Chapter 3: Clay and Confessions
The art room door clicked shut with a finality that echoed off the paint-stained concrete floors. Dante stared at a forgotten still-life of wilting fruit, his backpack heavy on his shoulder. The smell was all Dre—turpentine, linseed oil, the ghost of acrylics.
“You’ve been avoiding me for 13 days.”
Dante didn’t turn. “I’ve been busy.”
“Bullshit.” Dre’s footsteps were quiet, deliberate. A canvas tilted against a nearby easel, the portrait of Dante facing the wall. “You’re scared.”
“I’m not scared of anything.” The lie tasted familiar, metallic.
“Then turn around.”
He turned. Dre stood closer than he’d anticipated, his expression a storm of frustration and hurt. The dying light from the high windows caught the dust motes dancing between them. Dante’s heart hammered against his ribs, a trapped bird.
“Talk to me,” Dre said, his voice low. “What happened after… after the dare?”
“Nothing happened.” Dante took a step back, his heel bumping a sturdy worktable smeared with dried gray clay. “It was a game. It’s over.”
“It’s not over for me!” The words exploded, ricocheting in the quiet room. Dre closed the distance, his hand shooting out to grip Dante’s wrist, pinning it to the cold, clay-crusted table. “You kissed me and then you vanished. You flinch when I touch you. Why?”
The pressure on his wrist was firm, anchoring him to the spot. Dante’s free hand came up, shoving against Dre’s shoulder. “Let go.”
“No.” Dre held fast, his other hand coming up to grasp Dante’s other shoulder. “Not until you tell me the truth.”
The scent of turpentine thickened between them, sharp and suffocating. Dre’s grip was a brand on his wrist, his fingers pressing into the exact spots where the old bruise had faded. Dante’s breath hitched, a ragged sound in the silent room.
“The truth?” Dante’s laugh was a dry, broken thing. “You want the truth about a party game?”
“It wasn’t a game to me.” Dre’s voice cracked, his eyes searching Dante’s face. “You kissed me back.”
Every muscle in Dante’s body coiled tight, a spring loaded with unspoken years. The portrait watched from the corner, a ghostly spectator. He could feel the phantom weight of his father’s gaze, too, a cold shadow in the smell of the oils.
“The truth is you’re tripping over a stupid dare.” Dante’s words came out flat, final. He twisted his wrist sharply, breaking Dre’s stunned grip, and ducked low. Dre, off-balance from the sudden movement, stumbled back a half-step.
Dante was able to squeeze around him and leave, his shoulder brushing the doorframe as he burst into the bright, empty hallway. The clash of light and noise was a physical shock. He didn’t look back.
“That’s it?” Dre’s shout chased him, raw and scraping down the tiled corridor. “You’re just gonna run again?”
But Dante was already gone, his footsteps a frantic echo fading into the din of the final bell.
But Dante was already gone, his footsteps a frantic echo fading into the din of the final bell. He found a quiet table for lunch, tucked behind a concrete pillar in the cafeteria’s far corner. The roar of the room was a muffled blanket he welcomed.
He unwrapped a protein bar, his gaze drifting inevitably across the crowded space. There was Dre, at their usual table, his head thrown back in that infectious, soundless laugh at something Breonna said. The sight was a physical ache, a hook behind Dante’s sternum.
Dakota was walking up, tray in hand, when she noticed Dante’s gaze. She followed its line straight to Dre, then back to Dante’s unmasked face. She saw the longing there, pure and undiluted, a silent vibration she felt in her own chest.
Then it all made sense. His reaction after the truth-or-dare game, the frantic escape, the way he’d looked shattered—things everyone else had been too drunk or distracted to truly see. She changed course, her steps deliberate on the linoleum.
She sat directly in front of Dante, her tray clattering onto the table. He startled, his eyes snapping to hers with dull confusion. “Holy shit,” she said, her voice low and utterly certain.
“You’re in love with him.”
Dante froze, the protein bar crumbling in his fist. A hot, terrible anger ignited in his gut, burning through the numbness. He stood so fast his chair shrieked against the floor, his hand closing around her forearm.
“Shut up,” he hissed, his voice trembling with fury. He dragged her up and into the hallway, away from the listening ears and prying eyes. The bright, institutional lights hummed overhead as he pushed her against a bank of lockers, the metal rattling.
The cold metal pressed into Dakota's back, but her eyes held no fear, only a sharp, pitying understanding. "What are you playing at?" Dante snarled, his face inches from hers, the ghost of his father’s rage in his grip.
"Nothing," she responded, her voice steady. "I just know that look, that feeling. Wanting something you can’t have."
She glanced past his shoulder toward the cafeteria, their friend Kim hugged up with Huang at a distant table. Dante’s grip loosened, the fight draining from him as she saw right through the performance he showed the world.
"Look, your secret’s safe with me, dude," she said softly. "Have you told him?"
Dante laughed, a single, harsh burst of air. "Fuck no. We’ve been best friends for years. I don’t want to fuck that up." He let her go and ran a shaky hand through his hair, staring at the scuffed floor tiles. "I’d rather have him like this than not at all."
"Well, I’m here if you ever need someone to talk to," she offered, then squeezed his arm and went to join the lunch table.
Dante left early for his next class, the hallways blurring into a tunnel of fluorescent light and echoing voices. Later, circling back toward the cafeteria, Chloe—one of the girls from the party—caught his eye from across the commons and winked, a clear, flirty invitation.
He felt the portrait’s gaze, Dre’s stunned expression in the art room, Dakota’s pity. He crossed the space in three long strides, sliding his arm around Chloe’s narrow shoulders. "Missed me?" he said, turning on the megawatt player smile as they walked back into the cafeteria’s roar.
He could feel eyes on him, but Dante focused on Chloe and her giggling friends, leaning into their circle like it was a warm fire. “So, you gonna actually call me this time?” Chloe asked, tracing a finger along the sleeve of his jersey.
“Maybe,” he said, his smile feeling tight at the corners, a mask screwed on too hard. He registered the weight of a specific stare, a familiar frequency cutting through the cafeteria’s chaotic noise, but he locked his gaze on Chloe’s glittery eyelashes.
He launched into a story about Coach’s playbook, his voice artificially loud, his hands animating the air. Chloe’s friend whispered something that made them all shriek with laughter, a sound that scraped down his spine.
Across the room, Dre quietly gathered his notebook, his movements slow and deliberate. Dante saw it in his periphery, a dark shape withdrawing from the light.
He leaned closer to Chloe, inhaling her sweet perfume, letting it overwhelm the memory of turpentine and clay. “Tell me more about that party last weekend,” he urged, his words tumbling out too fast.
As he laughed at a joke he didn’t hear, he felt the stare dissolve, replaced by the hollow chill of its absence. The cafeteria doors swung shut with a soft sigh, and Dante’s forced smile finally died on his lips.
Chloe was still talking, but her voice was just static now. The hook in his chest twisted, a sharp, sickening pull.
He’d done it. He’d made Dre leave.