I can play it cool when I’m handing Kai the Blizzard he ordered through the takeout window, or when I’m secretly checking him out from across our Biology lab. But being paired up with him for the portrait unit for our Art elective isn’t the same.
It’s because I’m allowed to look at him. Really look. Study the shape of his eyebrows, memorize the slant of his neck, count the freckles that are only visible close up. And he has to sit still, quiet, and let me.
I wish my hand would quit shaking. I wish a lot of things.
Cynthia Hamill 