After French was History with my adorable elderly-looking teacher Mr Robinson, he was kind and patient and nothing like my last history teacher, who had a bizarre interest in defending Germany when it came to discussing the Second World War. Mr Robinson went on and on about the developments in the Greek theatre as everyone (half asleep) took notes. I had always been a good history student. There was just something about the events of the past that happened to fascinate me. I'd wanted to be a history teacher if my art career so happened to flop, and I'd like to think I'd be a good one. After History, I had my first break, which I spent talking to Fabian in the corner of the massive library. Keomi and Merilla were studying for a math test they had later today, which left me time to get to know Fabian better. I wanted to know that there was more to him than just a 'Mr nice guy' with a classic smirk and a charismatic personality.
"So tell me, Fabian, do you like olives?" I asked him, and he shot me a puzzled look.
"Yeah...why?" He retorted curiously, and I smiled.
"Because I hate olives, and that means that we'd make good friends in the long run," I told him, and he let out a chuckle.
"Now, which crackhead told you that one?" He teased, and I shoved his shoulder playfully.
"First of all, don't you dare disrespect the olive test. Second of all, if you must know, it was my grandmother," I admitted. “And I heard it again in an episode of how I met your mother.”
"Oh shit, I'm sorry." He apologized, scratching the back of his neck awkwardly.
"No, it's okay, really. My grandparents met at a little vineyard in Cape Town, where her papa worked. She'd always hated olives because she'd grown up around them— but my grandfather always loved them so much, the rest is history," I told him. I've never told anyone that story. I've never felt close enough to anyone to tell them my stories.
"Ahhh, I see." Fabian chuckled, leaning his chin on his knee, “I haven’t seen my grandparents in a very long time. They live on the other side of the country.”
"It creates a balance." I clarified, “Because you have different pallets, different tastes, and somehow it means you can meet in the middle.”
"Your grandma, she means a lot to you, doesn't she?" He asked, curling his feet up onto his seat.
"Yeah, she does, even though I haven't seen her in so long," I confessed,
"My grandpa and I used to be close too before he passed on. We'd go down fishing at Canal St-Martin every Sunday. I um I— never caught anything, but he always made me celebrate even the little accomplishments." He told me seeming slightly embarrassed as my gaze caught his for a split second, and I could tell, I could tell that this moment meant more to him than it did to me.
The next class I had was art, and we turned in our pieces. Monsieur said everyone's was good but that River's was great— but it didn't portray any real emotion. Of course, River wasn't happy about that and proceeded to argue that an artist could be exemplary without his art being all sappy and pathetic. I noticed something about River Kennedy. He doesn't like it when people criticized him, he did not like being judged, and he sure as hell hated it when people gave their opinions on his work. Which had me curious as to why he was even attending an art academy in the first place if he couldn't handle criticism. Geneviève was in my specialist art class, too. She swapped seats with the girl that was sitting next to River. She talked to him, and he laughed, and when she placed her hands on his, he never moved away or told her to stop. That made a spike of hot jealousy shoot up my spine, and my throat burned with envy. Why was it that River seemed to get along with everyonebutme? What was it about me that he found so incredibly repulsive that he could barely hold a conversation with me without nearly screaming at me?
Just then, I realized that I'd been staring because his eyes caught mine, and he glared at me, looking me up and down and then proceeding to talk to Geneviève once again like I didn't even matter. He pissed me off. He frustrated me in the most pleasurably tortuous way imaginable. I knew that I promised my parentsnotto get involved with boys, and I did intend to keep my word, but It was getting harder and harder to deny myself those things.
These things that most of the girls in this room had already experienced, most of them in high school. These secret things whispered in circles between friends, about how falling felt like soaring through the sky till your heart bones shattered at the seams, about near misses and feather-light kisses…I knew nothing of it all. There were times when I thought about how I missed out on so much of my ‘ultimate high school experience’ because I was so headstrong about my art career. And yet there I was, I made it, I knew I’d achieved more in my life than most people my age but I couldn’t help but feel like I was missing something, like I'd always been missing something.
Our next assignment, which was to carry on for the next two weeks, was to paint something that genuinely captured the thing that we feared the most. I heard the chatter around the classroom. People were planning to paint things like spiders and their fear of heights. But I knew that Monsieur was looking for something more profound than that. He wanted something real, something raw and honest that spoke about who we are as artists. Soon classes were over. I'd planned to stay behind to ask Monsieur a few questions about our assignment, but unfortunately, it looked like River, and I had had the exact same plan. So I pretended to pack my equipment away slowly while I waited my turn.
“I would like to request a different assignment.” River declared, running a hand through his dark hair in evident frustration.
“May I ask why, Mr Kennedy?” Monsieur Etienne queried, humoring him.
“Because from my point of view, this is a class about skill and precision, it has nothing to do with…inner emotions.” River protested,
“It has everything to do with your inner self and how you’re able to project that into your art. There is no such thing as art without feeling.” Our teacher expressed, but River seemed almost offended.
“I refuse to participate in this—” River began but was immediately cut off.
“Then you will leave the class,” Monsieur warned.
“There is no class without me, and you know it.” River scoffed with a wicked smirk. He turned and faced me, his eyes fiery as though he didn't know I'd been in the room the entire time.
"Hey, maybe it won't be so bad," I suggested, trying to reassure him that the assignment wasn't that difficult and that apparently he was a good enough artist to complete it. “Sometimes we tend to make things harder in our minds than they actually are.”
"I was not fucking talking to you." He said nastily with his eyes shut, as though if he were to open them, they'd scorch us alive. I feared that he was far too upset at that moment to engage in conversation with anyone, let alone me.
"I know you weren't, but-"
"Do you ever stop talking? You're nothing but an ameuter riding on a scholarship that could be taken away from you in a fucking heartbeat." He burst out, and I felt like I'd been shot twice in the chest.
"Why are you being so cruel to me, River Kennedy?" I wondered, shaking my head in disbelief, “You said it yourself that we barely know each other and yet you’ve somehow decided that you utterly despise my existence.”
He moved closer towards me, and I looked up to look him dead in the eyes. River was tall— and much taller than me. He was being cold and mean, and he scared me when he got like this. But deep down, I knew there was no changing him, God. He was irredeemable. If what he wanted all along was to push me away, he sure as hell had done it that time. He placed his thumb and index finger on my chin and tilted it upwards. For a second, I thought I saw a glimmer of remorse in his eyes for the way he spoke to me, but I was wrong.
