track and she's amazing at both, despite her massive breasts which should pose a threat to her center of gravity, but somehow make her more aerodynamic. She's epically beautiful in every way I'm not, and I hate her blond, doe-eyed, Amazonian, hundred-meter-hurdle running ass for it.

I don't want to look at her or hear what she's saying, but she's not being discreet. She's trying to return something to him. A ring? A bracelet? I don't know, but he won't take it. He says it was a gift, but she doesn't want to keep it. It's a painful reminder of when they were together ... blah blah blah.

My heart feels a pinch of disappointment as I watch him concede and take the bracelet. Yes, it's a bracelet, I remember it now. He gave it to her for Christmas last year. A silver charm bracelet with a shamrock and a daisy charm. I hated it because it was too close to something Joshua and I used to talk about doing together, and it felt like he was giving that to her. Because he gave everything to her.

She disappears down the opposite hallway and my body slowly unclenches against the wall. He slams his locker door shut and huffs toward me, stuffing the bracelet into a nearby trash can. He walks a few steps further--stops short--runs his hand through his hair and retreats. He digs the bracelet out of the trash and puts it in his pocket, picking up his pace up again.

I jump out from behind the fire extinguisher, trying to make it look like I'm coming from somewhere less eavesdroppy, and worry I'm going to startle him. But he keeps walking as if he already knew I was there. He grabs my wrist as he passes me.

"Sorry I'm late," he says quietly. "I'll drive."