“I’m going,” he said. “I was thinking maybe you could… if you wanted to… we could…”
I couldn’t even look at him. My cheeks were burning up.
“…I was thinking… if you wanted…” He sighed. “Do you want to come to the ball with me?”
Everything in me said no. No, I don’t want to come to the ball with you. I don’t even want to go to the ball. I don’t want to be sitting here, talking to you and painting a shitty picture. I don’t want anything but the feeling of Mr Roberts’ hands on me again, of him looking at me the way he did before, of him talking to me like I meant something.
And then I felt him, the familiar heat of him, the way he smelled, the way he moved. He stepped between our stools and stared at my canvas.
“I hope you aren’t distracting Helen, Harry.”
“No, sir. Just talking.”
“Less talking, more painting, if you want to finish that painting this term, that is.”
“Yeah, sir, I’m doing it.” Harry looked at his canvas, communication over.
I felt Mr Roberts staring, but I didn’t look at him. “Your wrist is too tense,” he said, and his hand was on mine, taking the brush from me.
“It’s fine.”
“Shake it out,” he said.
“It’s fine.”
He placed my brush on the palette and took hold of my wrist. “You’re tense. Distracted.”
“I’m not having the best week.” My voice was petulant, and I cursed myself.
“If we relied on a sunny disposition to produce our best work, Helen, I think you’d find art galleries would be considerably less impressive affairs.” He grabbed my shoulder and turned me towards him, and then he crouched, so he was looking up at me. He balled a fist to his stomach. “Dig deep,” he said. “Take it, all the crap inside, take it and mould it, and forge it… make it something beautiful. Make it something that means something.”
“It does mean something.”
“Transform it, Helen. Use it.”
I could feel stupid tears pricking. “But I can’t use it. I don’t know how.”
“You do,” he said. “I know you do.”
“What if I don’t want to?”
“You do want to.”
“Don’t tell me what I want.”
Harry’s neck twisted, eyes wide at our exchange. Mr Roberts saw it, too, and it stopped him in his tracks. He got to his feet and handed me back my paintbrush. “Ok, Helen. If you need some help, you know where I am.”
I jabbed the brush back on the canvas and didn’t even answer. I felt him leave, defeated.
Harry leaned over. “What was all that about?”
I shrugged. “Nothing.”
“That was weird, don’t you think?”
“I don’t know.”
“It was well weird,” he said. He flashed a stupid grin. “He’s weird though, isn’t he? Roberts? He’s such an oddball.”
“The weird people are often the best,” I said.
He laughed, like I was joking. “Yeah, gotta love the weirdos. He’s gay, you know.” He slid his stool a little closer and lowered his voice, and the whispering started up again, I could hear them, talking about us, talking about Harry’s arm on the back of my stool. “So, what about it? Will you come with me?”
“I’m… I’m not sure I’m going…”
“Come on,” he said. “It’ll be a laugh. I’ll be wearing a suit, all proper like.”
“I’ll think about it…”
“Yeah?”
I forced a smile. “Yeah, I’ll think about it.”
“Alright then.” His knee knocked against mine and stayed there. “We could have some fun, I know we could.”
“I’ll see…”
Mr Roberts walked by again, slowly. “Harry. More painting, less talking, please.”
“Alright, sir.”
I wondered if he was jealous, if Lizzie really was a seduction genius after all, but Mr Roberts carried on to another table, and gave advice in the same calm way he always gave it. It hurt my heart to think he wasn’t bothered. Maybe he was even relieved. I painted through the rest of class and tried to forget about it, but it throbbed like a tight little ball of fire in my stomach.
The bell sounded and I put my things away, and Mr Roberts was waving people off, smiling and fine and not even vaguely bothered about me or the pain inside. I waited until Harry was almost at the doorway, then raised my voice to sound across the room.
“I’ll come with you, to the ball. It’ll be… fun.”
Harry turned and smiled, puffed his chest out. “Cool.”
“Cool,” I said.
And then I walked away without giving Mr Roberts so much as a backwards glance.
***
Mark
It had been a lifetime since I’d felt a stab of jealousy. It took me aback, shifted me off my axis in a way that was thoroughly uncomfortable until I pulled back into some semblance of professionalism.
Helen was a teenager.
Harry was a teenager, too.
A stupid teenager. A dumb, lazy, uninspiring excuse for an art student as far as they go, but a teenager. He had cool hair, and wore trendy deodorant, one of those noxious ocean breeze ones. He was an attractive teenager, as far as I could tell. Dark eyes and one of those floppy fringes, with the disregard for school uniform that the cool kids have.