Just Like This (Albin Academy #2) - Cole McCade Page 0,17
lie worth a damn. And Damon hated that Rian might be right:
The only way to handle this was a direct confrontation.
And hope the fallout wasn’t worse than whatever had that kid acting so damned squirrely.
* * *
Rian should probably be paying more attention to what his class was doing.
By last period, he was usually almost as worn out as the kids, but managed to hold up enough to put a good face on things and stay sharp enough to maintain control over restless, noisome teenagers who just wanted to be done with the day. Not always easy, when he was basically giving them a playroom full of messy, often sharp toys to play with, and all it took was one moment of inattention to look up and find someone giving themselves a forearm tattoo with an X-Acto knife dipped in a little ground well of sumi-e ink, or a bunch of boys daring each other to stick their arms into the kiln without touching the super-heated inner walls.
Maybe because they were barely a few weeks into the school year, though, the sophomores of last period were unusually well-behaved today; probably still adjusting to being back on a regimented schedule, and too drained to do anything but drowse over their sketchbooks and the individual semester projects they’d decided on.
Which left Rian free to drift off, alternating between one of three things:
Staring out the windows at the yellow-bright shimmer of leaves just beginning to turn, remembering the bright orange of leaves turning in Rochester but trying not to think about anywhere in particular at all.
Sketching on the open pad settled next to his right hand, catching the flow of a shoulder, the ridge of an abdominal muscle, the way sweat turned glossy black hair into slick, dense ribbons that curled to points at the tips, and not thinking about anyone in particular at all.
Or watching Chris Northcote from under his eyelashes, trying not to be obvious—although Chris himself didn’t seem aware of anything in particular at all.
Chris sat at the little back table he’d claimed, his tall frame ill-fitted for the small chair and workspace, but he perched there as if he didn’t mind in the slightest; in fact, Rian wasn’t wholly sure Chris even knew where he was, when he just...stared at his dried sculpture, the little wire brush he’d been using to smooth a few spots for finishing and texturing touches before bisque firing and painting just...dangling from his fingertips.
He looked so tired, Rian thought.
Tired, and like something weighed heavily on his shoulders, slumping them forward until his back made a half-moon curve.
Even as Rian watched, Chris drooped over to rest his elbows on his knees, his hands falling to dangle limply between them, the wire brush just barely held on in his fingertips.
Rian worried his teeth against the inside of his lower lip. Should he say something? Not now, not when the classroom was so quiet and the other boys would notice him singling out Chris; he’d just make the boy clam up out of embarrassment. But if he could catch him after class, maybe have a heart to heart conversation, tease out whatever was bothering him...
As if he had any talent for that.
Maybe he should ask their newly-minted guidance counselor for some advice. That might be why Walden was being so hard on Rian and Damon about Chris; his pride was still stinging after Summer Hemlock—Summer Iseya, the change was still so new—had apparently circumvented his authority and the school’s rules to get the parents involved in a bullying situation during last year’s spring semester, and then managed to finagle his way from a role as his then-fiancé’s in-class assistant to a position as guidance counselor.
Rian smiled faintly.
Walden was too caught up in his rules, he thought, and wondered how the man could live like that, caging himself that way. Rian would break, would run, if he had to keep himself so locked up.
Wasn’t that why he’d ended up here?
Am I really doing anything better than being that spoiled little princeling, now? he thought. Isn’t this just running away from my problems?
What problems do you even have, Rian? the nasty little voice of his self-doubt hissed into his ear; this wasn’t that syrupy loving voice, no, but the two said the same things in different ways. Your biggest problem is that you don’t have any problems...and you don’t know what to do with yourself.