Page 12

“Alright, whatever, you hippie.” Jared rolls his eyes again, and our laughs echo through the courtyard.

The air thins out as the school day wraps up, and I go to deliver a package of special oil paint to the art room, requested by Ms. Bardot, the school’s one and only art teacher. Despite having never taken an actual art class (thank god for music counting as a fine arts credit), she is easily my favorite teacher in the building.

I turn the knob to her class with a bag of new brushes and oil paints perched in the joint of my elbow. When I walk in, the familiar aroma of fresh paint and turpentine mixed with Ms. Bardot’s expensive perfume fills my nostrils.

The lighting is ambiently dimmed, and the room is messy as always, with racks of canvases and sinks filled with dirty cups and brushes lining the far left corner and her cluttered desk in the adjacent corner. Workstation tables are perfectly aligned with each other, lab rat style.

It’s a miracle how she manages to wear such chic clothes and keep them pristine throughout the day with the amount of messin the nature of her classroom. It makes me think that, in the most poetic way possible, the classroom is the only place she allows herself to be messy, almost as if her disheveledness is being solely poured into her art and her room, and none of it on her actual person. She’s compartmentalized, and I like that about her.

After taking in the chaotic mess of the room, I make a beeline for the supply cabinets on the far wall. As I’m filing the new paint away, I hear a booming crash, followed by shuffling coming from behind me. Ms. Bardot didn’t tell me anyone would be here at this hour.

My posture stiffens, and I quietly open one of the new packs of paintbrushes and grab one, positioning it in my hand, ready to attack the intruder as needed. Slowly, I turn around to find Laine, droplets of paint dripping down her arms and face, staring off right past me like she’s seen a ghost. Her face falls when she sees me, and the slight downward curvature of her lips makes her look like a lost puppy.

“Laine! Jesus, you scared me.” I take a deep breath of relief when I realize I had forgotten she’s an artist, so of course, she’d be here.

“I’m sorry! I was just trying to grab some supplies for my project, and the whole shelf came crashing down.” She looks embarrassed, almost on the verge of tears, and I realize I need to change my face from horrified to comforting.

“Are you okay?” is all I manage to get out.

“Yeah, I’m okay. I ran out before it fell, but some of the paints splashed me on their way down.”

“Wait, what were you doing in there?”

“I needed a brush, and Ms. Bardot said there were some in the closet.”

My face goes back to confusion for a minute, then I realize what she means.

“Ohh! I think she meant the cabinet. And actually, I just bought some new brushes. Here, take your pick.” I dump the bag onto the counter and sift through the packs of brushes.

Then it hits me. The oil paints Ms. Bardot sent me to get were for Laine. For her project. Why didn’t I realize that before? From all the stories I’ve heard from Ms. Bardot, not many of the students here take the time or energy to learn to use oil paints as opposed to acrylic, so this can’t be a coincidence.

“Thanks.” Laine opens a new pack of the flatter brushes and holds them in her paint-stained hands, hesitant to take them.

“I think these are for you, too,” I say, handing her the oil paints and gesturing toward what I now see is her workstation set up at the far back table. “Let me help you clean up the mess in the storage closet.”

When we get to the closet, there is a puddle of acrylic paint spilled on the fallen rack, and old, frayed brushes everywhere. I bend to start picking up the brushes, and she joins me on the floor, crouching and clearly not avoiding the spilled paint like I am, as she carefully picks up each brush.

“Let me get some towels to get this paint up.”

“I’m really sorry about all this.”

I turn back to meet her eyes, which are now looking up at me on the verge of tears again. I know I need to do something instead of continuing to stare at her blankly, but I freeze up, unsure of how to respond to her outward show of emotion.

After far too many seconds of racking my brain for what to do now, I finally snap back to reality, rushing to say something, anything, to comfort her.

“Hey, seriously, it’s okay. These supplies were old anyway. I’m pretty sure Ms. Bardot was planning on pitching them sometime in the next week. We’re just helping her get it done sooner.”

“Are you sure?” She blinks bits of paint out of her eyelashes.

“Positive. She’s a big procrastinator, so you probably actually didher a favor, to be honest. These brushes needed to go.” I swipe my thumb through the patchy, stiff hairs of one of the brushes I picked up, showing its age.

I leave to grab wet towels, but by the time I return, most of the paint is already gone. Poking around the closet, I look for Laine, but she’s nowhere to be found. The faint sound of water rushing from the sink in the classroom rings through, and I turn back to head into the room, following the sound. There, I find Laine at the cluttered sink, scrubbing bright red paint off her skirt. My jaw drops as I stand in awe of the paint-covered girl before me.

“Did you… Wipe the paint off the floor with your skirt?”

I laugh a little at the idea of her rubbing her butt against the floor in an attempt to mop the paint up with the fabric of her skirt. Honestly, and incredibly immaturely, I’m a bit disappointed I missed it.

She looks over at me with a soft smile as she nods.