The Art Of The Heart by Dan Skinner Read Free Book Online Page A

able to see through it to know a presence stood beyond it. There was a soft rap of knuckles in its center before the knob twisted and it opened inward. Wavering light played over Rory’s tall form in the doorway. He was wearing a white T and boxers; long hair had been fastened into a ponytail. His face looked like a sculpture in the flirtatious illumination. Blue eyes looked as if he’d just awakened. His expression, seen through Zac’s protective ginger blockade, appeared confused like he’d wandered inside the room while sleepwalking.
    “ Hey there, Two-Tone,” his voice was hesitant. “Hope I didn’t wake you? I was…” he looked away as if still confused. “I was just checking on everyone. Everything okay?”
    Zac nodded without looking up. His hands gripped the edges of the sketchbook in his lap. There was a long pause between them filled only with the hiss of a lantern and the sound of rain pattering the house.
    “You drawing?” Rory asked. He shut the door behind him as he stepped further into the room.
    Zac stared at the last few images he ’d drawn, before he closed the book without saying a word. He could see Rory’s bare feet moving closer to his bed. All his toes were perfectly rounded, each nail had a white crescent embedded at its base. Even his feet seemed like art; looked as strong as the rest of him.
    The timpani began in his chest again, the beat making its way to his ears. The actual silence between them made him look up. He didn ’t want to, but the curiosity pulled his gaze there. Rory was staring at the closed cover of the sketchbook. His own curiosity held him captive. For the second time their eyes locked. He had no way to interpret what was going on behind the older boy’s gaze, but it was almost as if he were hypnotized. Without asking, he sat next to Zac on his bed. Instinctively the younger boy moved a few inches away. He’d never had anyone intrude this deep into his personal space. It unnerved him. Dressed in his plain cotton pajamas, his leg was mere inches from Rory’s naked thigh. It sent his emotions into a scramble. A tremor pulled like a drawstring, tightening his stomach.
    “ Do you mind?” Rory asked, extending his hand toward the book. Zac didn’t answer, didn’t offer, but the book was pulled gently from his grasp. In the next instant it was lying across bare legs. Again, he felt helpless, but remembered the last time Rory had held the book. The end result was not as horrific or as life-ending as he’d imagined, or Rory would not be seated next to him wanting to look at it once more. He opened it to the first page. The portrait of himself lying on the tractor in the sun. This time he allowed his eyes to linger, absorbing every small detail.
    Zac ’s palms began to sweat. He wiped them on his knees to dry them and held them there to steady the quaking that had overtaken his limbs.
    “ Did you know that I dated Miss Scotts last year?” Rory asked, his eyes never leaving the page.
    Miss Scotts had been everyone ’s twelfth grade teacher at the high school in Clarksville that all the kids who lived in Sweetwater attended. Zac had no knowledge that Rory had dated the teacher. But she was young. In her late twenties. Attractive. Very modern in her teaching practices. She even allowed them to bring in their favorite records to discuss what the music meant to them. Everyone had liked her. Miss Scotts had liked him. He felt she understood him. Even though he was quiet, she didn’t press him to speak in front of the class. She always left encouraging notes for him on the homework he’d turned in. He said nothing in response to Rory’s revelation about her.
    “ She told me that you pretty much fooled everyone, Two-Tone. She says you’re actually a very smart guy. That you had read almost every book in the library.” He flipped to the next page. The one of himself standing against the wall of the general store. He continued: “She thinks that you purposely failed