Midnight • (Zayn Malik)

black nail polish

"Gettin' that beauty sleep in for Lucky?" I smirked.

"Shut up Luna," She laughed.

"Speak of the devil. Well I'll see you after forth block," I told her as she hurled herself into her alternative beach boy.

"Seeya Luna," Lucky called to me as Violet waved.

"Bye Blu," I called back.

I really did adore Lucky and Violet, giving her shit for it was just more fun.

Only two more blocks until drawing class, I reminded myself. So naturally with that in mind, the next two blocks went by painfully slow. I swear I counted each of the 5400 ticks of the clock until the end of class. The minute the bell rang at twelve thirty-eight I was halfway out of the door. The art room was back towards the far wing of the school, tucked away from all of the noise and preppy people that avoid the art wing at all costs. That's where all of the losers/weirdos (me) went to hang out. If any of these stuck up Charlotte County snobs got put in an art class, they bribed their way into a schedule change. It was rude really, but I wasn't complaining.

I inhaled deeply and was overwhelmed with the scent of wet clay and sounds of various drawing tools scratching away at different surfaces. The great thing about the art room was that it never changed. No matter what class you took there were always students staying late to finish something up. There was always creation. The flow of artistic expression never ceased.

Taking my usual spot by the charcoal, I took my sketchbook out of my bag and instantly got to work on a sketch I didn't get to finish before break ended. It was of a girl sitting cross legged in a plaid skirt with flowers covering her eyes and growing from her head. I almost had the watering can above her head finished but I had yet to shade it to metal-like perfection. It was kind of like a feed the soul, water the mind type message I guess. Or maybe I was just a weird art nerd.

More and more people began to settle into the seats around me but their presence went unnoticed with each stroke of the soft black stick. By the time I finished the black dust from the charcoal found it's way into every crevice of my fingers and made my nails look like I dug dirt for a living. I made my way to the sink and scrubbed as hard as I could but it still left my fingers a little grey. I shrugged and went back to my seat.

Any type of art class with Mrs. Hazel was basically like a free-for-all, as long as you were doing something somewhat related to the class title. She understood how high school was and she knew that if we didn't get some type of outlet here, we'd all go mad. We usually had one big project towards the end of the semester as a final, but other than that, the world was ours at the tips of our pencils.

"Luna! Long time, no see!" Someone called from behind me and I turned around to see who it was.

"Monte Carlo. It's only been a couple weeks," I smiled easily.

"I see that nickname has not changed. But you certainly have," Monte looked me up and down like he always did.

"And I see your flirtatious ways have yet to change."

Monte Blanc is an incredibly handsome exchange student from Normandy. Tall, pale- in a good way-, nice bone structure, perfectly styled dark brown hair, and he had the body of an artist; dainty and fit but not overly muscular. The tendency for the French to be all about love made no exception for Monte. He has been after me since we met in Art 1 of freshman year and over time we became really good friends. He never stops sweet talking me though, never. He's French it's what he does, is how Monte would put it.

"What have you got here?" His accent oozed from his lips as he carefully picked up my sketchbook.

"Just something I worked on over break. Finished it up a few minutes ago," I explained.