I Stressed for Months to Be With Them, They Were Never Planning to Be With Me novel · Chapter 3 of 16

Chapter 3: Draw It Now

Hallie exposes Kayleigh at the award ceremony, Connor dumps her in public, and he warns her he owns the name.

She had come back to the car in under a minute.

"Done," she'd said, and turned up the radio.

I stood on my porch and did the math.

The envelope never went in the box.

She took my drawings home, and she entered them under her own name.

My mom found me at the kitchen table that night with every sketchbook I owned stacked in front of me.

Eleven of them. Spiral bound, soft with use.

"Honey, what are you doing?"

"Finding dates."

I wrote the date on every page I drew. I always had. It was a habit from middle school.

By two in the morning, I had sticky notes on sixty-three pages.

Every owl. Every screen. Every one of them dated weeks or months before Kayleigh ever posted a thing.

Friday night, the auditorium was full.

Parents in folding chairs. Kids in the balcony. The local paper's photographer by the stage.

Kayleigh sat in the front row in a pale pink dress.

Connor sat next to her with his arm along the back of her chair.

I sat six rows behind them, with my mom, and a canvas tote of sketchbooks between my feet.

Mr. Fanshawe, the art teacher, read the finalists.

Then the county board woman in the red blazer took the microphone.

"This year's Linden County Young Artist Award goes to a portfolio that the judges called charming, confident, and ready for the real world."

She opened the envelope.

"Kayleigh Danvers, for Shelfswap."

Everyone clapped.

Connor whistled with two fingers.

Kayleigh put both hands over her mouth.

She walked up the steps.

Behind her, the screen lit up with my owl.

I stood up.

My mom grabbed my wrist. Then she let go.

"Those are mine," I said.

Nobody heard me over the clapping.

So I walked down the aisle and said it again, louder, at the foot of the stage.

"Those drawings are mine."

The clapping died out in patches.

Kayleigh turned around with the certificate in her hands.

Her face did something fast, and then it went soft and sad.

"Hallie. Oh my God. Please don't do this here."

"You entered my portfolio under your name."

"We worked on it together." She looked out at the audience, eyes wet. "We've been best friends since we were nine. We share everything. I just didn't think she'd be jealous."

A few people murmured.

Connor stood up from the front row.

"I was there," he said. "I watched Kayleigh draw half those screens in my living room."

The red blazer woman looked from him to me.

"Young lady, this is a very serious accusation."

"I know."

I held up the canvas tote.

"Eleven sketchbooks. Every owl on that screen is in here, in pencil, dated. The one with the SWAP ME sign is from February 6th. Snow day."

Mr. Fanshawe came down off the stage.

He took the top sketchbook from me and opened it to the first yellow note.

He looked at the page.

Then he looked up at the screen.

Then back at the page.

"These match," he said quietly. "Line for line."

"She traced them," Connor said. "Hallie traces everything."

I turned to Kayleigh.

"Then draw him."

"What?"

"Dewey. The owl. You drew him for months. Draw him now."

I took a sketchbook and a pencil out of the tote and held them up to her.

The auditorium had gone silent.

Even the kids in the balcony stopped whispering.

Kayleigh didn't move.

"I'm not going to perform for you," she said.

"Then I will."

I sat down on the edge of the stage with the sketchbook on my knees.

The photographer from the paper stepped closer.

Round head. Big eyes. The tuft of feathers that always stuck up on the left.

Wings like a folded coat. A stack of books under one foot.

It took me less than a minute.

I held it up.

It was the same owl as the one on the screen behind her. It was better.

Somebody in the back said, "Oh, come on, Kayleigh."

The red blazer woman took the certificate out of Kayleigh's hands.

She didn't ask. She just took it.

"The board will review this entry," she said into the microphone. "The award is withheld."

Kayleigh burst into tears and ran off the side of the stage.

Connor went after her.

At the stage steps he stopped and looked down at me.

Loud enough for the first ten rows.

"We're done, Hallie. I mean it. Don't call me."

"We were done at Rosetti's," I said.

He left.

Outside, the parking lot was dark and cold.

My mom went to warm up the car.

I was halfway to it when Connor's voice came from behind the SUV.

"You think you won something?"

He walked out into the light with his hands in his jacket pockets.

"You just cost her five grand and her whole reputation. For what? A cartoon bird?"

"My cartoon bird."

"Not anymore."

He smiled, and it wasn't the smile I knew.

"I filed the name in January. Shelfswap belongs to me. The app, the brand, the owl, all of it. You can keep your little sketchbooks."

He leaned in close.

"You just made an enemy, Hal. And I know every single thing you're scared of."

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