Flipped

Chapter 9- Running with Lies

"Well you better come up with five more things if you want a good grade," says Kelsey, eyeing the remaining blank faces on my cube.

I don't respond. I stare at the completed side facing me, where I spent the last week painting a ridiculously detailed rose, red as Miss Vaughn's lips, from birds' eye view that covered the entire square. This, I decide, will be the top of my cube.

Now I just need to figure out what else defines me.

Instinctively, I turn to where Miss Vaughn is working and humming along to the Taylor Swift song that's playing on the radio. She seems to be working on all of her block at once, rather than one face at a time. So far, it's composed of intricate little doodles that dance around the cube, somehow working well together.

The side facing me is painted completely white for the base, and has a string of music notes extending from the upper left corner to the bottom right. On that same face, she has inked in elegant cursive what appear to be song lyrics, but I can't read them well from here. The keys of a piano stretch across the bottom, and a violin appears to lean in another corner. Her art is breathtaking.

Before I know it, I've returned to my own cube, nothing but the thought of impressing my beautiful teacher occupying my mind. I wonder briefly if I do have a crush on Miss Vaughn, as Brianna suggested on the first day of school, before deciding that no, that isn't it. I just....admire her. I respect her. I want to be her.

The song on the radio has changed to "Diamonds" by Rihanna, and I mouth along the words as I begin painting the base of a new side with a soft cream color. The color of art paper.....

RIIIIIING.

I jump in my seat, my paintbrush almost flying out of my hand. Where the hell did the time go??

"See you all tomorrow," says Miss Vaughn as students race out the door, already having cleaned their messes.

"We tried to tell you it was almost time to go," Kelsey tells me. "But you were totally in the zone."

I blush, but remain behind to clean up my area. Miss Vaughn smiles approvingly and moves to write me a pass. "Where're you headed after this?" she asks.

"Biology," I grumble.

She chuckles sympathetically. "Not too excited about that one?"

I shake my head, dumping out my water and rinsing my brushes in the sink as she scrawls a note for me.

"Don't feel bad," she says with a laugh. "Science was never my strongest subject either. No subject was, actually. I would've spent my entire school day in the art room, if they'd let me."

I smile, enjoying the thought of a teenage Miss Vaughn skipping her core classes to work on a painting, and her art teacher probably being cool enough to not rat her out. In my vision, she looks exactly the same as she does now, with her paint-splattered capris and silky brown waves that fall gracefully over her shoulders....

I have to stop imagining to keep myself from crying. Wordlessly, I grab a sponge and scrub my entire table, including the spots of paint that Kelsey and Brianna missed.

"So who chopped off all your hair?" Miss Vaughn asks conversationally.

My hand moves to my head self-consciously. I almost forgot about my haircut over the course of the class, and my heart sinks as I run my palm over the stubble on the back of my neck. But I love the way she asks, as if aware that I had no choice in the matter. "My parents made me get it cut," I mutter, trying to hide the resentment from my tone.

But she picks up on it easily. "Oh, parents," she sighs. "No matter how hard they try, they never seem to know what you really need, do they?"

My eyebrows shoot up in surprise, because that is the exact opposite of what adults are supposed to tell you when you complain about your parents. I can't tell if she's being sarcastic or not, but suddenly I feel loads better.