Chapter Fifty

WE ARE REQUIRED TO ATTEND THE art show and stand by our drawings. I’m sure there are worse forms of high school humiliation, but not many.

I’m standing next to Portrait of an Old Crow. It’s the best piece I’ve submitted all term, which isn’t saying much. Liam thinks I should go right into Art II this spring with my last elective. He said I have “potential.”

I told him that’s what people say about ugly old houses that need a ton of work.

I try to pretend that tonight is like ripping off a bandage. One quick tug, then the pain is over. But the minutes I spend standing there, letting everyone stare at and comment on my drawing, are not quick. The town feels particularly small tonight.

I check the clock every ninety seconds.

As soon as the clock hits 7:30, I bolt from my station. I buzz through the small labyrinth of display walls that have been erected throughout the gym for the show. There is still one small crowd gathered, and I’m so pleased for him when I realize that it is Liam’s spot. We make eye contact, and he frowns.

I slip through the people standing there, and I’m about to ask what’s wrong, when I catch his art pieces. I stop hard. I’m just another onlooker now, staring at the drawing that Liam has displayed for the show. It’s designed to look like the cover of a comic book.

In one corner, a little girl stands with her arm outstretched. A crow is perched on her forearm. The other side shows an older girl. She is turned partially away, and the drawing is of her upper body, her straight hair, her soft face. She has wings growing out of her back. Big, thick feathers sprouting right from her shoulder blades. The center drawing is a young woman. She is drawn kneeling on the ground, crying. She is surrounded by a sea of black feathers. She looks alone. She looks devastated.

She looks like me.

I try to unsee it, but I can’t. The third girl is me. Not exactly, but there is a familiarity. The shape of her jaw. The part in her hair. My eyes scan the three drawings again, and then find the little tag that is taped below them, giving the title and artist.

“THESE BROKEN WINGS: AN ORIGIN STORY”

LIAM MCNAMARA

Liam is looking right at me. For a moment, I don’t remember that there is a small crowd beside me or that we are at school with our peers and teachers. All I see is him, looking at me.

“Is this how you see me?” I ask.

“Leighton,” Liam says. He moves toward me, and I step back.

I’m hurt and embarrassed and trying to process too many emotions in too public a space.

I turn on my heel and make my way toward the girls’ locker room. He’s following me.

“Leighton, I’m your ride,” he says.

I stop walking. How could I forget that? Not just my ride. I’m staying at his house.

“Please, Leighton, let’s just drive and talk,” he says.

He looks miserable. He isn’t chasing after me now. Just leaning against the end of the bleachers, waiting for me to make a decision.

I nod.

It is freezing cold outside, and windy, and there is black ice everywhere. Liam offers me his arm while we cross the slippery parking lot, but I don’t take it. I slip once, and pick myself up, silent.

The drive is quiet, in part because I’m still angry, and in part because the roads are dangerous, and I want Liam to focus. He pulls into the driveway at his house.

“I’m sorry,” he says.

“I am not broken,” I say, finally interrupting the silence.

“No. Leighton. I know that,” Liam says. “I swear, it’s a stupid piece for class. I didn’t even mean for it to look like you. You’re just on my mind a lot, and it . . . happened. And Mr. Taylor liked it a lot; I couldn’t convince him to pick something else.”

“You could have taken it out of your portfolio.”

“It would have risked . . .”

He stops short.

“Your grade? You didn’t want to risk the A.”

He sighs and nods.

“I am not a broken thing you have to fix. I’m not your four-point-oh. Or your application to Harvard. I’m not a hobby or a project or a school assignment.”

“I know that.”

“You could have warned me,” I add.

“Definitely, yes, I should have,” he says.

I stop for a moment, collecting my thoughts, weighing my feelings. I realize I don’t actually know how to argue and reach a resolution. I haven’t ever seen that.

“I didn’t mean to hurt you, Leighton. I’m really sorry.”

“I know,” I say. I saw that before I even saw the drawings—the regret on his face when I walked up.

“I know you’re mad, but could I show you the rest of it?”

“The rest of what?”

“The comic. The ones at the show were just the cover.”

I follow Liam into the house, shrugging off our heavy coats and boots. In his room he reaches for a thick notebook on his bedside table and flips through it. The pages are divided up into a comic book layout—with thought bubbles and speech boxes. He gets to a few pages that are all filled in. It’s the girl surrounded by crows, but in the next box, she rises. Her arms stretch out and birds land on them.

In Liam’s drawings, this girl transforms until she is more feather than girl. One box focuses on her new wickedly sharp talons.

“She’s a superhero. This is her origin story.”

“Yeah,” I say softly, running my fingers lightly over the page of drawings. “She looks so fearless.”

“That was on purpose. Not broken.”

I look up at Liam. “This is amazing.”

“I made one for Fiona, too. Her hero alter ego can dance-fight people to death. And I was going to make one for Campbell next, but the only power I can think of for her is that she kills people with her brain.”

I laugh.

“Campbell would love that,” I tell him. Liam’s fingers touch the back of my hand, almost like an accident. I turn my hand until our palms fit together.

I could have refused to see the rest of the drawings. Refused to even talk to him. It would have been so easy to stay mad, to dwell on it all night, but I’ve seen how that kind of relentless anger builds on itself. I get to decide for myself what things I’ll carry, and anger isn’t going to be one of them.