Shades of Adrian Gray - 7. Chapter 7

NOW

I haven’t painted since I was five years old.

Come to think of it, I’m pretty sure I wasn’t even painting then. More dipping my fingers in the pale yellow my dad had decided to coat the garage door with and then running through the house trying to use my hands to walk on the walls. I think I thought I was Spiderman or something, or maybe that the paint would make me stick to the wall. I don’t really remember, although Mom’s never forgotten.

So basically, I have no idea what the fuck I’m doing. My new art teacher, He of the Russian Ethnicity and the Unpronounceable Last Name, certainly seems to agree. Assuming that snort he made when he last walked by was an expression of contempt and not a hairball. With him, its anyone’s guess. But I mean, okay, I’ve figured out how to get the paints out of their tubes and onto this palette thingie, and even managed to mix a few of them into a very muddy, blood streaked brown. That’s something, right? So step off my balls, already man.

I dab a horse hair brush (expensive, I’m told) into my Homicide Brown tincture and stare blankly at the equally blank canvas set up on an easel in front of me. This is so fucking stupid. At first I figured this might not actually be that bad. At least it kept me from another detention and my parents jumping down my back again. Small favors, right? Course, that was before I realized that art basically consists of sitting on an uncomfortable stool and staring at a white square while ’waiting for inspiration to strike.’ The muse was a fickle creature, whimsical and particular about when and upon whom she chose to bestow her favors. Or so Mr. Stoli of the I-Can-Slay-Dragons-With-My-Vodka-Breath informed me. You’d think said invisible spirit would take pity on a fellow fairy then, but the bitch remains AWOL. Figures.

I sigh loudly and let my gaze wander around the rest of the room, just in time to see the other dozen or so kids in my class try to kill me with their eyes. Apparently heavy breathing is a no-no. What if its how I creatively express myself, bitches? Whatever. Sorry to disturb your craft. I roll my eyes and look for other ways to kill time. The class is in a wide, rectangular room that takes up the entire top floor of the Liberal Arts building. The front half is filled with low empty tables for working on various 3-D crafts. The back half is a wide open space punctuated here and there by pottery kilns and easels. It’s a fucking mess, but I’ve been assured its creation through disorder, whatever that means. Long vertical windows line the walls all the way from the floor to the twelve foot ceiling, about half of them slanted open to let in the light, spilling thin black shadows across the floor. A chick with three different nose rings and leopard spotted hair told me it makes for great chiaroscuro. What the fuck ever. I don’t have the heart to tell her she’s doing the whole ‘art freak’ thing wrong. Smoke a fucking joint and relax already kids. Seriously.

I check back in at my canvas to see if my muse has dropped by to lend me some of that inspiration shit. Nope. Still out to lunch. Or hungover, more likely. It’s me we’re talking about after all. I squint, cock my head to the side, try looking at it from another angle. Nada. Really, what the fuck did they think was going to happen? How was this supposed to accomplish anything? I knew Davis was a total crackpot. Oh yeah. I have issues. So let’s sit me down in front of a piece of paper or whatever and magic those issues out onto the canvas. Voila, I’m cured. Yeah. That was totally what was going to happen.

“And here we have Evan Foster cultivating a brand new form of artistic expression. Mental Imaging. If he stares at the canvas long enough, pictures will appear!”

I almost fall off my stool when the unexpected voice speaks up right behind my shoulder. I spin around to see Vanessa grinning at me. Then she blows a large pink bubble that bursts with pop. I don’t know if I’m more surprised at her mere presence or the fact that she’s chewing bubblegum. I was pretty sure the latter was beneath her.

“What the fuck are you doing here?” I whisper. Leopard Hair Chick glares and goes ‘Shh!’ from behind her easel anyways. I flip her off.

“Homework,” Vanessa says lightly, plopping down on a stool right next to me and pulling a People magazine from her backpack. She then proceeds to ignore me while flipping through to the cover story.

“Homework. Right.”

“Okay, fine, I came up here to work on my tan. This room has the best light.”

“And you couldn’t do that on the quad?” I’m trying very hard to keep the bite out of my voice. Considerate of me, I think, since I’ve made my feelings on her and Neil’s attempts at hovering very clear these past few weeks. I’m fairly certain my effort is wasted on her when she takes the gum out of her mouth and leans over to stick it on my palette before going back to her magazine.

“Some boys are playing touch football down there. It’s very distracting.”

“I’m sure,” I ooze agreement. “And the teacher has no problem with you being here?”

“No. Why would he?”

“Oh, I don’t know, maybe because you’re not in this class?”

“Oh, that,” she shrugs. “I told him I had a free period and wanted to work up here. He said it was fine as long as I didn’t disrupt any of the students.”

“You’re disrupting me,” I point out through ever so slightly clenched teeth.

“That’s true,” she muses, looking up from her magazine. She tilts her head to the side and looks up at the front of the room, where Mr. Stoli is pretending not to watch us. “I don’t think he likes you very much.”

“Heart breaking.”

“Besides,” she continues as if I hadn’t even spoken. “I think he just wants to stare at my tits.”

I roll my eyes. Only Vanessa. “Yes, I‘m sure that‘s what it is.”

“Could be. I have very nice tits. All men like to stare at them,” she points out with another shrug. She slants me a sly look. “Well, most men anyways.”

I choke. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Her face melts into innocence incarnate. “I don’t know. What is it supposed to mean?”

My eyes dart back to my canvas and I wipe suddenly sweaty palms on my jeans. “Do you mind? I’m kinda busy here.”

“I’ve seen you run while dribbling a basketball between your legs. I’m sure you can manage to stare at a blank canvas and suffer my presence all at the same time.”

“Don’t be so sure,” I mutter. “Suffering your presence is a full time job.”

“Bitch,” she counters cheerfully. Flip, flip, flip go the pages of her magazine when I continue to stare straight ahead. God, she’s obnoxious. “You know, Neil’s convinced you’re on drugs. He found out you’d transferred to art class for this free period and decided it was proof you were experimenting with LSD or something. He even said eureka when it occurred to him. Said it explained everything.”

“You’re right,” I say noncommittally. “It does explain everything.”

Vanessa rolls her eyes. “I said Neil thinks you’re on drugs, not that I think you’re on drugs.”

“You don’t?”

“Evan,” she sighs. “You’re an incredibly flawed individual.”

“Umm, thanks?”

“Being stupid enough to do drugs, is not one of those flaws,” she overrides me without breaking stride. “Besides, I know you only transferred here because Miss Davis made you.”

I choke again. “What? How did you -”

She waves a hand in the air. “I saw you go into Miss Davis’ office, the next day you transfer into art class. Clearly I should be a rocket scientist for connecting those dots. Besides, why else would you be in an art class? You don’t paint.”

“I could paint,” I protest, inexplicably insulted. She raises an eyebrow in pointed disbelief and I deflate. “How do you know who Miss Davis is anyways? I had no idea we even had a grief counselor until yesterday.”

She lifts one delicate, slim shoulder and looks down at her lap for the first time, avoiding my gaze instead of the other way around. Her fingers curl around the edges of her magazine. “I went to see her a couple weeks ago.”

“Why? You didn’t even know Adrian,” I know it comes out probably harsher than it should the second it passes my lips, but its too late to take it back. It hangs there like an accusation and her eyes snap back up to mine in clear challenge.

“Why did you see Miss Davis?” Vanessa counters. “You didn’t know Adrian either. Right?”

I swallow and take a deep breath. My fingers dig into the fabric of my jeans. I imagine its leaving marks in the skin beneath. “What exactly are you implying?”

“I don’t know. What am I implying?”

I swallow again and look away, unable to face her stare. “You didn’t even know Adrian,” I say again, weaker this time. I’m not sure why I insist on making a point of it.

She just nods, the only way I can tell because of how her shadow moves on the floor with the movement. I risk a glance back up at her and she’s staring at the blank canvas in front of me with a sad, almost wistful look on her face. “And now I never will.”

I don’t know what to say to that.

“I have a friend who knew him though,” she says softly, and I just watch her, hypnotized by the words coming out of her mouth, the words that she shouldn’t be able to say because she shouldn’t know. There’s no way she could know. “I know he meant a lot to him, and I always figured when the time was right, I’d get a chance to know him too. I mean - he meant so much to this one friend of mine, I was sure I’d like him. Guess we’ll never know now. Isn’t that reason enough to grieve?”

I lick my chapped lips, unable to say what I want to say. She understands.

“You’re not as good at hiding things as you think you are Evan,” she smiles sadly. “You never have been. I know you don’t think so, but it’s a good thing.”

I stare straight at the canvas and suddenly I see the four of us at the movies, me, Adrian, Vanessa and Neil. Double dating at the park, standing in line together, crammed into booths at the diner two to a side. Would it ever have happened? I always figured it would eventually. I’ve never really thought Neil would stop being my friend just because I’m gay. I knew him too well for that, objectively, rationally I always knew it might be weird, it might take some adjustment, but he wouldn’t just abandon me. It was just, there was always just this little part of me that said you never know, that people can surprise you in a bad way and I just - we both just, Adrian too - we figured there was no rush. There’d be time for that later. We were supposed to have more time.

My eyes blur and I’m abruptly furious. At Vanessa, for not saying anything sooner, for being so smug and thinking she always knew everything. At myself, for not saying anything sooner, for being such a coward. At Adrian, for not stopping me from talking myself out of telling Neil all those times, for not demanding I say something and stop being such a coward. Adrian - My fists clench and I’m pissed as hell at that stupid bitch Miss Davis. Who the fuck was she, anyways? What the fuck did she know? Paint me a picture of how Adrian’s death makes you feel, I think savagely. Paint a fucking picture. Yeah, like that’s going to change anything. His parents had that fucking picture at his funeral, bet it made them feel a lot better. Bet they feel so much better his mom’s still boozing herself into a stupor right the fuck now. She wanted a picture of how I felt? Sure, why the hell not? I can do that.

I jerk to my feet and stalk over to the counter lining one wall of the classroom, pull out a can of blood red paint and plunge the biggest fucking brush I can find into it. I soak it, swirl it around, and then wind back and chuck the brush at the canvas as hard as I can. It lands dead center with a splatter of red and pain and violence and I follow it up by punching my fist straight through the heart of it. The canvas tears with a satisfying rip, the wooden cross frame splinters and collapses in half and my easel falls to the ground in a clatter of disarray. I take a deep, shuddering breath and realize everyone’s staring at me in shocked silence.

“All done,” I inform a wide-eyed Vanessa. I reach down and grab the broken and mangled canvas by one corner, and walk out the door. No one says a word to stop me.

I pound down the stairs of the art building and into a crush of students about to head to lunch on the bottom floor. I wade against the tide through hallways lined with sea-blue lockers, people voicing their complaints and scowling at me as I jostle and shoulder check my way through the masses. I come to Miss Davis’s office and throw open her door.

“Quite the dramatic entrance, Mr. Foster,” is all Miss Davis says, looking up from her desk and peering at me over those damn glasses. “Maybe I should have sent you to theater instead.”

I glower and throw my wreck of a canvas onto her desk. “Here’s your painting.”

She adjusts her glasses on the bridge of her nose and studies the mess of red paint, torn canvas and splintered wood littering her desk. “Excellent work,” she says at last. I’m startled out of my rage, and left gaping.

“Wait, what?”

Miss Davis gently lifts the mass and sets it on the ground behind her before just casually going back to her papers. “You used a piece of wood and cloth this time instead of Kyle Brewer’s face. I’d certainly call that an improvement.”

When I remain too shocked to say anything she waves a hand at me in dismissal. “I’d like to see your next one by next Friday please.”

That at least gets my mouth working again. “What the hell do you mean next one?”

Her pen scratches across the papers she‘s focused on. I wonder if any of them are about me. “This is clearly the start of a series. It’s a good thing there’s ten weeks left in the semester, I have a feeling you‘ll be needing all of that time.”

She finally looks up when I continue to stand there wordlessly. “Was there anything else?”

“Nope,” I manage through gritted teeth.

“Good,” she smiles broadly and picks up the plastic jar at the corner of her desk. “Sucker?”

I growl and wade back into the mass of students rushing through the halls, sending a couple of the smaller ones crashing up against the lockers like breakers dashing on the shore.

I need to find another canvas to hit.