Lana raised an eyebrow. “If you’re looking for Thomas, he’snot here.” She had her hair in her usual spiky ponytail, blazer discarded and sleeves rolled up to work.
“I wasn’t.” Andrew stuffed his hands in his pockets. “I mean. I was looking… for his art.”
“In the corner. He’s got the window because he’s Ms. Poppy’s favorite. All that dark artist angst.” Lana rolled her eyes. “So glad I switched to drama this year because I can’t stand all his monsters.”
Andrew’s heart tripped over itself before he realized she meant his old drawings. Not hisrealmonsters.
He made a wide arc around Lana and her friend and found Thomas’s workspace. Tall wooden tables with drawers took the places of desks, the stools tucked in and art supplies piled everywhere. Begonias stood in mason jars all over Ms. Poppy’s desk, and she’d propped a tiny hand-painted sign on her laptop to say:OUT TO GET TEA! BACK IN 5 MINUTES!
With the walls covered in paintings and the huge windows overlooking the forest, the room felt alive with creativity. No wonder it was the only class Thomas thrived in.
Andrew flicked through a few sketchbooks, but Thomas had only been doing exercises. His canvases still lay blank. Oil pastels unopened. The new charcoals had been worn to nubs already, but Andrew had to dig through the trash to find what they’d been used on.
The paper had been slashed, but it looked like a face framed in soft gray feathers. Dove feathers.
He dropped the mess back in the trash.
He shouldn’t have come. Even if Dove had cut ties with Thomas, he was still tangled up in her, and it made Andrew’s pained heart stretch in pathetic ways.
He started to leave, but slowed to watch the girls sorting their fabric scraps.
“Oh,” he said, “those are your Pride flags?”
“Yup.” Lana sounded terse. “Someone slashed them. A hate crime. Wickwood wouldn’t bother to track down the culprits even if we reported it. Useless.”
The girl beside her piped up, “It might’ve been a senior prank?”
“Hate. Crime.” Lana slapped a piece of shredded green and gray into a pile. “Chloe, stop thinking all people are nice. They are either inherently annoying or downright oxygen wasters.” She narrowed her eyes at Andrew. “Want to help? We’re seeing if all the pieces are still here and then we’re sewing them back together. Ms. Poppy said she’d buy new ones, but I think this sends a stronger statement. We willnotbe cut down.”
“Well, I’m sewing,” Chloe said. “Lana needs to practice her running stitch.”
Lana wrinkled her nose, and Chloe stifled a laugh. Andrew thought she might be a junior, because he knew her name but didn’t recognize her from class. Chloe Nguyen had light brown skin and hid behind incredibly long hair. Bright motivational bracelets covered her wrists, saying things like:YOUR WORTH IS INFINITE!AndHAPPINESS IS A CHOICE!That much positivity went against his entire nature and stressed him out.
He wanted to ask if they’d seen Dove come upstairs, but the words pooled like tar on his tongue. Maybe if he lingered, they’d talk about her and he’d have pieces for the puzzle of her strange behavior this year.
He knelt and pulled a handful of torn fabric into his lap. Lana looked pleased and then hid it with her trademark scowl, while Chloe gave him a shy but encouraging smile.
The flags felt soft and silky in his hands. “Why do you even want people to know you’re… you know? It’s not their business.” Had he just said that out loud? What was he thinking? He glanced up, mortification flushing his cheeks hot. “Sorry. I-I didn’t mean to—be offensive—”
“You can talk, Andrew. I won’t bite your head off,” Lana, known-head-biter, said. “And you’re right, it isn’t anyone’s business. But some of us don’t want to hide. I don’t care if people know I’m a lesbian. It’s just part of me.”
“And it’s nice to find other people like you?” Chloe sent Andrew a cautious smile. “No one understands what it’s like to be bisexual like other bisexuals.”
“Not that anyonehasto come out,” Lana said so close to Andrew’s ear that he jumped. “You don’t owe them, and people suck anyway. All of them. Well,” she added, grumpy, “you two are okay. For now.”
Chloe nudged Lana in the ribs until she batted her off with a begrudging smile. “You’re so not as crabby as you pretend to be.”
Lana sniffed. “I am, actually.”
“Thomas isn’t as mean as he pretends to be, either,” Andrew said in a quiet voice.
Lana snorted and untwisted more pieces of flags. “Thomas is a menace.”
“Wait, Thomas Rye?” Chloe said. “Half the girls in my year have a crush on him.”
This time both Andrew and Lana shot her alarmed looks. Having a crush on Thomas would be a little like putting a blade to your mouth and then being surprised when it cut you.
“He’s a genuine bad boy,” Chloe went on. “Not the ‘I got drunk and totaled my dad’s Mercedes’ bad boy, but the kind that has dark secrets and is so beautiful and talented and unknowable.” She noticed their matching horrified expressions and looked embarrassed, fussing with the flags again. “That’s just what the girls say.”
