Work of Art

Chapter 30

Classes the next day were awkward, to say the least. During the first period of the day, Maggie had noticed that her friend seemed a little on edge but decided not to press it. Although, her friend's seemingly tense nerves only increased as the period passed, and she flinched as the bell rang. Maggie closely observed Nick as she stayed in her seat, eyes flicking to the door every few moments. She was just about to offer her a comforting touch when Nick's eyes shot down to the table. Maggie looked up to see what could have given her friend such a visceral reaction only to see Meyer walking into the class. With a brief glance over in the girls' direction, he made his way over to his seat at the back table. Even though Maggie's curiosity was about to explode, she forced herself to leave the room and head to her next class. But to her luck, she bumped into Jonah just outside the art room door as he was heading into drawing. He paused when he noticed Maggie's unrelenting stare.

"Wha-" he started to question as Maggie grabbed his arm and pulled him over to the side of the hallway out of the way of traffic.

"Something's up with Nick," she glances furtively toward the classroom, "and I think Meyer has something to do with it." She fixed Jonah with another stare.

"And let me guess, you want me to find out what," he grinned.

"Text me!" she half yelled as she hurried away, suddenly aware the bell was about to ring at any second.

Jonah laughed to himself as the purple-haired girl scurried away, but his smile immediately dropped as he walked into the classroom and saw Nick. The usually chatty, charismatic girl was sitting quietly, intently only looking down at her drawing on the desk in from of her. She practically jumped when Jonah eased himself into the seat beside her, looking at her worriedly.

After startling, Nick pasted a smile on her face. "Hey Jonah!" she said excitedly, a bit too excitedly she realized after the words came out of her mouth. "How was your night?" she asked, toning down her overly cheerful demeanor.

"Good?" his one-word answer came out more as a question than an answer. "How was yours?"

Nick opened her mouth to answer, her eyes flicking over towards the boy in the back of the room, but the bell beat her to any words. She sighed with relief as Mrs. Cotton told everyone to hang their drawings up on the board for their class critique. Nick hated critiques. Their monotomous repetition and half-assed suggestions usually made her squirm in her seat. But today, it was the best thing to ever happen: enforced silence except for when you needed to talk about a specific work of art, no side conversations possible. So the period progressed and ended, all while Nick dutifully kept her mouth shut and eyes trained ahead. Jonah alternated between participating in the critique and staring at Nick, trying to decipher the girl's thoughts. The last time he had seen her act like this was when she and Andy had ended things a year or so back. Jonah's eyes flickered to Meyer, who met his quick look with a tight-lipped smile. Jonah nodded at him then looked away back toward the girl. Ah.

Before Jonah got a chance to confirm his suspicions after class, Nick had already grabbed her drawing after the bell rang and practically ran out the door to her next class. Instead, he pulled out his phone to send a quick text to Maggie before walking to his next class: Remember how she acted when she and Andy ended...

Nick was already sitting at the lunchroom table when the other four friends walked in. Nora and Henry had yet to see the off girl today and were unaware of her current mood as they cheerfully sat down together. Their conversation dropped as they took in the girl taking an aggressive bite out of the apple.

"What did that apple do to you?" Henry joked as both Maggie and Johan shot him warning glares. His eyes widened and he immediately stopped talking.

It was Nora who softly spoke up. "What happened?" she asked Nick concerned.