There was something about Kim Landis-Lilley.

Toby didn’t know how he’d never noticed it before. Maybe because he hadn’t talked to her, really talked to her, since they’d been in ceramics together freshman year. Their potter’s wheels had been next to each other, and Kim had chatted to him genially while she’d thrown terrible pot after terrible pot. He still remembered the half-collapsed teapot Kim had pulled out of the kiln as her final project, remembered how hard they’d laughed when she’d tried to distract Mr. Buckley from its misshapenness by covering the whole thing in enormous purple flowers.

They hadn’t had a class together since. But because she was Kim, she always smiled and waved at him in the halls when they passed each other. And Toby had never thought he was romantically interested in her or anything like that, but when he’d heard that Kim and Teddy had broken up, he felt something within him stir. It was the same impulse he felt when got inspired by a new project. The need to create something where nothing had been before. Toby had dashed to the art room after school, covering canvas after canvas in abstract works inspired by red sweaters and doe-brown eyes ringed with molten gold. Kim Landis-Lilley was his muse.

Which was exactly why he needed to create for her! Toby staggered back against the lockers. What was he thinking, asking Kim out for pizza?! Kim didn’t need pizza! She needed art.

It was all coming to him now. Ideas flew faster and faster. Toby tore his sketchbook out of his backpack and drew feverishly, not wanting to forget a thing. It would take him some time to gather his supplies, to block out his piece, to pull all of this together … but Toby knew it would be worth it.

Kim Landis-Lilley was his goddess. And that was exactly how he was going to immortalize her.

“Mr. Neale,” Principal Manteghi said as she rounded the corner. “I believe you have approximately forty-five seconds to make it to homeroom without getting a demerit for tardiness. I just gave your classmate Mr. Rothbart one for loitering. Perhaps you’d like one as well?”

Toby sighed as he clutched his notebook to his chest.

None of these philistines appreciated the artistic process.