The Movies Make It Look Easy

Chapter 9

Shannon’s P.O.V:

I practically ran across campus, trying to put some distance between me and my thoughts.
I was still a little hurt but now I was mainly angry.
So ye, I’d clearly said the wrong thing, but I hadn’t done it on purpose.
There was no need for him to have acted the way he had.

I was muttering under my breath as I burst in the classroom door. I was early and no one else was there.
I dropped down onto a chair at the back of the class, not in the mood for sitting up front, and dumped my bag, loudly, on the floor beside me. I lay my head down on the desk in front of me.
After a couple of minutes, I heard the door open quietly behind me, and footsteps walking up the centre aisle.
I didn’t have the energy to raise my head so I stayed where I was and listened as the chair beside me scraped back and someone sat down. I heard the thump of a bag being dropped on the floor, and then silence.
Eventually the person spoke,
‘Hello?’
I slowly raised my head and looked into a pair of concerned brown eyes. The girl was quite pretty, but a little plain with brown hair and brown eyes.
I could tell though, from the sparkle in her eyes that her personality would more than make up for any plainness in her features.
‘Hi’ I said slowly.
She stuck out her hand for me to shake and smiled at me.
When she smiled, her whole face lit up and it seemed to change her completely, she wasn’t pretty when she smiled, she was gorgeous.
‘Phew, I thought you might be dead or something, I’m Natalie.’
She grinned at me expectantly. I shook her hand
‘Shannon’; I replied half-heartedly, her brows furrowed
‘Are you ok? I mean if you don’t want me to sit here…’ she trailed off nervously.
I couldn’t help but smile
‘No, no it’s alright, I’m glad you sat here, I just had a little argument with my roommate and it’s sort of put me in a bad mood’
I internally snorted when I said ‘a little argument’ there was nothing little about it. I was pretty sure he hated me now, even if I didn’t exactly know what I’d done to deserve it.
‘Earth to Shannon!’ I blinked
‘I’m sorry what were you saying?’ Natalie giggled
‘You just went off into dreamland; I’ve been calling your name for the past two minutes’ she giggled again
‘I think we’re going to get along fine’
I smiled back at her before glancing around the room, when had everyone else arrived? I really must have been off in dreamland.
I frowned, that can’t be good I thought.
I heard a small, stifled giggle from beside me and felt a nudge in my ribs
‘You’re doing it again’ she whispered to me.
I just smiled before turning my attention to what the teacher was saying
‘Okay; now class, I want you to paint an abstract piece to represent what you’re feeling right now, at this moment. I’ll come around to inspect each of your pieces as you work. This exercise will help me get to know you better, and will give me an idea of your skills as a painter’
I sighed, on any other day I’d have loved an assignment like this, not so much today though.
‘So, what are you going to do?’ Natalie questioned as we took out our supplies.
‘I dunno’ I said surveying my paints
‘Something preferably involving a lot of black though, you?’
‘I think I might do something in yellow, I’m in a very good mood at the moment’ she said brightly
‘Well lucky for some’ was my lovely response.
She just laughed.

When the teacher finally got around to me, she paused, considering my work with her head tilted to one side
‘I see it’s very umm…red’ she said eventually.
I glanced at her
‘Well the colour red represents anger right?’
She nodded
‘Well then it’s perfect’
She just looked at me for a minute before nodding her head again and moving on to look at Natalie’s piece. I couldn’t help but overhear the teacher praising Natalie’s use of bright colours to interpret her feelings.
I sighed; this day was not turning out so well.
When the teacher moved on Natalie leaned over
‘Well I for one like your painting, it’s…’ she paused dramatically
‘…Intriguing and deep!’
I looked at my painting sceptically.
I was aimlessly splattering black paint over the red that was already there.
I looked back over at her.
She was struggling not to laugh as she “focused” on her own bright, happy work, but I could see her mouth twitching.
I mock pouted
‘Thanks for your support in my time of need, you’re such a good friend’ I cried dramatically, sarcasm dripping from my voice.
She laughed out loud.
She had to hold onto her stomach she was laughing so hard as I sat tapping my fingers impatiently on the desk, waiting for her to finish.
She continued to laugh, tears streaming down her face until I splattered black paint across her face.
I threw a smug look at her shocked face
‘You’ve got a little bit of something…’
I didn’t even have time to think how those words exactly mirrored what I’d said to Nick earlier before I got yellow paint thrown all over my face.
I narrowed my eyes at Natalie, who was grinning at me
‘Serves you right’
‘Oh it’s on!’ I warned.

A mini-paint war then ensued.
It continued on until the teacher – damn I needed to pay more attention to names – glared at us ferociously from across the room and asked us in a tight voice to
‘Please stop interrupting the class, and to leave our war until class was over’
Many of our classmates turned to stare, sniggering and nudging the people beside them.

For the rest of the class, Natalie and I chatted about ourselves; me talking about Ireland, and her telling me about life growing up with five brothers and no mother, who’d left when Natalie was six.
She also told me about her roommate who was apparently in her third year.
I didn’t talk about Nick, though she asked about my roommate, because it would’ve just put me in a bad mood and I really didn’t want to talk about our fight earlier.
I’d obviously really upset him and it felt wrong to talk about it to a near stranger, even though I had a feeling that me and Natalie were going to be best friends, sooner rather than later.
For the second time in two hours, I felt a nudge in the ribs
‘Shan!’ I blinked
‘Yes?’
‘Did you have a nice little trip? Class is over’ she giggled
‘Oh’
I glanced up and sure enough everyone else was leaving.
I began to pack up but as I was turning to follow Natalie to the door, I heard my name being called. I turned and saw the teacher beckoning to me.
Throwing a glance over my shoulder to Natalie who was waiting by the door with her eyebrows raised, I made my way to the front of the class.
There was a sign saying Ms. Martin – I’d have to remember that – sitting at the front of her desk.
I looked up to see her studying me over the top of her wire-rim glasses
‘Now, Ms. Doherty, about your painting’
I cut her off
‘I’ve just been having a bad day; my work isn’t usually like that’
I gave her a winning smile
‘Indeed?’
I nodded
‘Very well, off you go’ I smiled one last time and headed for the door.
I found Natalie waiting for me outside the door
‘What was that about?’ she queried
‘Oh nothing’ I said breezily
‘Ok’ she looked doubtful
‘Anyway, I was wondering if you’d like to do something tonight. I’m going to the cinema with some friends and I’m sure they’d love to meet you’ she smiled hopefully
‘Oh I’d loved to but I’m still trying to get settled in and I really think I should try work things out with my roommate’ she nodded understandingly
‘It’s ok, another time ye?’
‘Ye of course, you have tomorrow afternoon off right?’ she nodded
‘Why don’t we meet up then?’ she nodded
‘Sure, I can’t wait’ she winked.
We swapped numbers before I turned and headed back to my apartment and she went to hers.

I kept getting weird looks from people on the way back and it was only as I was opening the door to the apartment that I realised I must look a state with paint covering me from head to foot.
The irony of the situation was not lost on me as I closed the door behind me, Nick having paint all over him was exactly what had started our fight earlier.
I glanced down at myself, I had black, red, yellow and God knows what else covering me.
I glanced up to see Nick watching TV.
Wow Déjà vu I thought.
He glanced up at me quickly before doing a double take.
He raised one eyebrow slowly as his gaze raked over me.
As before, I felt tingles break out along the length of my spine.
I thought I saw a flicker of amusement in his eyes, looks like the irony’s not lost on him either I thought.
He opened his mouth as if he was going to say something, before shutting it again, shaking his head and going back to watching TV.
I sighed softly.

Whatever, I thought; he’s so not worth it.
If only you actually believed that, a tiny voice in the back of my head said slyly.
I pushed that thought out of my head and walked quietly across to my room and shut my door gently behind me as I headed for the shower to try and get rid of the paint covering me. I’d be lucky if I didn’t have to throw out my clothes.

As I stripped off and stepped into the shower, I thought about my first day of college.
If everyday from now on was like today, I’d have grey hairs by the end of the year, if not by Christmas.
I chuckled to myself as I started to scrub at the paint covering my arms.