Evermore - Alyson Noel [19]
“Did they card you?” Miles asks, his fingers racing over his Sidekick as he partakes in two conversations at once.
“Laugh all you want, but I’m telling you it was way cool. Even after Evangeline sort of ditched me for some guy she met, I ended up meeting this other girl, who was even cooler, and who also, by the way, just moved here. So we’ll probably start hanging out and stuff.”
“Are you breaking up with us?” Miles gapes at her in mock alarm.
Haven rolls her eyes. “Whatever. All I know is that it was better than your guys’ Saturday night—well, maybe not yours, Damen, since you seem to be up on these things, but definitely those two,” she says, pointing at Miles and me.
“So how was the game?” I elbow Miles, trying to get his attention back on us and away from his electronic boyfriend.
“All I know is there was way too much team spirit, somebody won, somebody lost, and I spent most of it in the bathroom text-messaging this guy who’s apparently a big fat liar!” He shakes his head and shows us the screen. “Look, right there!” He stabs it with his finger. “I’ve been asking for a picture all weekend because no way am I meeting up without getting a solid visual. And this is what he sends. Stupid phony poseur!”
I squint at the thumbnail, not quite getting what he’s so angry about. “How do you know it’s not him?” I ask, glancing at Miles.
And then Damen says, “Because it’s me.”
nine
Apparently Damen modeled for a short time, back when he lived in New York, which is why his image is out there, floating around cyberspace, just waiting for someone to download and claim that it’s them.
And even though we passed it around and had a good solid laugh at the whole weird coincidence, there’s still one thing I can’t quite get past: If Damen just moved here from New Mexico and not New York, well, doesn’t it seem like he should’ve looked a little bit younger in that picture? Because I can’t think of anyone who looks exactly the same at seventeen as they did at fourteen, or even fifteen, and yet, that thumbnail on Miles’s Sidekick showed Damen looking exactly the same as he does right now.
And it just doesn’t make any sense.
When I get to art, I beeline for the supply closet, grab all my stuff, and head for my easel, refusing to react when I notice how Damen is set up right next to mine. I just take a deep breath and go about the business of buttoning my smock and selecting a brush, stealing the occasional glance at his canvas and trying not to gawk at his masterpiece in the making—a seriously perfect rendition of Picasso’s Woman with Yellow Hair.
Our assignment is to emulate one of the great masters, to choose one of those iconic paintings and attempt to re-create it. And somehow I got the idea that those simple Van Gogh swirls would be a sure thing, a cinch to reproduce, an easy A. But from the looks of my chaotic, hectic strokes, I completely misjudged it. And now it’s so far gone, I can’t possibly save it. And I’ve no idea what to do.
Ever since I became psychic, I’m no longer required to study. I’m not even required to read. All I have to do is place my hands on a book, and the story appears in my head. And as far as tests go? Well, let’s just say there’s no more “pop” in the quiz. I just brush my fingers over the questions and the answers are instantly revealed.
But art is totally different.
Because talent cannot be faked.
Which is why my painting is pretty much the exact opposite of Damen’s.
“Starry Night?” Damen asks, nodding at my drippy, pathetic, blue mottled canvas, as I cringe in embarrassment, wondering how he could’ve made such an accurate guess from such a poorly realized mess.
Then just to torture myself even further, I take another glance at his effortless, curving brushstrokes, and add it to the never-ending list of things he’s amazingly good at.
Seriously, like in English, he can answer all of Mr. Robins’s questions, which is kind of weird since he only had one night to skim all three hundred and some odd pages of Wuthering