Pictures of You

Chapter 16

16

Drew

Watching Evie pretty much fall in love with Oliver Roche in real time, right here in the art studio, just after he’s stolen my thunder about the exhibition theme punctures any excitement I had for this club.

I’d wanted to tell her at the party, but that was thwarted by black-eyed Darcy here, who I’m certain has never taken a photo with a proper camera in his life. He’ll have it set on automatic and the photo will be nothing like what I’d achieve if I spent time properly balancing the light, capturing just enough detail in her face, at just the right angle to tell a story.

“Who hit you?” she asks him, and even I am intrigued.

“Tell you later,” he answers, master of the cliff-hanger, directing her toward two free seats.

“When did we decide we’re doing my idea?” she asks me, after they get cozy in the second row.

“We didn’t,” one of the other boys answers, annoyed.

“Is anyone new to crafting artist statements?” I ask the group. It’s met with a complete lack of enthusiasm. “Sometimes having a statement in mind can help in finding the subject. Like authors imagining a book cover before they write. It helps you work out what you want to say.”

Oliver casts Evie a warm smile, as if he’s composing his artist statement on the spot. Some brilliantly worded bit of poetry, no doubt; he’s top in English. You can’t fault the way he pursues a girl. It’s like he conducts a forensic search of her history and morphs into exactly the person she wants. Theater-obsessed when he was seeing Bethany. Outdoorsy with Rowena. Now he’s apparently taken with photography and eighteenth-century English literature.

“For today, let’s practice portrait shots,” I tell the group. “Try to experiment with aperture and how it changes the focus of the background. Sometimes you want the subject in focus and the background blurred. Other times the background is part of the story.”

I can’t bear the idea of talking anyone through the complexity of the exposure triangle when I just want to escape the real-life triangle of Oliver, Evie, and me. Not that it’s actually that shape. It’s more linear. Between just the two of them.

“Speaking of background stories,” Will Marshall says, with a glint in his eyes, “what’s this I hear about you going with Evie to her formal, Kennedy?”

The air is sucked out of the classroom. Everyone falls silent, and she looks at me, startled.

“Alicia Brown is telling everyone,” Will continues. “She said you told her at the party.”

That’s not what I said.

My stomach churns as I look apologetically at Evie, who seems hit by a jolt of electricity as Oliver stretches his arm along the back of her chair.

“Alicia thinks you made it up,” Will says. Everyone laughs, but the only one I care about is Evie, who is staring at me, trying to work out what’s happening.

“I thought you only socialized with your mum!” Lachie Bowen jokes, and this one statement pushes every last button. Nobody knows about Mum’s illness here except the teachers. The unexpected mention of her strikes me hard in the chest and the composure I’ve held so tightly cracks. I reach for the lens cap and my camera, but my hand is shaking and I can’t quite get the two to align.

Eyes bore into me. Including Evie’s. Do not fall apart in front of her!

There’s a disconcerting moment where we lock gazes—worlds, really—and I feel completely, horrendously exposed. It’s freefall. Something shifts between us as if she’s caught a private glimpse into the life I’ve kept so meticulously hidden from everyone else’s view.

“Alicia is wrong,” she explains calmly, without breaking eye contact.

I should never have let Alicia get that idea. Where else did I think this would end up but here?

“He didn’t make it up,” she adds, while I look at her, confused. “Drew and I are going to the formal together.”

This makes no sense. The girl couldn’t be more obsessed with Oliver, whose mouth opens and shuts, before he looks back at me too, eyes narrowing.

Magically, all the sniggering stops. The pounding in my head eases. The noise and panic and some of the pain just evaporates. Even Oliver and his testosterone-fueled territory marking fades from view.

I don’t know how this happened, or why, and if it will work out. All I know, right this minute, is that I’m aware of no one else in the room but me and my rescuer.