Damaged

6 | deal

The bell signaling the end of homeroom rings and we break our connection with the sudden commotion in the classroom. He rakes his hand through his hair and I watch as his lips form a ghost of a smile. I grab my things from the desk and leave the classroom, but I can't help the smile that forms in my own lips. It's amazing how a glance can have such an effect on someone.

I walk down the corridor and head towards the arts section of the school. People still whisper when I pass by on the corridor, but I've mastered the art of ignoring them. I reach the classroom and wait outside as some of the students leave through the door. Mrs. Bennett pokes her head through the door and waves me in.

I cross the door and sit by one of the tables near the large window, where a privileged view of the school grounds can be seen. I look at the french style garden and the field behind it, with the lush forest in the distance. The lacrosse team is practicing on the field and i roll my eyes as i watch Hunter mauling a innocent freshman, wondering how i ever saw something in him.

"Luna, it's so good to have you back. The art department has felt your absence," Mrs Bennett says to me and I smile.

"Thanks Mrs B," I laugh awkwardly and try to focus on the lesson. I remember my art pieces from last year and they were some really dark paintings. They are all stashed in the basement of my house, my mother didn't want me to remind myself of my state of mind with past depressing artwork.

"This year we're going to do a project on emotion  with mixed media, and you'll have total autonomy with your artwork," Mrs Bennett says excitedly to the class. She hands us new art books for the year and tells us to experiment freely, effectively dismissing herself as our focus of attention.

I grab my earphones and plug them on my iPhone, pressing play on my "art" playlist and listening to the music pouring out of the white ear buds. Deep house music enters my ears making me reminisce the past, when i spent hours painting with these same songs.

I grab a pencil from the supply closet and I place it over a blank page of my sketchbook. Nothing comes out, my mind is completely blank. I sigh in frustration and tap the pencil on the paint-splattered table. 

I stare at the blank page until the lesson is over. I leave the classroom feeling depressed and impotent. Art used to be my refuge, I always managed to express everything through a stroke of a paintbrush or lines out of a pencil but my mind refuses to cooperate.

I coast through the day feeling numb. It all became familiar again, the talk and faces of everyone around me becoming a blur, a hazy fog over my mind turning everything into a melancholic gray.

When lunch arrives I decide to sit alone on a table by the window. I get my current book, A Clockwork Orange and start reading it, ignoring the food in front of me. I feel Selena looking at me with annoyed eyes, as if wondering how i dared sit alone than with them. I ignore them and focus on the book, focus on someone's story instead of my own.

I feel a tap on my shoulder and I close my book as I look up, prepared to have a discussion with someone who's probably a pain in the ass. Ava stands there with a slight smile on her face as she looks at me.

"Wanna go for a smoke?" She asks me, "It looks like you need to escape from here."

"Sure," I reply and grab my books. I feel semi-relieved at her intervention, but i'm too numb to conjure the actual feeling.

We walk through the hallways silently and i drag my feet. It's a comfortable silence, and I feel that Ava isn't thinking about any ulterior motives, which makes me feel slightly better.

We arrive at the football field and climb the stairs on the bleachers, stopping at a section hidden by a light pole. We sit down on the floor and i have my back to the pole. Ava opens her purse and grabs a pack of Sobranie black Russian cigarettes and hands me one while grabbing one for herself. She lights the black stick and throws her head back, flaming hair cascading down her back, and exhales the bluish smoke. I light my own cigarette and smile.

"I also smoke these cigarettes," I tell her and she smirks.

"Really? Well, great minds think alike," she says and we laugh. The cigarette smoke combined with the antidepressants i'm on make me feel a foggy buzz settling on my mind.

"I'm curious Luna, why weren't you sitting with your friends?" Ava asks and then continues, "Before you even stepped foot inside school I had listened to a dozen stories about you. Stories about how you were the most popular girl here and how you did whatever you wanted whenever you wanted it. You could be friends with anyone here."

I listen to her voice while looking up at the sky. I look back at her, listening to the way she curiously talked about me and I take a long, deep drag out of the cigarette. People have mystified me over the years for reasons i don't understand.  I exhale the smoke and I frown slightly.

"I honestly don't want to be friends with nobody in this fucking place. Not a single person that I was 'friends' with talked with me over the past year. And, I may have been the most popular girl in the school or whatever, but that was just because people made me be. I partied, did drugs, did boys, did everything, really, and people adored me as I self-destructed. People nowadays just have a morbid fascination with the corrupted. It's fucked up."

I realize that I probably told her too much. she doesn't know me, after all. I realize that I've never even spoke this much to my therapists, and i'm surprised that I  trust Ava. She doesn't seem to mind, or judge. I watch as she ponders what I said, her blue eyes serious.

"It really is, isn't it?" She lights another cigarette, also handing me another one. This continues, us talking, smoking and thinking for another hour, ditching the class after lunch for the bleachers.

Before the start of english class we decide to leave after I tell her about the ridiculous amount of catching up I have to do. We walk together through the crowded corridors and then part ways to go to our own classrooms. I realize i'm early, Mr Clarke didn't even show up yet.

He enters the classroom along with some students and then sits on his desk, logging into the school computer. He tells everyone to read the play as he gets the materials for the lesson ready and i decide to go talk to him.

I rise from my desk quietly and walk towards the front of the classroom. I arrive at his desk as he takes his sea-green eyes away from the computer screen and looks at me, his eyebrows raised in surprise.

"I saw the reading list yesterday and i'm worried," I tell him.

"Why are you worried, Miss Crawford?" He asks me, his green eyes concerned. The way he said my name with his deep accent makes me feel tingles running down my spine.

"I think I won't be able to catch up with all the reading I missed," I say and notice how his deep purple tie compliments his eyes perfectly.

"Hmm... I see, " he runs his hand through his hair as he thinks, leaving it perfectly disheveled, "I think I may have a solution."

"And what is it?" I ask expectantly.

"You can spend your lunchtime with me so that you can work on everything you've missed," He proposes, his eyes shining under the harsh light. From my proximity to him I can see the slight stubble on his jawline, as if he didn't shave this morning. I suddenly feel a fierce need to touch his sculpted face and I physically hold my hand to stop myself from doing it, "that way you'll catch up quicker with my help, and I can assign special activities for you."

"That would be great Mr Clarke," I say, genuinly thankful for his consideration, but also relishing the fact that I would spend time with him. I quit trying to deny myself from the attraction I feel towards him and i let myself feel exited. Maybe he feels attracted to me too. The possibility makes my heart flutter.

"Let's start tomorrow, shall we?" He looks at me from his desk and I feel a small smile spreading through my lips.

"Deal."