Isla and the Happily Ever After(13)
Unfortunately, Josh catches the expression. He crosses his arms – uneasiness in every line of his body – and turns back to me. “Yeah, maybe. Sometime.”
My blood ices.
Sébastien.
He was my first, last, and only boyfriend. He attends another school nearby. We dated last winter, and I thought he was a decent guy until I introduced him to Kurt. Sébastien was uncomfortable around Kurt. This made Sébastien aggressive, which intensified Kurt’s nervous habits, which turned Sébastien cruel. Which made me dump Sébastien.
Josh knows that Kurt has high-functioning autism. Everyone here knows. When a stranger misinterprets Kurt’s behaviour as rudeness and reacts poorly, I can usually forgive them. But when someone who knows him doesn’t even want to try to understand him?
No. I can’t forgive that.
My heart plummets with dead weight. “Well. Thanks for the drawing.”
Kurt pulls down his hoodie – laundered the evening of the soup incident, no longer stained – and his sandy hair sticks out in a hundred directions. “You finally saw your portrait? The one from summer?”
I glance at Josh, and he takes a step backwards. “No,” I tell Kurt. “It was a drawing he made in class. Just now.”
Josh rubs the side of his neck. “I should get going.”
“But I wanna see the drawing of you.” Kurt turns towards Josh. They’re both tall, about the same height, but Kurt is broader, and his stare is forceful. “Do you have it?”
“N–no,” Josh says. “No, I’m sorry. I don’t.”
“It’s okay. Maybe some other time.” I press my lips together.
Josh crosses his arms again, and his muscles tighten. “It’s just that I don’t have that sketchbook here. In France. That’s all. Otherwise I’d show you.” And then he rushes away. We watch him until he disappears from view.
“Was that weird?” Kurt asks. “I think that turned weird.”
“Yeah. It was weird.”
But it wasn’t. It was a moment of truth buried inside a lie. I saw Josh’s sketchbook less than an hour ago. He wanted to get away from us. Or, more likely, he wanted to get away from Kurt. My chest constricts. It’s sudden and painful, but I hold back my tears. I don’t want to have to explain them.
After lunch, I resume the habit of not looking at Josh. It’s easier now.
It’s also not easier.
I think he likes me. I don’t even know how that’s possible, but I do know that it doesn’t matter any more. It can’t matter. In physics, I feel his stare – a string as delicate and gossamer as a spider’s web, gently tugging at the back of my skull. I imagine snipping it loose with a pair of sharp scissors. I don’t know if he’ll try to talk to me after class, and I don’t know what I should say if he does. When the bell rings, I bolt.
He’s not at school the next day. I don’t know why.
I don’t see Josh over the weekend. I remove his drawing from my government textbook and carefully place it inside the top drawer of my desk. I open the drawer. Shut it. Open it. Shut it. Open it, and touch it, and worship it.
Slam it shut and feel so disloyal to Kurt.
Open it again.
Josh is back on Monday. In English, I feel him glancing at me repeatedly. When I finally lift my eyes and look across the circle, he gives me the softest smile.
Oh, it melts me.
The rest of the day is filled with these tiny moments. Another warm smile here, a friendly wave there. Something has changed…but what? On Tuesday, he asks me if I’ve read the new Joann Sfar. I haven’t, but I’m stunned that he remembers our freshman-year, one-sided conversation. And then he’s gone again.
Wednesday.
Thursday.
Friday.
Where is he?
Chapter six
An old man with a busted piano is playing “La Vie en rose” on the street outside my window. He hauls it around this part of the city, from one corner to another, but I’ve never seen how he moves it. It’s early evening on Friday, and the tinkly, fractured music is a bizarre contrast to the rough, powerful memoir I’m reading about being lost at sea.
There are two knocks against my door.
“Just kick it,” I shout from bed. “I haven’t gotten it fixed yet.”
I turn the page of my book, and the door gently swings open, sans kick. I glance up. A double take, and I’m scrambling to my feet. “I’m sorry, I thought you were—”
“Kurt,” Josh says.
“Yeah.”
We stare at each other.
Ohdeargod, he’s attractive. He looks recently showered, and his clothes seem even more carefully put together than usual. Behind his casual American attire, I can always still spot his artist’s eye. His T-shirts and jeans fit, he wears the right colours, the right shoes, the right belt. It’s subtle. But he never just throws something on.