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“Not in the slightest.”
Mykie kissed him, but before he could pull her closer, she let go of him and swam backward.
“I keep forgetting to ask you, how are those weekend classes going?” she asked.
He shrugged. “They’re going, I guess.”
She stopped swimming and looked at him. “Did something happen?”
“The teacher said I needed to be more passionate. I told her that I’m very passionate about my art, but she said that wasn’t what she meant.”
“What do you think she meant?”
“Everyone else has areason, I guess, to do art. Like some people do it out of protest of something, or because they can’t express things otherwise. I just like art.”
"Why can't you just like art? Does it need a purpose?" she asked, starting to swim again.
Corbus lifted a hand to his hair and slicked it back. “I don’t know. Until she basically told me that my art has no meaning, I hadn’t really thought about it.”
“Well, why do you paint?”
Mykie almost thought he had dipped under the water, as everything was silent besides the water she was moving as she swam.
“Because it’s relaxing. After trying to be someone my parents want me to be all day, it’s nice to do something for myself.”
“Well, that’s your purpose then, right? Why you do art? It’s your own form of protest. Breaking out of the mold you were forced into. A type of fun only you can create for yourself.”
Corbus was silent for a moment again. Had she said something wrong?
She then heard splashing from Corbus swimming. She watched and waited until he swam under the water toward her.
When he surfaced, he wiped the water out of his eyes and gave her a crooked smile.
“I love how you can see who I am more than I can see myself.”
Her heart was beating a mile a minute out of her chest. She thought he was going to say he loved her. Was she wishing to hear those words from him? Could she have said it back, if he did?
“I can see myself in you. Someone who is just trying to find their place in the world,” she finally said.
Their moment was broken by her phone ringing on the side of the pool. The ringtone was distinctive as it reverberated off the walls of the pool room.
Jezebeth.
She looked up at the ceiling, pleading without whatever might be out there that Jezebeth only butt-dialed her.
She let it go to voicemail before she looked at Corbus.
“I’m really sorry. I—“
Her phone started ringing again.
She groaned.
“You probably should get that,” Corbus said. “It might be something important.”
“That’s exactly why I don’t want to take to call,” she said drily.
She swam over to the nearest ladder and pulled herself out of the pool. Stomping her wet feet over to her pile of clothes, she yanked her phone up and answered the call.
