the next time the club met, dan immediately took a seat next to zoe. she greeted him with a small smile. from anyone else, this wouldn't matter much, but dan had noticed that zoe rarely even looked at people, let alone smiled at them.
he smiled back and watched as a faint blush appeared on her cheeks.
"okay! we've all made it through another week!" mr. levine clapped loudly, drawing everyone's attention in.
phil slid into the desk beside dan's, sketchbook and pencils in hand. a black beanie was threatening to slip off the back of his head with every move he made.
"phil! glad you could make it! maybe you would like to start us off?"
"um..." phil licked his lips. he hated having everyone's eyes on him. "with what?"
"all of you were supposed to try something new this week! what did you try?"
it was blatantly obvious that phil was wracking his brain for a believable lie. he scrunched his eyebrows and tapped the desk with his pencil. then his face lit up. "oh! i tried a new art style!"
"wonderful! would you like to show it to us?"
phil picked up his sketchbook and flipped through the pages. "here."
he held it up high so the class could see.
he'd made an entire picture out of letters. different letters and shading techniques combined to show a park scene. but up-close, dan could see all of the tiny a's and e's and c's.
"why, philip! that's beautiful!"
"thanks," phil said sheepishly, flipping the book back closed and laying it in his lap.
"daniel!"
dan rolled his eyes.
"what did you do?"
his eyes slid to the left, where zoe sat.
"i met someone."
zoe stilled.
"and i told them some things i've never told anyone else."
mr. levine nodded. "okay, great."
he skipped over zoe and listened as the other two, lydia and james, talked quietly. lydia had tried a new hairstyle and james had learned a new song on the piano.
"great! great things, people! what about you, zoe?"
everyone turned to look at her. she froze, taking on the characteristics of a deer caught in the headlights.
finally, after a horribly awkward silence, she took a deep breath and mumbled quietly, "i took a risk. i talked to someone, and it went okay."
she smiled at dan again, green eyes glancing at his carefully from behind her round glasses. his chest felt strangely warm.
"that's good, zoe. that's really good."
dan stopped listening to mr. levine after that. he was too busy thinking about words and the girl that loved them.