Will stared, motionless, at the pieces that littered the floor. They were like the pieces of his heart, which had shattered simultaneously with the vase. The room was silent as everyone held their breath. All that Will could hear was the blood rushing in his ears.
It had happened like this: For several weeks, Will had been working on one particular project in his art class. He had been sculpting a vase to give to his girlfriend for their two-year anniversary. He knew that it wasn't such a fancy gift, and that maybe she would be expecting something nicer and more expensive, but Will didn't like that. He wanted his gift to be something that he made himself, specifically for her. They were only in eleventh grade, but Will felt confident that this was the girl he was going to spend the rest of his life with.
And so it came as a great shock to him when she walked up to his locker that very morning and informed him that they were no longer a couple. She'd had her eye on another boy in their class for a while, and apparently Will wasn't able to make her happy enough anymore, despite his kind and loving nature.
He stared at the vase. It was incomplete, though nearly finished, but now he wasn't sure that he wanted to work on it more. It almost felt like the last thing that tied him and his currently ex-girlfriend together, even though he knew she did not and would not know about the vase. He wanted it to stay exactly the way it was, the way it had been before she came along and broke his heart, and maybe that would change everything. Maybe he would find that none of it had actually happened. The vase stayed the same, and he and his girlfriend stayed together.
Will sighed heavily and grabbed the molded clay from the shelf. He figured he should at least try to look like he was doing work, for the sake of not getting yelled at by the teacher. He slowly made his way to his seat, eyes pointed sadly down at the floor.
Chris strolled into the room as he always did. He looked at every student around him, and he found the one he was looking for sitting at the desk in the farthest corner of the room. He continued walking, sending a wink across the room. The girl at the desk with her hair pulled back in a tight ponytail giggled and blushed a little, as she had not realized that the wink was not actually intended for her, but for the boy with the cap on who was sitting to her right. The boy had been under the same impression, so instead of responding to Chris's gesture he merely put his head down and looked at the paper sprawled out in front of him. Chris saw this and frowned.
But there was not much time for his sadness; moments later the crash came. Then everything was silent. Everyone held their breath.
Will stared at the smashed vase laying helplessly on the ground. Was it a sign? The vase had changed now. Everything had changed now. His hard work was all for nothing.
Though Will had plenty of friends, he seemed to have too few who knew him well enough to convince others that he wasn't as scary and intimidating as his appearance led them to believe. Will was probably one of the nicest people in the world, or at the very least, the nicest in the school, but no one knew that. And so it was now that everyone surrounding him held their breath, waiting for him to blow up.
As he lifted his eyes, he could see Chris's hand shaking. Chris was one of Will's lesser friends, one who knew that Will wasn't a fierce boy, but always seemed to forget it. He could hear Chris's heart pounding in his own ears, though he knew that it was physically impossible. Maybe it was his own heart, beating rapidly out of sadness and loss and not fear.
Chris's facial features- his eyebrows, his mouth, anything that could twist did twist- were contorted into a combined expression of terror with an apologetic undertone. In his own head he was pleading, begging for Will's forgiveness. He really didn't mean to do it, and yes, he definitely needs to start watching where he's going. And no, he wouldn't like to be torn into pieces and smeared on the ground like the vase. Will stared at him.
Then Chris's look changed, his face fell and he adapted a more sympathetic face. Everyone who expected Will to move first, and with violence (which was everyone in the room, even the teacher, who watched in silence with the rest instead of trying to prevent anything from happening), was surprised to see Chris take a step forward, his arms stretched out.
Chris pulled Will in and held him in an embrace that was tight, but also warm and consoling. Will buried his head in Chris's shoulder; he didn't want anyone else around to realize that he was crying.
“It's OK, Will,” Chris quietly said into Will's ear. “It'll be OK.”
“It's not about the vase,” Will mumbled, nearly unintelligible. “I don't care about that stupid lump of clay.”
“I know.”
Neither of them spoke for several minutes, and the room slowly began to return to its pre-disturbance state. The girl with the ponytail went back to thinking that she must be the luckiest girl in the world, the boy with the cap went back to thinking that Chris didn't even know he existed, and the teacher tried to maneuver around Chris and Will to sweep up the broken vase.
Will stood back, drying his cheeks as discreetly as possible. Chris laid a hand on his shoulder. “Listen, man, we're all still young. There's plenty of time to make another vase.”
Will silently nodded. He ran a hand through his thick hair and walked away, trying to think of what he was going to do now that the vase was gone and he couldn't even pretend to work on it. He could do like Chris said (though he knew Chris was not speaking literally), and start a new one. Or maybe he could work on something entirely different.
“Chris?” he called, stopped by his desk and facing Chris once more. Chris was still in the same spot where the vase had made its journey towards the floor. He looked up at Will.
“Yeah?”
“Do you want to help me start a new project?” Chris took a moment, then beamed.
“Sure,” he said, sliding around the desks to reach Will. “What's the project going to be?”
“Well... the vase was meant for my girlfriend. But she and I-” Will stopped, unable to say the words just yet. Chris patiently waited for him to continue. “Maybe there's someone you want to make something for... We could do that.”
Chris's cheeks flushed a deep red, and he resisted the urge to glance back across the room. “Oh, well... well, I don't have... a someone- I mean, there is a someone- but no, that someone isn't my someone, and I don't know that this someone would appreciate... because it's just... well, I want to...” Chris inhaled deeply in an attempt to calm himself down. “Do you think it will work?”
Will gave a tiny smile. “Chris, I think she already knows you like her.” He lifted his hand and pointed behind Chris. Although he knew who Will was referring to, he looked anyway. The girl with the ponytail was grinning at him as soon as she saw them look in that direction, but Chris didn't see her. He watched as the boy in the cap glared at the girl with a sad expression.
Chris turned back to Will with a sigh. He was tired of everyone always misunderstanding him. “I guess we should get started, then.” But Will had noticed the dullness to Chris's tone.
“Wait, you don't want to make something for her?” Will asked, confused. “I mean, we don't have to, of course. It was just an idea. We can make whatever.”
Chris thought for a minute, biting his lip. He didn't really consider it much of a secret, though as no one else seemed to know it may as well have been one. “I can trust you, right?” he asked, staring into Will's dark brown eyes. He didn't even wait for an answer, though. “Of course I can trust you.” He leaned forward and lowered his voice to a whisper. “I-I'd rather make something for that boy. The one sitting next to her.”
“Oh. I'm sorry,” Will said, “I just assumed-”
“Everyone does that,” Chris interrupted. He looked down and frowned again. “I'm afraid he thinks that I don't like him.”
“Well, then, let's make something. And you can give it to him, make sure that he knows.”
“Yeah,” Chris enthusiastically nodded as he agreed. “And you're, like, the most talented artist in this room, which is good, because it has to be perfect. Not that I won't help make it, of course, just that if I did it myself it would only come out awfully and I could never give him something like that.”
“Thank you. But I'm sure he wouldn't mind if it wasn't perfect, and if he would, then he's not worth it. Right?” Will placed a hand on Chris's shoulder as Chris had done to him before. “There's lots of other artwork to be made. We're all still young.”
“You really are a nice guy, Will,” Chris said, contentedly. “I wish more people could see that.”
No comments:
Post a Comment