Double Life: Fake Birthday

This was so beautiful. When I saw it, it´s like what I imagine Nic would do.

A/N: First post of the year! This is how I want the days of this year to be, with a lot of inspiration and many, many things to read and write. 

A lot happened in this one... I wonder if it´s good...

***

“ok, guys” the art teacher said to the ones gathered in the art club room “I´ve called all you here –the art club had two groups- we have twelve days for the school year to be over so today i´m giving you the final project assignment, that as you know gives you credit in one of the listed subjects and also gives you an extra in your academic resume for college since next year is the last for many of you –he passed slips of papers with instructions- Ok, you´re going to be paired up with someone and, wait –he said when a murmur started- you will be, from your particular form of art, showing your vision of who that person is, which means you´ll have to know the other, something that you´ve already done. I´m going to be nice and let you pick your partner but –he stressed the last word- you have do that after the class is over, preferably when you left the Art´s building –he grinned- the due date is December 10^th. Any questions?”

“no? ok, you know where to find me if you get any –he said- now, the ones that are not in this group, you´re free to go, but remember you can join someone from the other group” the students started to leave and the ones in that day´s group settled in their usual places. After giving instructions to the rest of the group, Mike called the guys that played and/or sang to discuss ideas for their end of the course presentation.

“Mike, it´s time already, isn´t it?” Maya asked at the time that the class was about to finish.

“it had to be you, right?” The man playfully rolled his eyes

“well –she made the word sound longer- is it or not?” she poked her tongue

“yes, Maya, yes” she shook his head after he looked at his watch. The boys got up to put away their musical instruments.

Nichole was closer to the windows, opposite to the door, the cabinets of the instruments were in the middle of the room, on the right side. Jonah was walking towards Nic, like he was just aiming to look out the window, she glanced him.

“You´ll be with me, right?” Maya grabbed Jonah´s arm

“Uh…”he looked over at Nichole, she looked up with a small almost imperceptible smile and tugged her hair behind her ear, he noticed she was wearing the gloves he´d given her, then she looked back at her canvas as if she´d not noticed a thing.

“Jo!” Maya tugged at his arm

“Yeah.. sure, Maya”

“Yay! Let´s go. We have a lot to talk about” she walked him to the door and out after she said goodbye to the group, the rest of the students started to talk among them, they were close to the door, their backpacks on their shoulders. Josh and Bryan remained talking with Mike longer than the rest.

Nichole was still nowhere near to finishing the drawing she was doing, she was making a big drawing. Josh walked towards the window close to where Nic’s work space was. He was stopped by Jill, she told him something; at some point he looked at Nichole´s way, she met his eyes briefly.

When Jill stopped talking he leaned down a bit, Jill was smaller than him, he talked close to her ear, for a second she seemed to stiffen and when he stood up straight she glanced down for a second and then quickly waved good bye. Jill walked to the group on the farther side of the room, she said something, Bryan hugged her with one arm and then looked at her saying something, she half smiled and nodded. The group started to exit, Nichole noticed Bryan had his arm on Jill´s shoulder before a familiar figure covered them.

“Staying here?” Josh pulled a stool closer to where she was. He sat next to her, she nodded. “What are you doing?” he asked, she stopped her drawing for a moment and turned her face to him raising both her eyebrows, lightly tilting her down, he shook his head. On her canvas there was the drawing of a ballerina. On the window sill there was a small wooden model.

“Do you like ballet?”

“No, not really, but Mii will be doing ballet tonight at her school´s show”

“Students are not allowed here after the class is over” Mike said already on the door

“Close your eyes, Mike, no student is here” Nichole said playfully

“Those are the rules, Nic” he said firmly but then he huffed

“I can go out for you to be at ease but you know I´ll come back”

“You´re not alone today” he looked at Josh who widened his eyes at the bluntness of his statement

“I promise it´ll be as if I was. We won´t cause you trouble, this one here –she pointed to Josh- is a goody-two-shoes” she winked at the boy

“I´m closing my eyes” Mike said already closing the door

“Go away” Nichole said playfully

“So you are going” he stated returning to their previous conversation

“Yeah”

“That´s nice”

“I guess”

“You guess?”

“Mmmh… You never know when it´s about Natasha and her promises”

“Do you think she´ll do something…?” he asked, Nichole pursed her mouth for a second

“I don´t know, she gave me two tickets and promised to send someone for me to go but then she told you my birthday was the same day even after she told you to leave me alone… -Josh stared at her- nothing´s simple in my life, Josh” she let out a tiny almost inaudible sigh

“I wish I could help… -Josh´s eyes portrayed the sentiment yet they were calmed and deep- …to make you feel better”

Nichole arched an eyebrow “I´m fine, Josh… Jill on the other hand –she smiled with the side of her mouth- she seemed sad. What did you do to her?”

The boy´s eyes widened for a second “you just said I was a goody-two-shoes and now you make it sound as if I´m a bad person” he shook his head lightly

“I don´t know, you seemed to be displaying all your charming self, like a peacock –she laughed a little at that- you reminded me of your brother”

“Like my brother?”

“Yup, being all charming” she kept doing her drawing

“You think he´s charming” he made it sound like a questions but he was stating it

“No, he´s a good looking idiot with zero charming effects for me but it seems to be a lot for other girls… I just had never seen it in you” she looked straight at him

“Oh –he smiled a crocked smile- charming, huh?”

She laughed “I´m immune –she winked- but Jill…” She shook her head. He sighed looking slightly up to the ceiling. “You rejected her, didn´t you?”

“I just told her I´m going to work in the project with you”

“But I haven´t said I want that” she raised an eyebrow

“Everybody else has a partner already”

“I could easily make any of them to work with me”

“You wouldn´t do that, you´re too good for that” his green eyes had a light in them that gave his looks a playful disposition

“Right… let´s say I´m good –she made air quotation marks- I could ask Mike to let me work on my own… I´d offer to do my impression on all of you. I´d do many times more of the work he assigned”

“Would you do that?”

“I would” she went back to her canvas, he looked to a side. They stayed silent, after a while she put away her pencils. He started to get up; she touched her shoulders making him sit again.

“I wanted to work with you too, I´m actually very interested in hearing what you´ll do to show how you perceive me” she half smiled, he looked at her

“Let´s go” he took one of her hands as he got up; she took her messenger bag from the nearest table. They exited the room.

“I don´t want us to discuss about what we will be doing, ok? I want it to be solely our own vision”

“You don’t want spoilers?”

“I want to see the final product”

“What if I want a sneak peek of your thoughts of me?”

“I can tell you my thoughts of you any day but you are not going to see my project before it’s finished”

“Come on…Nichole…”

The buzz of her phone and she stifling and letting go of his hand interrupted what Josh was going to say. She kept walking but her relaxed aura had immediately changed. She held the phone to her ear.

“I knew you were not going to keep your word” she said after hearing for a while, her tone was not angry; it was civil but really cold. “I don´t need to hear your excuses, Natasha” she continued and hung up clearly upset, she closed her eyes tightly and breathed in once, when she opened her eyes again she seemed to have taken her usual demeanor, her eyes seemed to be frozen chocolate, like one emotionless doll, she kept walking, her back straight, her head held high and her steps confident.

“Is everything ok?” Josh asked

“It is” she smiled her rehearsed smile

“That´s something that I need to include in my composition” he absently commented, she furrowed her brow slightly “that smile of yours, it´s pretty but not real, the real one can pass inadvertent if your eyes are not on you” he explained. She narrowed her eyes as she fought a smile

“You should know better than to get so friendly with darkness”

“The sun´s still shining”

“There are still shadows everywhere, monsters creep slow to get to you” she whispered

“I got a flashlight” he took out of his pocket the flashlight she´d given him

“You´re too persistent for your own good… and mine”

“What did Ms. Strassberg tell you?” he asked, she looked at him for a long while “it´s none of my business but I want to know” he said when she didn´t answer

“You shouldn´t play with fire, boy”

“What is it, fire or darkness? They´re opposite, you know”

“You’re very bold today. I wonder if you´re still on peacock mode” she smirked and he looked away and heard her chuckled a little. They kept walking into the orchard.

“She said that she didn´t got me permission to go out, meaning no one will be picking me up to go to Mii´s presentation… it´s too far for me to take the bus and you know taxis take too long to come here… I´d never be on time…” she was walking slow but had to stop suddenly when she felt Josh´s arms around her in a hug, her arms were dangling at her sides.

“I´ll take you” he said when he let go “I´ll call the driver to pick us up” he took his cellphone out of his pants pocket. She stopped him

“I told you she didn´t got me the permission to get out” she shook her head

“Come on, you´ve never been one to need that to go out of Burgeoys”

“True” she slightly nodded

“So, there´s no problem. I´ll take you”

Nichole smiled a warm smile; her eyes were soft and warm. “You can´t take me, Josh”

“Nic, please don´t start with that, you want to go and I want to help you with that”

“Look… I really don´t want to put you in danger and whoever is driving…” They were still standing in the same spot.

“Now you´re just making up excuses” he was about to dial as they started walking again “take this as a fake birthday gift for a faked birthday” he smiled, she narrowed her eyes letting out a breath

“It´s more for practical reasons this time” she said, Josh furrowed his eyebrows “that you guys haven´t gone out home during the weekends tells me that your house is over two hours-drive… I´d never get on time” her voice was her usual tone but at the end there was a tinge of sadness

“Grandpa has someone to drive us around that lives in this area, all I have to do is to call him”

“Again, I doubt the guards at the gate will let me go out… and you, you don´t have permission”

“Grandpa can get me one, Aaron asks for that all the time”

“You seem to like your charming ways too much” she smiled at him stopping on the end or the orchard that sided the girl’s dorm. He dialed.

“Hey, grandpa” he smiled into the receiver “yeah, I´m fine –he listened for a while- yeah, he´s ok, too –he listened again- mmm… well. I do want to ask you something… Do you think you could send me the car as soon as possible? –he chuckled at what the older man said- well, today´s the birthday of a friend and I´d like to take her somewhere… -he listened some more- ok, yes, I´ll tell you later, thank you grandpa”

“Ok, we´re good to go” he grinned to Nichole. She shook her head but ended up smiling too.

“I´ll be on the restaurant where we had lunch the other day. I’d like it if you could wear dark clothes. We’ll meet in twenty minutes.”

 He nodded and then she jumped to the wall and grabbed the climbing fig on it. She’d practically jumped high enough to grab the ledge on the wall that marked the first and second floor of the building, this was the first time he´d seen her do that. His eyes had twice their normal size. “that only happened in movies” he said to himself, she seemed to sense him staring she turned around, it was still clear enough for him to see her well, she motioned her hand for him to leave, he gasped thinking she´d fall, she smirked and motioned her hand again, reluctantly, he started to leave taking the path that was closer to his dorm, he tuned to look again but she was nowhere to be seen, he ran this time.