Chapter Thirty
T he meet ended well , with the swimmers looking happy with the results.
“Dad texted me,” Paxon said. “He has a table for all of us for dinner. I’ll go warm up the car. Who’s riding with me?”
“Me!” Toby said.
“I’ll take Justin,” I said. “We can wait. You guys go ahead.”
“Are you sure?” Bryan asked. “We can wait. It shouldn’t take him too long.”
“I wanted her to show me around the school while we waited,” Janice said. “I haven’t been here in a while.”
“It’ll be fast, I’ll let Justin know to meet us at the parking lot,” I said. “We won’t be far behind.”
“Okay,” Seth said, still not happy with the plans. “We’ll see you in a little bit.” He leaned over and kissed my cheek before standing up.
Toby gave me a quick hug and kissed my temple, grabbed everything he hadn’t eaten yet, and headed down. I was still amazed at how much food he was able to pack away. No doubt, he was going to eat a full meal at the restaurant and still beg me for some of mine.
“See you in a little bit,” Bryan said, giving me a warm smile.
Paxon was frowning when I looked at him, but he turned it into a tight smile rather quickly.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
“Of course. Justin kicked ass.” He reached out briefly and touched my arm before he chased after Bryan.
“I’m not being paranoid, am I?” I asked Janice as she put her coat on.
“About what?”
I looked back at Paxon, hoping he’d look at me, but he didn’t as they slipped out the door, leaving me standing there, feeling cold despite the warm damp air.
“Nothing.” I blew out a breath and pulled out my phone, sending Justin a quick message to let him know to meet us in the parking lot after their post-meet team meeting. “Are you ready to walk down memory lane?”
“Hell yeah. I haven’t been here in so long. I didn’t even know we had a pool like this.”
I laughed as we hooked arms and headed down the bleachers and out into the hallway. Janice couldn’t care less about the sports stuff, so we headed toward the hallway with a lot of artsy classrooms.
“They actually did it?” she asked as she peeked into a room.
“Did what?”
She pointed at it. “Pottery room. I was harassing Mr. Levre forever to get one.”
I pointed at the plaque that hung near the door. She went closer and read it, her eyes widening before she laughed.
“He really donated it?” she asked as she reached out and touched it like it was something precious.
“He actually did it not long after you left. He got his family behind it. We were all surprised when we realized how much money his family has.” I looked into the room, taking in all the pottery wheels, worktables, drying racks and shelves, and in the back, a massive kiln.
“Have you taken a class?”
I shook my head. “It’s really popular, but I’m not artsy in that way.” I wiggled my fingers. “I think Micah starts the class when we come back from break. I didn’t know you were into pottery?”
“Only as a hobby. There’s a place back at home that I go to every couple of weeks to just relax. There’s something therapeutic about using my hands and feeling the clay as I make what I want to make. Rowan already has a shelf full of random little things I made.”
Janice practically softened as she talked about it.
“Well, I’ll have to try it someday.”
“I’ll find you a class. There has to be something. Can we go in?”
I tried the door and it opened. “I guess so,” I said.
She let out a little excited sound and went in. She went to one of the work benches and gently ran her hand over it. She seemed so comfortable in the space, I could almost picture her teaching a class.
She chuckled as she went over to one of the pottery wheels. “Electric and manual? That’s so cool.”
I hung out by the door as she explored more of the room, looking at all the projects filling the drying racks, at the kiln, mumbling to herself. She was really into it.
“All right,” she said, finally coming back over. “Next room.”
“They’re having a special showing in the smaller gym this week to show off the final projects of all the art students. Micah was mumbling about it before school ended. We should be able to sneak in and look at them if you want.”
Her eyes shined with curiosity and she grabbed my hand, tugging me back down the hall. We had two gymnasiums at our school, the huge one that we mainly used for gym class, and then across the hall at the back end of the large one was one that was about half the size.
I hit one of the switches so we could see into the room, and I was right, it was already set up for a showing tomorrow. Fake walls were set up around the entire space so it looked more like an art gallery, and they were covered with drawings, paintings, and other artwork. Open spaces were filled with sculpted work. There were even some displays from the metal shop class, with twisted sections of metal pieced together in artful ways.
“Oh wow,” Janice said, slowly walking around. “I was only gone a couple of years. How did the art program expand so much since then?”
I shrugged. “I’m not sure. I think there was a change in staff and that helped.”
“Well, I’m glad to see what everyone is able to do now.” She stopped at a metal sculpture. It looked like a moose. After a while, she moved on. Micah gave me a general area of where his watercolor painting was, so I headed over there.
There were a few watercolors. I was actually surprised when he told me he did a watercolor for his final. I knew he didn’t enjoy a lot of mediums, mainly sticking to just using pencil. He was more of a sketcher than anything else.
As soon as I approached the area, I knew exactly which one was his. My breath caught as I got closer, blinking hard at what he’d done.
A few years ago, Micah sent me a picture of his mom. It was a bad time for her, where everyone thought it was finally happening. She was in a wheelchair, outside, looking out over a large pond. The photo I had was of her front, with her smiling with Micah.
What Micah did as a watercolor was of her facing away, staring out over the pond, soft green rolling hills on the other side. Her head was wrapped in a cloth, a blanket hanging off the side of the wheelchair, flowing down almost like a waterfall, cascading to the ground and stretching out on both sides of her.
Peacefulness fell over me as I stared at all the love in the painting. Knowing the story behind it only made it hit harder for me.
“Is this Micah’s?” Janice whispered.
I jumped slightly. Swallowed hard, I responded in a thick voice, “Yeah. His mom.”
“She’s sick?”
“She’s better now.” I reached out and rested my hand on the simple black frame. “She won.” Even in the painting, she looked like she won. I grabbed my phone and snapped a picture, quickly sending it to Micah with a quick message.
Me: Found it.
I tucked my phone away.
Janice moved on after a moment, her steps light as she wandered toward another section of the exhibit. I stayed there, unable to move away from Micah’s watercolor. His work was completely magnetic. The way he captured the moment—not just the stunning visuals, but the emotions it was able to convey even though we couldn’t see her expression. He nailed every aspect of it. This was a precious memory to him.
I reached out again, brushing over the nameplate of the watercolor drawing. I smiled at the name of the painting: Yesterday’s Edge of Tomorrow .
Today.
Her today, full of hope and life and a future. So absolutely perfect. I was so proud of Micah for pouring so much of himself into this piece, for opening up like this.
I really wanted to know how Bayley was going to respond to this when she saw it.
The buzz of my phone startled me out of my thoughts. I pulled it from my pocket to see Micah’s text.
Micah: Did you like it?
I smiled softly, typing back.
Me: Love it. She looks like she’s free.
I put my phone away again and took a deep breath, blinking back the tears that were blurring my vision. Finally, I forced myself to step away, joining Janice near a display of mixed media projects.
“Hey,” she said, glancing over as I approached. “This one is pretty cool. I think it’s supposed to be about different interpretations of the same moment.” She gestured to an image that had several layers of overlapping imagery. The person looked to be standing between buildings, his presence overlapped with more of him from different perspectives. I leaned in closer.
“I think each layer is a different medium used. That’s charcoal. And that looks like acrylics?” I mumbled, not really seeing the artwork. I straightened from it and couldn’t stop myself as I glanced back toward Micah’s piece.
Janice gave me a gentle nudge with her elbow. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah,” I said. “I’m still a bit dumbstruck from Micah’s watercolor.”
“That’s what art is about, right?” She gave me a knowing look. “It’s supposed to make you feel something. Like your songs.”
I laughed at the parallels she was drawing. She wasn’t wrong. I aimed to leave people dumbstruck with my music. People did the same with their art and Micah had always been good at that. I had an album full of drawings he sent me over the years. “Yeah, I guess I wasn’t expecting to feel that much.”
Janice looped her arm through mine, pulling me gently toward the hallway. “Come on, let’s head back out. I’m sure Justin is freezing his poor butt off waiting for us.”
“We can’t let that happen. I actually do like his butt.”
“I’m sure you do,” Janice said in a teasing voice as she led me down the hallway. We paused to see if the door to the big gymnasium was unlocked, but it wasn’t. We needed to walk around to the front of it to get to the exit.
“Cadence?”
We turned to see Laurens coming from the hallway that we needed to go down.
“Mr. Laurens, how are you?” I asked.
His gaze flickered briefly to Janice before coming back to me. His polite smile tightened as his eyes scanned the hallway, making me feel uneasy. I realized we were away from the main crowd, and no one else was here.
He stepped closer, his shoulders squared.
“I’m doing good. Mrs. Hayden just finished giving me a tour of the school. She has a project she was hoping I’d help fund. It’s a nice place.”
“Where’s Mrs. Hayden?” I asked, glancing around, hoping she was nearby as my skin began prickling.
“I think she mentioned something happening that she had to go handle.” Laurens reached up and rubbed at his jaw briefly. “I think some students were causing issues in the parking lot. I thought I’d take a peek around again before heading out. It’s good to see you. I didn’t expect to run into you here.”
“Uh, yeah. My friend was in the swim meet so I came to support him.”
Janice shifted uneasily beside me. Her grip on my arm tightened. She was sensing the same thing I was. Something wasn’t right with Laurens. More so than the other times I met with him.
“Are you ready for our meeting after the new year?” he asked.
I glanced behind him, at the direction we needed to go to get out of the school. “Almost. I have one more song I’m trying to finish. I should have about half the songs ready.”
His smile widened. “That’s really good. We’re excited to have your songs for the musical. It means a lot to a lot of people. I never knew you were so popular.”
I shrugged. “Around here, I guess I do hold some popularity.”
He chuckled. “Well, it was a pleasure seeing you.” He looked at Janice. “And Janice too.”
Janice stilled and frowned at him, confused. “How do you know me?”
“Hm?” he asked.
“I don’t know you. I’ve never met you. How do you know my name?”
“Oh, I heard Cadence call you that.”
Janice glanced at me, her hold tightening. I thought over what he’d said.
“I never called her name around you,” I finally whispered.
Laurens stilled, a dangerous calm falling over him. He was too composed, his usual charm replaced with something sharp and dangerous. His eyes flickered between Janice and me before lingering on her.
He sighed. “I didn’t quite think it was going to turn into this, but I can’t lose out on this opportunity.”
“What are you talking about?” I whispered, my voice cracking slightly as fear flooded me.
Laurens tilted his head as he looked at me. “It’s not personal, Cadence, and I truly wished we could have worked together. The movie is such a great idea. But you know the wrong people. Janice knows too much and I can’t afford to leave her alive at this time.”
Before I could process his words, he reached into his coat and pulled out a gun. My stomach dropped as I noticed how long the end of it was. If I’d learned anything from the shooter games the guys liked to play, it was that I was most likely looking at a silencer. The sound around us seemed to vanish, replaced by the deafening rush of blood in my ears.