manage to sound as disinterested and bored as I’d like to be. I force myself to look away and not stare at

Rizzo’s lean fingers spreading the white creme on his hands. I realize my mistake when he doesn’t use

the sunblock on himself, but without prior warning puts his hands on my chest. I jump, naturally. But he

starts to rub the sunblock in anyway, as if it were the most natural thing on earth. The tiniest trace of an

amused smile is dancing on his lips. Bastard.

“Relax, James.” Barely a whisper, and still a command. Rizzo’s hands slide over my body, his

fingers hot on my skin. It’s electrifying, and sexy, and the fact that I don’t want it to be makes me want

to hit him. God do I hate this guy. He’s not irresistible. Nobody is. With some difficulty, I take a deep

breath and, for lack of better alternatives, return to staring at the annoying sea gulls in the sky.

Azure. Casey’s eyes make the sky look pale in comparison as he sits down next to me and hands me

a cone of ice cream.

“Hey guys. Where did you get the sunblock?”

Rizzo and I exchange a glance. He’s got a grin on his face as he takes the ice cream Casey is handing

him. He’s still looking at me when he licks at it. Then he lifts his eyes to Casey, and the grin broadens.

Sneaky son of a bitch. I know what you’re gonna say.

“Want some?”

Sometimes I really hate to be right.

Chapter 2

Taking Shape

CASEY: For painting the light is best in September, mild and golden, but summer remains my favorite

time of year. If spring is the allegory for hope, then fall must be reflection, winter recreation, and

summer the time for dreams.

Outside Cafe Plato, the sun burns down onto the small white tables as I watch people walking by in

the distance. Everything has a bluish touch in this harsh light. I lean back in my chair, surveying the

grounds, the tall maple trees and the old, impressive brick buildings in the background. Except for a few

students sitting together on the lawn, campus is deserted, which isn’t unusual at this time of day. The

sun falling through the wide branches throws a playful pattern of shade and light onto the group. I

recognize some faces, all of them part of the acknowledged in-crowd. They’re teasing each other and

laughing, absolutely at ease and carefree, and the beauty of the scene suddenly strikes me.

Automatically I reach for my sketchbook and pencil. I take a long moment to take in my motif and

carefully measure the proportions. As my hand begins to swiftly move across the paper, I try to chase

away all thoughts and concentrate on shape only. It’s hard in the heat of this afternoon, but I work

calmly and undisturbed for a while. According to Professor Wickham, you can’t draw when you’re

thinking, and you can’t think when you’re drawing. I’ll never get why it is so incredibly hard not to

think.

A motion on my left catches my eye. Someone is coming down the straight path that leads past the

cafe, crossing a couple of other paths on its way. When the two slim figures approach, I recognize

Danny, who is talking to a girl I don’t know. They stop at a crossroad and say their good-byes. He

doesn’t even take the cigarette out of his mouth when she kisses his cheek. The brunette turns around

twice to look back at him as she slowly walks away, but he’s already moved on. My stomach squirms a

little as he gets closer. It’s still somewhat surreal.

You go mostly unnoticed all of your school days, you have your little group of friends, and you

know that you’re nowhere near to popular, but you’re good. But looking back to it, I was a typical ghost

at high school. Not part of any of the cliched groups, just someone that got along with everyone. Simply

too average, too ordinary to be remembered after graduation. Interchangeable, forgettable.

And then one day at university, he’s suddenly there, Danny Rizzo. Everybody knows him. You can’t

not notice Danny. He’s never talked to you before, but he knows exactly who you are. He knows that

you helped design the set last year for the drama department’s production of An Ideal Husband. He

didn’t look at you once at the time, but he was so brilliant as Lord Goring that you didn’t mind. But he

sees you now. And him acknowledging your existence seems to be all it takes for complete strangers to

suddenly know your name and greet you everywhere you go. All of a sudden you’re not invisible

anymore.

There’s magic in being noticed. When I look in the mirror, I see myself as this funny little blur,

unfinished, like a formless shape that can’t decide what it wants to be. Like the outlines of a sketch, just

a few hurried lines on a piece of paper. Why is it so important to be seen just to know who we are?

Danny’s friends catch his attention and wave him over, and I watch as he joins his crew. Ever since I

first saw him, I’ve been wanting to paint him. The naturally curly brown hair, the dark, expressive eyes,

the features of his face so perfectly regular that you could put it in the textbook as an example of what

to the human eye is beauty. But there’s something about him that goes beyond that. A nonchalant

charisma, and a mysterious confidence that I’ve always wished I could have. He stands out in a crowd,

impossible to overlook.

James doesn’t like him. But James is next to impossible to please, let alone impress. He makes a

point of despising what everybody likes. And I have to admit, I actually like that about him. I like that

he doesn’t take crap from people, and doesn’t follow the masses. I know I can be easy to influence

sometimes, but I’ve always struggled not to be. It’s hard to resist the yearning to belong.

Giving up on the not thinking, I put my sketchbook aside with a small sigh. I’m not happy with the

way the drawing is turning out, and I doubt that I’ll finish it later. I have tons of unfinished drawings.

I’m better at painting from my imagination.

“You should do this professionally,” James said to me when I finally dared to show him my portfolio

of fairytale illustrations. He took his time to look at each individual page, his grayish-blue eyes

wandering over the pictures with wonderment and awe. Knowing the ruthless critic that he is, it really

meant a lot to me. And for the first time I considered the possibility myself.

I met James when I was applying for the school paper. We’re the same age but he’s a year above me.

He skipped a year at high school. He was already an editor, much younger than the others. Everyone of

us newbies had heard that he was scary, and hoped they wouldn’t be assigned to him during our tryout

period. Well, I was the lucky one. At first, we didn’t get along at all. He was bossy and ridiculously

demanding, and I was pretty much lost all the time. I considered quitting on the second day. It was

really hard on me that he so obviously seemed to dislike me. I didn’t know how to handle that. But then

I realized that James was the only one of the editors who actually let their applicant work on articles,

while the others were just used as errand boys. So when Sam, the editor in chief, told me that James

thought I had potential and had recommended me, I was pretty shocked. But it changed the entire way I

saw him. I began to see James as someone who dared people to like him in spite of how unfriendly he

was. I don’t know why, but I found that fascinating, and strangely endearing. I never met anyone who

cared less about what others thought of them. Granted, it still took forever for him to open up to me. But

now he lets me see the side of him that he hides from everyone else. It makes me feel like there’s