Double Life: I see you

“Hey, you ok? You look distracted today” Josh smiled to the side of Nichole´s face; she was sat on a tall stool in front of a white large canvas. She had been staring at it for a long time, the paint in one hand and a brush on the other.

“You were playing Broken” she moved the paintbrush pointing to him and the other boys playing along with him and the one singing but she kept staring at the white canvas. Josh smiled.

“What do you think? Do we sound good?”  The other two boys glanced her way. She nodded.

“You sound great!” a girl who was at the other side of the boys said, she was painting a bird.

“Thank you” Josh said with a smile.

“Play some more” Nichole said as she looked out the window. 

“Yeah” said the girl along with others who were painting “play some more”

The boys started to play and the rest of the class moved their stools closer to where they were playing, Mike, the teacher joined with a keyboard and the students who were the audience started to sing along, they were all together but Nichole, she was still looking out the window.  Josh noticed a tiny sigh that escaped her mouth.

She looked like herself, the same girl that stared out of windows with an intense stare, her back perfectly straight, her hair smooth over her back, her slender arms and long fingers but that almost imperceptible sigh made her look so melancholic and lost. Josh furrowed his eyebrows as he observed her, she turned her head to see him only a little, nobody else noticed, and for some reason he looked away back at the cords of his guitar.

From the corner of his eye, he saw Nichole putting two fingers in the black paint she had poured to use and then she passed her fingers stained with black acrylic on the canvas from the top to the bottom, the part where her fingers passed had a paler tint whereas the sides of it was thicker with paint, at the bottom she put her palm on the canvas and let it rest there for a moment and then she let it go and it dangled on her side, she looked tired and somehow older than she really was.

After a moment she grabbed red paint with the side of her hand and passed it over the side of the black line, this time from the bottom to the top, making curves as she ascended, the parts where her hand touched the canvas were paler and the rest was thicker, she kept adding paints with her hand, some of the paint mixed and produced other colors, at moments she worked very fast almost angrily, at others she did it very slow and barely touching the surface.

“Josh!” someone called the boy´s name, his hands suddenly stopped touching the strings of guitar causing him to mess the melody,  that seemed to snap Nichole out of her trance-like state. She glanced him and stood up to put the paint and brushes on their cabinets.

“Josh” the voice whined

“What is it?” he blinked focusing on the girl in front of him.

“Will you go?”

“Where?” he blinked again. The girl rolled her eyes

“I don´t know how you kept playing if you were that distracted!” she shook her head and he half smiled.

“Maya, let´s go” Bryan one of the boys that had been singing called the girl

“Let’s go, we all are having dinner together” Maya smiled. Josh looked to where Nichole was but she was no longer in the classroom. He furrowed his eyebrows and looked around.

“Maya, Josh!” the group called

“Where’s Nic?” Josh asked Mike, he nodded towards the door. Josh grabbed his backpack and hurried over, the rest of the group walked behind.

“Hey!” he said catching up to her “you ok?”

“I stained my glove” she lifter her right hand. He said a silent ‘oh’ and kept walking next to her

“Wanna have dinner together?”

“Not hungry, go with the rest” her voice was polite, he found it somehow odd.

“Are you really ok?”

“Besides the stained glove, yeah” her usual demeanor was back

“You should eat, Nic –he looked at her- you haven´t slept, have you?”

“I have”

“You don´t look like you have”

“Thank you” she raised an eyebrow

“I didn´t mean it like that!”

“Go eat, they´re waiting for you” she motioned towards the group of boys and girls waiting on the other side, they were taking opposite exits. “Later” she kept walking

“Ok, bye, Nic” he walked towards the group

“Is she ok?” Maya asked once they all were walking

“Uh, yeah” he sounded hesitant.

“They’re fighting, don´t you see, Maya” Bryan said in a teasing tone, the rest laughed.

“What did you do to make her mad?” Jonah, the other boy that sang and played the guitar, continued.

“She was just talking to me”

“But she didn´t come” Jill, one of the girls that painted, said.

“Large groups are not her thing” Josh chuckled

“Ah, so she´s only comfortable when it´s the two of you, that makes sense… you two are together” Maya said

“She´s not here” Josh looked from side to side. The girls rolled their eyes

“We´re serious” Maya said

“So am I” he smiled

“You´re lucky” Jonah said after a while, they had been walking slower, they were behind the group. Josh furrowed his eyebrows.

“For…?”

“Nichole´s a very nice girl, she´s really talented and smart…” he sighed inaudibly “What?” Jonah said defensively when he noticed Josh´s look.

“You like her”

“Every guy in here likes her! She´s like a model or something!”

“But you didn´t mention that before”

“Everybody knows that she´s smart, she´s in the top ten of this school and have you seen her paintings?”

“I have” Josh remembered the picture of him that she´d made

“So… are you two together?” Jonah asked after a moment of silence

“We´re not” Josh noticed the boy looked better, less hunched.

“How did you get her to talk to you?”

“She barely talks to me now” Josh chuckled

“But that´s more of what the rest of us get”

“Well… I just talk to her… I don´t know… I guess I´m too stubborn?” he laughed to himself

“I´ve tried but all she does is nod or say monosyllables… last time I invited her to sit with me for lunch but she declined… maybe she dislikes me” he said the last part mostly to himself

“I don´t think that´s it… she´s just not good to be around people” Josh patted Jonah´s back as they caught up in line with the rest of the group.