When I reached our street, Luca was waiting for me outside of his house. I continued walking towards mine and he followed. Mom came out of the kitchen at the sound of the front door opening and closing to investigate. She paused when she saw that Luca was standing behind me.
“Lucas!” she beamed. “Where have you been, boy?”
“Oh, you know,” Luca began teasingly, loving the attention. “Saving the world, and other minor activities.”
Mom laughed and returned to the kitchen, where she had clearly been cleaning. My mother, just like Luca’s mother, spent most of her day either cooking, cleaning, shopping, or spying. Oh, the life of a housewife. In fact, Luca’s mom and my own did much of this together, as they, like our fathers and ourselves, were best friends. In many ways, my parents and my friend’s parents had the same life.
My parents were very traditional people, and therefore they were very disapproving of me. My artistic views and lifestyle clashed heavily with theirs. They wished that I was more like the son they never had, their beloved Lucas. Lucas was well-behaved, good in school, active in sports and clubs, and was almost always out with friends. In comparison, I was a lazy and pathetic waste of good genes to my parents.
“Don’t you have skirts to chase?” I asked my friend as I kicked off my shoes and stashed them beside the door.
“Just yours,” Lucas answered, making a playful grab at my ass while running passed me and up the stairs. I chased after him, passing the athlete near the top and beating him to my bedroom.
Lucas collapsed immediately into my computer chair, causing it to roll back on the hardwood floor and crash into the desk. I sat on my bed and pulled my knees up to my chest. In the comfortable silence between myself and my ‘brother’, my mind found its way back to Mr. Cote.
“So how’d after school with the art teacher go?” Luca asked. He was the only one who knew about my stupid crush and often teased me about it. I wondered if I should share the kiss with him like I did everything else.
“It was fine,” I lied, staring at my purple comforter. Since I didn’t take his bait, Luca fell into silence again, turning on my laptop and pulling up his Facebook. I knew that withholding such powerful information was dangerous to my mental health, so I made the decision to express myself via art if I couldn’t talk to Luca.
Luca didn’t even shoot me a second glance when I jumped suddenly off of the bed in search of supplies. I pulled my sketchbook out of my schoolbag and clutched it to my chest protectively. The leather-bound book was my diary. In addition to the sketchbook, I pulled my case of colored pencils out from under my bed. Now with fully stocked arms, I crawled back onto the bed and set everything up as my OCD brain needed it to be.
I didn’t take a second to think. Art and drawing weren’t about thinking; they were about feeling. I looked down at the open case of expensive art pencils and picked up the one my eyes were most drawn to—the red. Gripping the pencil between my teeth, I carefully flipped through the pages of the book until I found a blank page. Setting the tip of the pencil to the empty canvas before me, I closed my eyes, took a breath, and thought of the kiss.
My hand started moving before I even opened my eyes. The thoughts, feelings, and actions in my head inspired me and I was off. My hand flew across the paper, leaving its mark in various patterns and shades until I had eventually spilled out enough of my soul to be satisfied. I put the red pencil back in the plastic case and looked down at the picture I’d just drawn.
“Damn, Ray,” Luca mumbled. I jumped, for I hadn’t noticed him abandon the computer to come stand beside me. He was intensely examining my latest work of art. I followed his gaze and cocked my head to the side slightly, judging my diary entry. It was a red mess of flames and hearts, displaying the burning passion behind the kiss.
“Thanks,” I said, recognizing ‘Damn, Ray,’ as a compliment. Luca straightened up and stretched, reaching towards the ceiling. His phone started ringing in his pocket. With a groan/sigh combination, he pulled out the high-tech device and looked at the screen. I saw his inquiring pout turn into a smile before he answered the call.
“Hey, baby,” he cooed loudly. I rolled my eyes. The person on the other end of the phone call must have been Luca’s girl of the week, whoever she was. I thought it might have been Sarah. Or she could have been earlier in the month. It was hard to keep up with Luca’s manwhore record.
Luca looked down at me and I saw the question in his eyes without him needing to open his mouth. I nodded, giving him the permission he wanted to leave and go to his girl. Grinning, he held his fist out for me to pound and headed down the stairs, still on the phone. Sighing, I leaned over the edge of the bed, stashing both the pencil case and the sketchbook.
The sound of Luca’s car horn woke me up the next morning, startling me from the numb mode of sleep that I had fallen into after hours of being trapped between the darkness and my own mind. I looked wildly about, confused by my sudden alertness. The clock on my iHome told me that I had overslept by a lot. Soon I heard the bang of the front door and the clatter of heavy footsteps on the stairs.
“Hey, what the hell?” Luca exclaimed, bursting through my bedroom door without knocking. He gripped the doorknob with one hand and held onto the doorframe for support with the other hand.
“I think I forgot to set the alarm last night,” I mumbled sleepily, rubbing my eyes. Luca sighed and entered my room fully, approaching the bed and throwing the covers off of me.
“You’ve got ten minutes,” he told me, stepping back to give me room to get up. I groaned.
“Lucas,” I began. I wanted to simply call it quits and hide under the covers once more.
“Let’s go!” Luca yelled authoritatively, already on his way down the stairs. I reluctantly got out of bed and dragged my sleep-deprived self to the closet. I pulled out the first pair of jeans and sweatshirt that I found, despite the spring weather. I took a few minutes to run a brush through my dark, wavy hair but ultimately decided to take the easiest route and tie it back. Luca blew his horn again, telling me that I was out of time. I scooped up the bag that I had discarded to the floor the night before and followed Luca’s path down the stairs, slamming the front door behind me.
“Sorry,” I said breathlessly as I strapped myself into the front seat of Luca’s truck.
“It’s fine,” Luca answered. “Let’s just go before we’re late.”
We managed to reach our separate homerooms before the final late bell rang. I slid into my usual seat in the back of my first period history class and tried to be invisible, which was not a hard feat for me. Nobody paid me any attention, which didn’t honestly bother me too much. Especially on a day like today.
On a day like today, I was glad for the peace that accompanied my solitude. It allowed me to fully block out my surroundings and live inside my head. And while my own brain was turning into a hostile environment, it needed to be fully explored. So I channeled my inner Lewis and Clark and embarked on the dangerous journey through my teenage mind.
Thoughts of Mr. Cote and the kiss and every minor detail that came along with it carried me through the first five periods of the day. By sixth period lunch, I was starting to feel like I had the day before, when I was at my breaking point. The day before, I had used my sketchbook as an outlet and kept myself from imploding. But now, as I dug through my shoulder bag for the invaluable book, I couldn’t find my source of relief. The more I moved around the various notebooks and papers, the more panicked I became.
“What’s wrong?” Luca asked, setting his overloaded tray down on the long table. He took his seat across from me and cracked open a Snapple can.
“I can’t find my sketchbook,” I responded absently, still searching as if it would appear if I looked the correct number of times.
“Maybe you left it at home,” my friend suggested, moving on from the now empty Snapple can to the cafeteria French fries. “You did leave in a rush this morning, sleepy head.”
I closed my eyes and reviewed the last few hours. I found the memory of stashing the book under my bed when I had finished with it the night before, but could find nothing to suggest that I had retrieved it in my haste to leave the house earlier. Sighing mournfully, I crossed my arms on the table and dropped my head to them. Without any way to properly vent, I was facing art class in a severe mental state.
As reluctant as I was to go to seventh period when the bell rang forty minutes later, I had no choice. Luca walked me out of the cafeteria as he always did, but left when he spotted a group of friends going in the same direction as him. I paused for a fraction of a second outside the doorframe of hell, but after swallowing hard, I determined that I was going to be brave and face my teacher like a big girl.
However, with just one foot inside the classroom, I suddenly didn’t feel like being brave anymore. I had an overwhelming urge to turn and run, to lie down and cry, to throw up; to do anything other than continue into the room. But annoyed students behind me forced me forward until I was completely submerged in memories and desires. There was no escape.
It felt like I was being tested. Like I was a gladiator and this was my coliseum. This was where I would be stranded for forty-three minutes, where my strength and will would be pushed to the edge. Would I break? Would I give in to the beast locked in with me? Or would I persevere and make it to math class in one piece?
With my head down, focused on the poster that Mr. Cote had redrawn for me, I felt like I had a chance. I had a small chance, if I could live through the stomach ache and block out my thoughts. But whenever my eyes involuntarily flickered upward and I saw him, I realized that the beast wouldn’t let me go that easily. I was still in its claws, and I’d be fooling myself to think otherwise. There was no escape.
Not even the sounding of the end-of-class bell could release me. I was already packed up, waiting for the melodic noise to free me, but something—or rather, someone—kept me from leaving. I wanted to just spread my arms and scream or curl up and cry. Why couldn’t he just let me go? Why did we have to stay in this place where I had wanted and tasted what I could never have?
“Rayleigh,” Mr. Cote began slowly. I didn’t turn around.
“Mr. Cote, I have a class,” I said carefully. “And so do you.”
“I can write you a pass,” he reasoned. I let out a short laugh, devoid of any actual happiness.
“You’re right,” I agreed, finally turning around to face the beast, to be a gladiator and stand strong. “You can write me a pass. Because you are my teacher.”
“Yes, Rayleigh, I am your teacher. Which is why we have to talk about what happened,” Mr. Cote persisted. I shook my head.
“No,” I argued. “We don’t have to talk about it. I kissed you. I kissed you and you are my teacher. Students can’t kiss teachers, so it can’t happen again, and it won’t. See? Nothing more to talk about.”
“Rayleigh,” my teacher sighed.
“No,” I interrupted, shaking my head again at nothing in particular. “Don’t say my name. Don’t talk to me. Don’t make me want to kiss you again.”
At that point, I was able to justify running out without thinking myself a coward. There was nothing left to be said and if I had stayed in that room with him, nothing good could have happened. So I left quickly, making it to math as the bell rang.
While I was lying awake later that night, I made a few brave decisions. The first was easy: never ever go to school without the sketchbook again. The others were obvious, but probably easier said than done. I decided to not run out of class again and definitely not to cry again. That choice was made as I wiped the frustrated tears from my face, feeling like there was no escape.
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