Rebel at Spruce High (Spruce Texas Romance #5) - Daryl Banner Page 0,24
since it’s all sketched in pencil. In terms of quality, it’s a very good drawing. In terms of content: … slightly terrifying.
In terms of beauty: it’s exquisite.
But the way Vann focuses on his work, gnawing on the inside of his cheek as he meticulously shades in the bicep muscles on his demonic humanoid creation with painstaking detail, leaves me breathless with admiration.
I part my lips, then wrestle with my inner anxieties, picking and choosing the words I might say to him. What can I say to him? How do I approach yesterday at all? Is he still mad?
The bell rings instead, catching me by surprise.
Mr. Schubert appears at the chalkboard at once to begin the day’s lesson, and all hope of striking up a conversation with Vann is stolen away like the last lone electron for an ionic bond. I sit and stare at the teacher’s mouth moving, and without really listening, I reluctantly copy down whatever he writes or illustrates on the board up front. It pales in comparison to how interesting Vann’s drawing is—and whatever we might have chatted about, had I had the nerve to actually say something.
I guess it’s no use trying to thank him again. We all know how well that went. And I guess it’s too much to hope for an apology, either, seeing as Vann appears to be the last person on Earth who apologizes for anything, and besides, there was a kernel of truth in what he said: I should have stood up for myself. Otherwise, Vann would not have stepped in and gotten himself in trouble.
I hope the principal went light on him.
Time crawls by at an excruciating pace. Instead of connecting oxygen and carbon molecules, I’m connecting words, juggling all of them in my cluttered brain, forming the sentence I want to say to Vann as soon as the bell rings. I need to say something to him.
Before I know it, it’s seconds until the bell. My eyes are glued to the clock’s cruel, apathetic minute hand as it hovers just before 10:14 AM, which releases us. I clench my pencil tight, rehearsing the words I’ve chosen over and over in my head.
Then the bell rings.
I turn and let the words fly out of my mouth before I can even think. “Did you get in trouble with the principal yesterday? I felt horrible. That’s why I apologized to you in the office.”
Vann doesn’t look at me. But he doesn’t move either, even as the rest of our classmates are off their stools, chatting and going for the door, which spills in bright, midmorning sunlight.
I realize I’m trembling. I try to calm my nerves. “I … I was just worried,” I explain, a touch less frantic. “I hope it went okay.”
An unbearably long moment passes. Vann shuts his notebook. “The cup was supposed to hit Hoyt’s face. Not yours.”
My pulse is in my ears. “It’s okay. It was tasty for a second,” I assure him, going for humor. He doesn’t laugh. I trade that train of thought for a more honest one. “I … know it was meant for Hoyt.”
He turns his head halfway towards me, but keeps his eyes on his own hands. “And the principal was alright. I’m not in trouble, nothing for you to worry about.”
“Oh. That’s … That’s really good. I was worried he’d—”
But Vann barely hears the words before he’s off his stool and heading toward the sunlight, vanishing. I sit there at the table until I’m the last one left in the room, even Mr. Schubert having stepped outside to chat with a teacher across the wooden pathway from him. I peer down at my notebook—only one page covered in a bunch of unintelligible gibberish—before shutting it.
The air outside is thick and stifling as I head back to the main building. Once through its doors, the air is then frigid, and by the time I deposit my things in my locker and make it to the gym for my dreaded fourth period PE, I’m shivering. I can’t tell if it’s on account of my nerves or the temperature when I walk the narrow aisles in the locker room toward my locker to change. Vann is using the same locker as before, right next to mine. He is already completely changed when I arrive, now sitting on the bench and tying his shoes. I peel my eyes off of him and, with determination, begin changing. The locker room fills with loud chatter—including Benji’s familiar guffawing from