Abercrombie & Bitch

Tuesday, April 21, 9:31pm – 2nd period Art

During sophomore year, one of the popular girls, Beth, slept with her best friend’s boyfriend at one poorly scheduled Sunday night party. Apparently, one nerd saw her leaving his house on Monday morning. She told her friends, who told their friends, and so on in a wicked chain of gossip.

By lunch period, everyone knew what Beth had done. That is some fast news right there.

Word spread that I was “dating” Zach so fast that the Beth incident paled in comparison. I’m not even kidding. I walked into Art directly after PE – the only other class I have with Zach – to find a room full of either a) murderous glares from the girls or b) jealous glances from the boys. But I was surprised to find that those were not directed at me, but at Zach, who had unknowingly followed me into the classroom.

Talk about bad timing.

The teacher wasn’t there yet, and I hadn’t quite figured out what everyone was so worked up about, so I took my seat in the very back of the classroom as usual and pulled out my book. What can I say? Just because I’m failing English doesn’t mean I don’t like to read. I’d just opened Pride and Prejudice when a note landed softly on my desk.

So, when were you going to tell me you and Sinclair were dating? - Riley

I raised an eyebrow in confusion for all but a second before I remembered what had happened during PE.

Trust me, I knew everything was going to go downhill. But after a tense argument between Zach and me, I agreed to play along with the ‘dating’ thing, simply because it gave us a cover for working on the talent show act. I wasn’t going to let anyone know about it before it was necessary, much less that Zach was helping me with it. My reputation would go down the toilet.

That is, if it hadn’t already.

I hadn’t gotten around to it yet, I wrote back, and tossed it at the back of her head. It was only second period. Jeez, can’t I withhold personal information that may or may not be true until lunch?

I snuck a glance at Zach. His eyes were narrowed menacingly at some guy who had turned around to talk to him. Well, not really ‘talk’, more like ‘taunt’. I didn’t know the guy so well, but I knew him enough to be a lacrosse player that had gone out with some friend or another a few years ago. We weren’t exactly on speaking terms, but he was by no means an enemy of mine. Though, I couldn’t think of what his name was for the life of me.

Anyway, by the looks of it, they were getting into a pretty heated argument. I wouldn’t have paid any attention – trust me, I get into enough scuffles on my own account – if I hadn’t heard my name come up not a second later. I just chose to ignore it for the time being.

The teacher, Mrs. Applegate, strolled into the room just as the second bell rang, carrying a cup of steaming coffee and checking her clipboard. She was one of the youngest teachers here, maybe only about twenty-four or twenty-five. She was an awesome artist, and a really good teacher to boot. It didn’t take much convincing from Rob to get me to sign up for art, let me tell you.

“Morning, class,” she sang, twirling around and setting her coffee cup on her desk without spilling a drop. Lucky graceful person. “Today I’m going to let you begin your final final project.”

The entire class looked at one another, a little bit confused. We’d finished out final project last week. That was why I’d given Rob those dog tags.

“I know you’re all a little confused,” she continued, flipping her insanely long blonde hair over her shoulder, “But here’s the thing. There’s a statewide competition for high school students. You have to pair up, and each of you will sketch a picture of the other. Both will be submitted, and the winners will be up at the State Fair this summer.” Que the groans. “Alright, alright, I know it’s not that exciting, but I’m not going to grade it on how good it is. Just turn one in two weeks from now, and you’ll be good to go.”

After that she gave us a few guidelines and such about the drawings, how big they needed to be, what colors to use, blah, blah, blah. No one was paying any attention to her. They were all looking across the room, glancing at each other and nodding to whoever they were going to draw. I slumped down in my seat a little bit.

“Riley,” I hissed.

She spun around in her seat in front of me. “What?”

“You wanna work together?”

She opened her mouth to respond just as the boy next to her – who was, ironically, her boyfriend – spun around. He put an arm around her shoulders and snuck a kiss onto her cheek. “Sorry, Miranda. She’s taken.”

Riley sent me an apologetic smile before snuggling into Mika’s chest. I chuckled. They were, like, the perfect couple. Nothing like Bryce and I had been. They’d been dating since freshman year, practically. I was even convinced they’d get married someday. They just never got tired of each other.

“Right. My bad,” I muttered, glancing around the room again. Donelle wasn’t in this class – she’d opted for photography this semester – so I was basically screwed in finding a partner that wasn’t envious and/or vindictive towards me. Which left no one.

Or so I thought.

“Howdy, partner,” Zach said, sitting down in the empty seat next to me. Trust me, it was empty for a reason.

“Hey, uh, Zach.” That was just to pacify Riley, who had glanced back to see what was going on. “What the heck do you think you’re doing?!” I hissed at Zach. His smirk only grew wider.

“Can’t I partner up with my girlfriend for an art project?”

I swear to God, he’s enjoying making me suffer. Yeah, that’s it. He loves to make me squirm. “Of course,” I said sweetly before kicking him in the shin. He moaned in pain and rested his forehead on the table in front of him.

Riley raised an eyebrow. “Wow. You guys have a… strange relationship. You know that?”

“Unfortunately, I do.” I cast Zach another wary glance as he continued to massage his sore calf.

“Now, everybody,” Mrs. Applegate called over the din of teenagers, “There are a few rules-”

Zach raised his hand suddenly. “Can we do nude portraits?”

I smacked my palm to my forehead and kicked him in the shin again. I could feel every eye in the classroom – besides Zach’s, since he was still rubbing his leg – on me and my blushing face. They already knew about our, er, relationship, but this made everything ten times worse.

But, hey, look at the bright side. It can’t get any worse.

“Of course you can, Zach.”

Okay, now it can’t get any worse.