Follow The Rules

Art Club

Oliver stood in the deserted corridors for a while contemplating the many reasons why he didn't want to go to practice. First of all there was the changing room issue. Not only did he want to avoid letting anyone see the bruises on his body, but after what happened to him, being that vulnerable around other people just freaked him out. Football also meant having guys his size and bigger running at a million miles an hour and crashing into him. He knew that his already bruised, beaten and sore body could not take a practice like that. Plus having other guys falling on top of him, pinning him to the ground. No. Just no.

But if he just went home, people would question him. People at home and people at school the next day. Everyone at home knew that the earliest he should be home was four thirty and besides, if he went home now he'd just have more time to think about... things.

He looked down at his psychology books in his hands and started heading for the library. He'd never been to the library at school before. It usually shut around the same time practice ended and his house was big enough to study in without being disturbed by anyone, but maybe he'd have better luck getting work done out of the house. It took him a few minutes to find the place, and even though he didn't quite know what to expect, what he saw was definitely not what he had expected.

It was quite a big place but it didn't go unused. There were a lot of kids in there doing all sorts of things. Some on the computers they supplied, some on their own laptops at desks, some had books spread out across tables and others were snuggled into couches, reading books. He wondered around for a moment, taking it all in until he finally found a table that was completely empty and quite isolated from the other work stations, surrounded by shelves of books and sat down. He opened his text book and stared at the long words under the heading 'Sensation and Perception' and already wanted to kill himself. He didn't have the energy for this. Yes he slept for a whole ten hours last night, but two nights ago his sleep was so restless that he didn't know if it could be counted and the night before he got no sleep. Absolutely none. Not even after George had finished with him.

He slammed the book shut and rubbed his eyes. He had to stop thinking about that. He had to forget about it. It was in the past. As much as he didn't want to listen to B, he knew he was right. He couldn't let it affect his life, even though it had already ruined his first Monday back. In trouble for almost every class and skipping football practice. It had to stop. He looked at the text book again, but decided to shove it out of the way, pull out his iPod and open his sketchbook.

With the music blaring in his ears, he began randomly doodling and he realised after a few moments that he was drawing a pair of eyes. A pair of dark brown, piercing eyes. His eyes. He put his pencil down and stared at it. They were B's eyes, but that was the only recognisable feature he had seen from either men. He wondered what Georges eyes looked like.

Fuck. No he didn't. No he didn't.

"You've got to shade it."

He slammed his sketchbook closed at the faint sound of a voice from behind him, and swung around to face it, yanking his ear buds out. Standing behind him, leaning against book self was a girl. She was quite an attractive girl, but not hot like the cheerleaders he usually hung out with. She was more... pretty. She had long brown hair that hung in loose curls past her shoulders, held out of her eyes with a thin brown headband. Hey eyes were big and a kind of hazel colour that appeared shocked by his sudden reaction. How long had she been standing there watching him?

"W-what?" He managed to get out once he realised he had been staring at this girl, his heart beating at the speed of lightning from a combination of shock from this girl and thinking about George. f**k. She smiled at him and moved closer, pulling out the chair next to Oliver's and sitting down.

"Your drawing." She explained, gesturing to the notebook Oliver had his hand over, like he were protecting the contents. "It's good, but it needs shading. To give it depth. May I?" And before he even had a chance to protest, she slid the small book out from under his hand and began flicking through it. He was grateful to see her flicking through the book from back to front until she stumbled across the most recent picture. It meant she didn't look at any other pictures, respecting his privacy whether she intended to or not.

Oliver sat dumbfounded as she opened up the picture he had been doodling and showed it to him.

"See you've got all the definition in there, all the lines, but if you shaded it in here and here for example it would push the eye further back and bring the brow bone forward." She used her own pencil to point out the places she was talking about, but didn't leave a single mark on the paper before placing it back down on the table in front of him. "You're good, though. I'm surprised I haven't seen you in art."

"I don't take art." He said flipping the book closed and placing it under his pencil case, pulling his psychology books back in front of him.

"Well you should." She shrugged as she began to pull out her own books and placed them on the table next to Oliver. "Mrs. Wells is a great teacher. She'd be able to explain it a lot better than I would."

Oliver watched the girl as she finally pulled out a big thick book of Modern Art and began flipping through the pages, studying each picture and tracing some of the lines with her finger. Why was she sitting with him? He didn't know her, and from his memory, he couldn't remember ever having a conversation with her, and where usually he wouldn't have minded the company, and no matter how weird the person, he would never have ditched them but kept up conversation with them, now he just wanted to be alone.

"I don't think I really count this as art." She piped up, her eyes still glued to the page, but Oliver was the only one there, and unless she spoke to herself, she was the one continuing the conversation. He couldn't be completely rude. "This "modern art". I mean look," She gestured to a picture labelled global warming. "It's just a perfectly good globe, that some d**k head's lit on fire and melted. Anyone could do that. I'm sure my pyromaniac brother's probably done it before by accident and it's looked better than this. This isn't talent. What do you think?" She finally turned to him and he looked into her eyes. A beautiful mix between green and a brown colour that looked almost gold. Completely innocent. Nothing like B's that were full of guilt the last time he'd seen them.

It was then that he noticed with this girls random babbling, he hadn't once thought about what had happened. He hadn't said anything or done anything, he had simply listened while this girl talked. And it worked. It made him forget what he was trying to forget faster than he ever could.

She was still looking at him and he realised he hadn't answered her question. He really had no idea what she was talking about so he answered honestly.

"I don't know." He shrugged. And she frowned at him for a moment before frowning back at the book.

"Damn." She muttered to herself. "My art assignment is to figure something out." She said, using her fingers as quotation marks as she said the words "figure something out" before rolling her eyes. "I was going to try to figure out why people like this s**t," She gestured to the picture of the burned globe before slamming it shut. "Guess that's not going to happen."

"Sorry?" Oliver said awkwardly, not sure whether he was supposed to be or not. Was it his fault she couldn't understand modern art?

"Don't be ridiculous." She sighed, staring at the cover of the book. "It just proves my theory that the people who do this stuff aren't real artists. I just have to find another topic."

"Right." Oliver said slowly. This girl was odd, but odd in an extremely confident way. She's someone who would be hated for voicing her opinions whether people would take offense to them or not. Oliver had to respect people like that who were confident enough in themselves to just not give a s**t.

"What does that even mean?" She suddenly says loudly throwing her hands up in the air exasperation. At first Oliver thought she was talking about his one word sentence of "right" before she continued. "Figure something out. It's ridiculous. I could figure anything out, a math problem, why my family's so weird, the meaning of life, anything! But how am I supposed to turn it into an art project?"

"I don't know, sorry." Oliver said, suppressing a smile at how worked up she was getting over the idea. It was the first genuine smile he had since Friday. It felt good. "I don't do art, so I'm probably not the best person to ask."

"Why not?" She suddenly turned to him, her eyes furrowed in confusion however it was Oliver that was really confused. Why not, what? Why didn't he know?

"What?" He asked fidgeting with his pencil.

"Why don't you take art?" She clarified slowly, as though he were an i***t for not getting it in the first place.

"Oh, um, I" He stammered. He'd never been asked this question before by anyone except B, and he had told B the truth because he believed he would never see him again, so why not. But this girl, he could come right out and say that his dad's a d**k and he's spent his whole life trying to please him. Luckily, he didn't have to answer, because he was interrupted.

"Ollie." His name was shouted out and a few seconds later a tall, read head poked his head around a bookshelf. Will. "Found him." He yelled and was met with a few disgruntled quiet's from around the library. "Where the f**k were you, dude?" He asked walking around to sit cross-legged on the table in front of him, pushing his pencil case and sketchbook out of the way and dumping his sports bag on the ground. Then his eyes flickered to the girl sitting beside Oliver and Will frowned before looking back to Oliver. "If you were ditching us to hang out with a girl..."

"Literally, Ollie!" This time it was Will who was interrupted when three more boys came clambering around the corner. "If Matt hadn't said that he saw you this morning and in Psych, I would have honestly believed that you were dead." John said giving Oliver a playful slap on the shoulder, that Oliver reacted a little too violently too, but thankfully his team mates were too busy scolding him for any of them to notice.

"I told you I wasn't lying." Matt defended himself as he sat down opposite the girl after pulling out a random book off one of the shelves and flicking through it.

"Well you certainly weren't lying about the shiner." John added, eyeing him carefully, and Oliver couldn't help but look away from him, trying to hide his shame, like John knew everything that happened to him, just from looking at his bruise.

"Why didn't you answer anyone's texts over the weekend, Oll?" Finley whined as he fixed his hair, using his camera phone as a mirror like he always did. Finley was gay, but only came out last year, but they all knew years ago that their friend swung for the other team. None of them had a problem with it, even when Finley admitted to having a crush on Oliver when he came out. Obviously, Oliver turned him down, but they were luckily able to stay friends and Finley was now in a relationship with a guy in senior year. Oliver wondered whether it hurt Finley as much as it had hurt him to have s*x with another man. Not that what Oliver had was s*x. It was downright r**e, no matter what way you look at it. Right?

"Or come to practice?" John added, pulling Oliver out of his thoughts.

"It's cause he's ditched us for a girl, lads." Will said raising his eyebrows at the girl who had reopened her book and appeared to be completely reinvested in it.

"Praise Jesus, it's finally happened." Finley wailed loudly, earning another cluster of sounds telling them to be quiet.

"And who might you be?" John said, leaning against the table between Oliver and the girl, smiling charmingly down at the girl who suddenly looked up to John, as though she hadn't heard any of the previous conversation.

"Sorry?" She asked timidly.

"Who are you? You have to be someone awfully special for Ollie to keep you hidden from his best friend." John said, this time a little more forcefully and Oliver swallowed and rolled his eyes. His friends were going so quickly that he hadn't had a chance to butt in and explain the situation.

"Daisy." She said, obviously still confused why a bunch of jocks were now staring at her and practically interrogating her as the questions kept flowing.

"And how long have you been seeing or deal Ollie, Daisy?" Finley said, taking a seat on the table on her opposite side to where John was leaning.

"What?"

"Okay, okay, okay. Hang on a second." Oliver said standing up and finally finding an opportunity to put an end to the madness, and decided to answer all the questions in one go, to get it all over quickly. "I didn't answer your texts because I was... away... with my family." He quickly added. "I got the bruise because a mugger attacked me. I didn't come to practice because I didn't get a chance to finish the psych assignment while I was away and Mr. Hughes gave me even less time to get it done than you, Matt, so I came here to do it." He lied, remembering that he wasn't supposed to tell anyone Mr. Hughes "played favourites'. "I'm not seeing this girl-, uh, Daisy. I only just met her. In fact, John, you learnt her name before I did." He let out a relieved sigh when he was done, glad for it all to be out and praying that he had given them enough information to avoid any questions.

The place was silent for a few minutes, until John looked at Daisy.

"Oh." He said simply and then exchanged glances with Finley who looked just as guilty.

"Sorry about that." Finley added, getting off the table.

"Right," Will said, also climbing off the table to pick up his bag and swing it over his shoulder. "Well now that we've confirmed that you are very much alive and are not in fact in a secret relationship, we're all headed over to mine for dinner. Dad's cooking a BBQ. Coming?"

"Like I said," Oliver said gently, imagining nothing worse. "I have to get this assignment done for Mr. Hughes." John eyed him suspiciously again, and Oliver had the unmistakable fear that John knew he was lying to him. But suddenly he pushed himself off the table and away from Oliver.

"Sucks to be you, then, dude. See you tomorrow." John said heading off towards the exit and he was closely followed by the others who all gave similar, casual farewells until he was alone with the girl again. Daisy.

"You haven't really touched your psych stuff." Daisy said, raising her eyebrows at Oliver with suspicion but Oliver simply shrugged and began to gather up his books. She was right, but now that practice was technically over, there would be no suspicion from home if he left now. Just as he was about to leave as well, Daisy spoke up again, her focus back in the book.

"If you're going to blow off practice again tomorrow, there's an afterschool art club that Mrs. Wells runs if her students want some extra help with a project or something in the art room." She looked up to him with a strange, knowing smile. "You should come."

He looked at her clutching his books to his chest defensively.

"I didn't blow off practice." He says, but it didn't come out as convincing as he'd hoped. Daisy raised her eyebrows at him that said 'I know you're lying but if you want to continue the lie, then okay' before looking back to her book.

"I'm not one of her students." Oliver added quietly, kind of hoping she wouldn't hear. "I don't take art."

"Doesn't matter." She said casually, her eyes and finger doing that thing where she traces the lines of a painting in the book. "It's open to anyone who wants to come." Oliver took a deep breath in, considering the offer, and wondering how out of place he'd feel, considering he'd never taken an art class before, besides those compulsory ones that you have timetables in primary school that's all finger painting and s**t. But then he thought about what he'd be missing. Practice. He'd still have all the fears tomorrow that he had today. His bruises would be just as bad if not worse tomorrow, and there'd be no way to hide them. Especially the ones on his wrists.

He also thought about his friends. He'd never felt so out of place, so judged. He hated being judged, especially by John. John had been his longest and best friend since they were really little kids. They lived only a block a part and had gone to the same school all their lives. They were so similar in both looks and personality that they were often confused for brothers. But from that mere encounter, he never felt more distant from him. From all of them. None of them could understand what happened to him, and none of them ever would. He didn't fit there anymore. He wasn't the fun, selfless, sports freak the rest of the world knew him to be anymore. He'd never kept a secret from John before and now he was keeping his biggest secret ever from him. How could he hang around with the guy who told him everything, when he wasn't being honest himself? He couldn't.

But art? His Dad would kill him. But at this point in his life, did he really care?

"I'll see." He answered simply. "Nice to meet you, Daisy."

"You too, Ollie." She said, but sounded detached, and Oliver could tell she was too engrossed in her book again to really notice what was going on around her. She's an odd one.

As Oliver walked home, he couldn't help but feel an odd sort of excitement about tomorrow.

Art club. He was going to an art club. Both his Dad and John and the rest of his friends would kill him if they knew he skipped practice for art club.

But after what he'd been through, that thought didn't scare him as much as it used to. So f**k them.

He was going to art club.