There were only sixteen days left in the school year before everyone would scatter, some never to be heard from again. And these would be my last days with her. When she looked up at me with her big brown eyes and wisps of hair brushing against her forehead that she never got with the first swipe across her face, I could hardly stand it.

Bay was…she was Bay. Getting under my skin and filling my head with the beauty of the world with her looks and her songs. Part of me wanted it to be only for me, wanted the songs and the looks to be ones she only shared with me in the comfort of a bedroom we shared where I made her the happiest she’d ever been. Crazy dreams that were destined never to happen.

She smiled at me, her question still unanswered.

A huff of breath shot out my nose. “No.” I brushed the eraser remnants from the page and smudged the shading around her face.

I didn’t need to sketch any other girls. I didn’t stay in their bedrooms overnight, holding them close, breathing them in, trying to untangle my unsettling infatuation. Even thinking that word felt like a betrayal. I wasn’t intrigued. I wasn’t infatuated. I was in love.

It was a scary feeling that crept up and pounced on me like a tackle after the ref’s whistle.

My hand flew across the paper, trying to preserve this moment with lead as if it would be wiped from my memory or stolen from me. Every hour, which had once been ticking down to my freedom and my future, was now ticking down to a bleak time where Bay wouldn’t be one rickety wooden fence away from me.

I’d taken her to Ruby’s, but she didn’t want to sit inside. She’d slouched down, nearly breaking my passenger seat trying not to be seen by anyone in our school who might be hanging out in the parking lot.

After a few handshakes and talking shit while our order was prepared, I headed back to the car, not certain she hadn’t stashed herself in the trunk.

We’d come back to my place, since her mom wasn’t working tonight.

“Your mom thinks you’re with Piper, doesn’t she?”

The tips of her ears turned red and she took a long pull from her vanilla milkshake. Her cheeks were sucked in like a fish attached to a vacuum cleaner. “Maybe.”

“Would she disapprove?” Not that I blamed her.

“She’d worry. It’s what parents do, right?”

I nodded. Good parents. That’s what good parents did. Shitty ones did far worse. I gripped my pencil tighter, the wood creaking in my hold.

Refocusing on the paper, I took a deep breath and settled back into the scene, shading at the peaks and valleys of the fabric of her shirt around her shoulder.

“Can I see it yet?” She leaned forward, tipping back the edge with her finger.

I snatched the sketchpad back, holding it closer to my chest, turning my wrist at an odd angle to keep the lines where I wanted them. “It’s not finished yet.” Why had I taken this out? I’d never let anyone know I was drawing them before. It had always been through windows, from the driver’s seat of my car, or somewhere no one knew me—sitting here in front of her, intimately tracing every inch of the body that I’d become so well-acquainted with was a new experience.