Portrait of Us (18 page)

Regardless, I was going to talk to Matthew first before I
dished my feelings to anyone, especially fellow art students. I needed to see how he felt . . . and then we could take it from there. No sense starting the rumor mill buzzing—I knew how fast gossip could spread around here.

“Matthew and I are just friends,” I said in a firm tone. Maybe that would stop them from talking about us. “The only thing we have going on right now is our art project.”

Janice's face froze for a second, and she and Henry paused. I saw Matthew walk by, his back stiff as a board, shoulders tight. He moved to the back of the room and flipped through some magazines. His posture appeared casual; I couldn't tell what he was thinking or feeling.

Had he overheard me? My heart sank.

Then another guy in class came over and started talking to him. They both laughed. No tension in Matthew's eyes whatsoever.

If he had overheard, he didn't seem upset by what I'd said. Maybe I'd been imagining his pain at my words . . . maybe even imagining he cared about me like that at all.

Ugh, I was driving myself crazy!

I turned back to my project, staring at my blank canvas for what felt like forever. I drew a line, then erased it. Drew another. Erased that too. Nothing was flowing.

I couldn't stop thinking about him.

Finally, thankfully, class ended. I gathered my stuff up as fast as I could. Perhaps I could talk to Matthew and see how he
felt about everything. Ask what he'd overheard. Maybe I could explain my words somehow without giving away my ever-growing feelings for him.

But when I finished packing up and looked toward his station, he was already gone.

Chapter
Seventeen

I
could barely hear anything
because my pulse was roaring so loudly in my ears. My hands shook so hard I was afraid the painting would fly right out of them and into the thick green grass.

Relax,
I told myself. It would be fine.

But I couldn't help but be nervous as I walked into Teni's studio the next afternoon. The air-conditioning was a refreshing blast in my face and across my bare arms and legs, but it didn't ease my nervousness.

I was nervous to see Matthew's painting.

I was nervous about him seeing mine.

But mostly, I was nervous about just seeing
him
. He hadn't texted me yesterday or today. Maybe he really was mad at me.

Or maybe I'd blown everything out of proportion and read
into something that wasn't there—the guy could have been busy, for all I knew. He did have two sisters to watch. I knew how hard it could be to juggle everything.

I grabbed a chair and sat, waiting for him. I was a few minutes early, hoping to give myself a chance to chill out before he arrived. No way did I want to seem so nervous.

I pressed my hands to my thighs and drew slow, deep breaths. In, out. In, out. It was all going to be fine. I simply had to relax.

The door opened, and my heart stuttered. I looked over to see Matthew stroll in, his painting covered by a large piece of paper. He gave me a small smile and headed toward me.

My lungs squeezed to the size of grapes, and I could hardly draw in a breath. His eyes locked me in and wouldn't let me go.

This was just crazy! I blinked and dragged my gaze away from his. “You all ready?” I asked.

We took our respective pieces, still covered, over to a large expanse of table, where we would do our splicing together and the final touches. We both paused, looking at each other. A light blush rode high on his tanned cheekbones, and my fingers itched to touch his skin.

I fisted them at my sides.

“You go first,” I said.

“No, you,” he countered with an eyebrow raised in challenge.

We both laughed. The tension seemed to crack apart, and our shoulders relaxed at the same time.

“Okay, we'll reveal them together,” I offered. “One . . . two . . . three.”

We uncovered our images and fixed our attention on each other's paintings.

My breath locked in my lungs. I couldn't stop staring. Matthew had used bold, abstract lines to capture my face—his typical postmodern style, with a bit of flair. But somehow, you could still easily see it was me. There was a little more realism in my eyes, in the crook of my mouth, which turned up in the corners.

My half-portrait held a hint of mischievousness. Even without being classically rendered, without all the careful lines and perspective, it was strongly apparent it was me. He'd nailed it.

My hand fluttered to my chest, and I kept staring at it. Wow. No wonder Teni had insisted he be in the competition. The piece was
good
. Sophisticated. Edgy yet appealing, accessible.

“It's amazing,” I finally said. “I can't believe . . . I just don't know what to say.”

Then I realized he hadn't looked up at me yet. He was still staring hard at my image, a slight frown on his face. My stomach pinched. Was he unhappy with the way I'd painted him? I'd tried to let myself fall into the painting, to feel it and not worry so hard about rigid, perfect linework. I'd poured all of my emotion into his eyes, wanting those to ring true. But maybe I'd failed.

He finally turned his eyes to me, fixing me in that rich blue stare. “No one's ever . . .” He paused. “No one has ever done a piece like this of me before.”

Suddenly shy, I found myself asking, “Do you like it?”

“I love it,” he said simply.

I fought to keep a stupid grin off my face as we looked back down at our paintings. My heart was racing, but this time out of excitement. “I think we have a real chance of winning.”

“I do too. Let's splice these together and finish this up.”

We spent the next half hour carefully trimming our images, pasting them onto a fresh piece of paper so our faces melded into each other, each of us one half of a larger face. It was amazing once I saw how they worked together, how the lines of our jaws, our brows touched. All our careful planning beforehand had worked out.

The center seams of our lips kissed each other right in the middle of the painting. My skin grew hot and a little itchy as I stared, transfixed, at our mouths.

What would it be like to really kiss Matthew? Would his mouth taste as minty as it smells? How would it feel to have his hands on my upper arms, sliding to my back? To tangle my fingers in his thick hair and have our mouths draw closer—

“Corinne,” he whispered right beside me.

I jumped, blinked, heart racing. I knew guilt was written all over my face. My thoughts had been wandering down to a place I shouldn't be going. Not with my art partner.
Pull yourself together!
“Um, sorry. I got distracted. What's up?”

He gave me a weird look. “Are you ready to finish the background?”

We'd decided we would do the background of the painting together, using random colors to highlight and stretch across both halves of the image's background. The unifying piece that would tie everything in together.

I gave a mechanical nod and grabbed the paints. My hands only trembled a little bit as I squirted paint onto our palettes.

We worked in silence for another twenty minutes or so on the background. Our paint lines blended and blurred over each other. He went right over a fresh red line I'd done with a dark blue, so I crossed over it with red again.

He laughed. “So it's gonna be like that, huh?”

That started it. Our laughter built louder as we dabbed and painted and plopped colors onto the page. It was goofy. Fun. I'd never done art like this before. But somehow, it worked. It was a chaotic, bright background that interconnected our styles.

“That color looks awful,” I said, nodding my head at the top right color. All our layering in that spot had made a dumpy shade of brown.

“Huh. Well, I blame you,” he retorted with a straight face.

Before I realized what I was doing, I raised my brush and put a glop of purple paint on his cheek.

His eyes slitted in playful menace. He lifted his brush and took a step toward me.

I squealed and jumped back. “Sorry, sorry!” I said with a laugh. I grabbed a paper towel and wet it, then came toward him with a hands-in-the-air symbol of truce. My hands shook a little as I wiped the paint off his cheek.

Matthew froze and quickly inhaled. I darted my eyes to his. His pupils were large, filled with an intensity I'd never seen before. It shocked the air out of my lungs.

“Corinne,” he whispered. His voice was gravelly.

A bubble of excitement swelled in my chest. There was something there, crackling between us. No way was it just in my head. I could see that now with full certainty.

“What?” I whispered back.

“When this project is over . . .” He paused, licked his lower lip in a nervous tic. The action drew my eyes to his mouth again.

You guys seem so different.
Janice's words echoed in my head. The words washed over me like a cold shower. Too different to make it work long-term, if that was even what he wanted? What if my feelings were stronger than his?

Or worse, what if we both felt the same way but couldn't seem to mesh our real lives together once school started? I wasn't certain how two people so different could make a relationship work.

Would we just fall apart, disintegrate into nothingness?

Suddenly I wasn't sure I was ready to hear whatever he had to say. Shame filled me about my intense fear, but I didn't want to ruin this perfect moment by taking it down a path when we weren't quite ready to accept its consequences. After all, Matthew might think he liked me now, but maybe that was just because of the intensity of our project, the forced togetherness. Working one on one for an extended period of time could create an intimacy that might not last once reality crashed back in.

How would he feel when it was all over? Would he still want to hang out with me? Despite everything right now, in this moment, I still had a hard time consistently reading him. He didn't seem to have the consistent intense emotions about me that I did about him.

All these questions were making me frustrated, dizzy. I needed time to think.

“Um, we need to finish the background,” I said, giving a forced smile. “Our project is almost done. I really think Teni will like it.”

“But we need to talk first,” he said, not bothering with a smile. His eyes were locked on mine. “I want to know—”

A song vibrated from my pocket. My phone.

The moment was broken. Matthew stepped back, frustration clear on his face, and I tugged my cell out. It was my mom.

“Hey, Corinne,” Mom said. “Sorry to interrupt you, but Charlie's acting up at home, and your father needs you to help watch him while he finishes work. Your brother is refusing to leave the house unless you take him somewhere.”

“Okay,” I told her, then hung up. I was simultaneously relieved and irritated. Charlie always did have the worst timing. And yet this would give me a little bit of a reprieve to think about everything. “I'm sorry. I have to go in a minute. Gotta watch my brother.” I glanced at the painting. “I think we're about done here.”

“Yeah, I guess so.” Matthew's words had a slight strain around the edges. He turned his back to me and started cleaning up the brushes and palettes.

Great. I'd ticked him off.

“Matthew—” I started.

He waved a hand without looking at me. “You should hurry so you can get home. I'll take care of cleaning everything up.” Yup, there was definitely an edge of frostiness in his voice.

My heart thudded dully. “Okay. Thanks.”

He shrugged, still keeping his back to me.

I gathered my things and headed to the door. When I got there, I paused and turned. I watched him for a moment, drinking in the way he moved. How he absorbed himself fully in whatever he was doing, whether it was art or basketball or something as simple as cleaning.

“I'll see you tomorrow,” I whispered, then left.

The walk home felt like it took forever. My brain wouldn't stop throwing questions at me. My heart wouldn't stop screaming that I was a coward. I wanted to just curl up in my bed and sleep it all away.

Charlie almost attacked me when I got home, tugging me inside. “I'm so bored and Maxine isn't home and Dad won't let me go anywhere by myself. Can we go to the park? Please?” He sounded so pathetic and needy that I couldn't help but agree.

The rest of my afternoon I spent watching Charlie play with his sun-powered car.

Unable to forget the disappointment in Matthew's eyes.

Chapter
Eighteen