That afternoon during Yearbook activities my mind was anywhere but there. The other folks in the Yearbook Committee were discussing the layout and what kind of aesthetic we were going for, which was normally the kind of discussion that brought me to life, but not today. After that whole incident in the girl's bathroom I felt like I'd been drenched in cold water. Courtney and Lina had spent the entire day trying to downplay the whole episode like Lexie Cooper going all psycho on me was a one time thing only. Everything pointed at the fact that it wouldn't be.

Okay, so I loved attention. Just not this kind of attention. I wasn't used to being so in the spotlight as hanging out with Sawyer had put me. I always craved it but now that I had it I could see it was a scary world out there, when the light was over you but everything else around you was submerged in darkness. What kind of creatures lurked out there?

It turned out the answer was jealous exes.

I sat in a corner doodling on my notebook, not paying attention to anything around me, until the sound of knocking snapped me awake. I looked around and saw Sawyer outside the window. He ducked as soon as someone else also turned to find the source of the noise, but I excused myself for a moment and went outside the building. I found him crouching under the window of the classroom I'd been in. He quickly put away the cigarette he'd ben about to light up.

"You should quite those things," I said. "They don't make me want to kiss you."

His eyebrows went up. I also couldn't believe what I'd just said.

"So if I quit them you'll want to kiss me?"

I tucked my hair behind one ear. "Shouldn't you be in baseball practice?"

"Bold of you to call it practice when all I do is pick up the baseballs." He shrugged. "I'd rather skip practice and be with you."

I frowned. "You want to join Yearbook?"

Sawyer laughed and drew himself up to his full height. He pulled me closer to him by my hand. "Hell no, the only nerd I want to hang out with is you."

I was strangely flattered but I said, "Bold of you to assume I'll skip my extracurriculars to hang out with you."

Sawyer Logan did something I had never seen in my entire time knowing him.

He pouted.

I shook my head over and over. "Nope, not gonna bite."

His eyes shone as he leaned down, closer still, surprising me when he put his forehead against mine.

"What if I tell you," he started, his voice low and silky and doing things I didn't ask for. "That I want to take you out of here and go on our first date, like I promised."

"Don't the two parties going on a date usually have to schedule it in advance?"

He shrugged. "Scheduling is for boring people. Let's go have some fun, princess. Let me take you away from this shit."

My eyes rolled shut and he caught my weight. Maybe it was an exaggeration, but I felt like I was melting in his arms and was more than willing to let him whisk me away and save me from everything I didn't want to face. But I was a good girl, and good girls didn't skip commitments. It was bad enough that I'd already it done it once before.

"We'll only be here half an hour more, I'll meet you at the parking lot."

He sighed and laughed a little. "Fine."

Sawyer kissed the top of my head and I was glad to see I was not the only one having difficulty to extricate herself from the embrace. The last half hour of Yearbook Committee felt thrice as long. I dove into the discussion about the aesthetic with gusto and didn't even care when they convinced me to design some concepts by myself. I all but ran out to the parking lot, my heart pumping as much for the exercise as for the excitement. Sawyer sat on his motorbike in a way that made him look like a cowboy with a metal mount.

He handed me his helmet and as I put it on I asked, "Where are we going?"

"You'll see."

I held onto his shoulders as I swung one leg over to the other side and found my balance. I slid down, flush against his back like I'd been when he took me to the hospital. It felt like that had been forever ago, but the feeling of his warmth and strength against me hadn't left my mind. This time I wrapped my arms around his waist like they belonged there, and he revved the engine on. We took off and even though I wasn't scared, I clung harder to him.

At some point we were at a red light, he turned to me and asked, "You doing okay?"

I nodded. But no, I wasn't doing okay. I knew at that moment with the same certainty that my name was Aurora Martinez, that nothing I could've done would prevent Sawyer Logan from stealing my heart. And he had finally succeeded.

I sighed with almost sadness as we arrived to our destination and I slid off the bike. I took the helmet up and looked up, putting two and two together. He smiled at the look I gave him.

"I figured this would cheer you up," was all he said.

I threw my arms around him and he twirled me once. We held hands until he grabbed a cart for me and we walked into one of those massive craft stores in town. Sawyer took care of the cart as I beelined around the isles full of incredible things to build the spaces of your dreams, and made it to the aisles that carried paint and all the associated equipment. He was good enough to even feign interest as I explained to him the virtues of oil, acrylic and inks, and which ones I was choosing for the baby's room. Together we examined the different brands and the content to price ratio, and he helped me put everything I wanted in the cart.

Just as we were about to leave the area, he left the cart with me and told me to wait. I started doing the mental math about how much of my allowance this was going to cost when he came back with two spray cans. One black and one white.

"What are those for?" I asked.

"A different project. You'll see," he said.

I tried to get the intel out of him as we went to the registers, but then I got distracted by the logistics of carrying all the bags while in a motorcycle. In the end we made do with Sawyer's nearly empty backpack, and he set it on his front as we drove away. I started to recognize the streets again and when we entered his neighborhood I figured we must be headed for his house. Not terribly exciting, but it must have meant Jack was nowhere in sight.

Except Sawyer drove past his house. The roaring engine drowned my question, so I just hung tight until, after more twists and turns, he pulled us behind an abandoned building. Still on the bike, I looked around. The chainlink fencing that was supposed to keep people off limits had a massive gap that let us through to the back of it. The ground at the back was all broken concrete, weeds poking through until it gave way to abandoned train tracks. I did some mental gymnastics and figured that we were right in between one of the bad areas in town that bordered with one of the best neighborhoods in downtown, where the town had tried gentrification by expanding the SunRail and gave up midway when the costs were a lot higher than the profit.

As Sawyer helped me down, I looked at the building, all stained brick and broken windows that looked like the set of a horror movie. Which was why I asked, "Is this where I die?"

He stroked his chin. "Maybe." At the look on my face he smiled. "I'm hoping that this is where the insecure part of you dies."

My eyebrows went up. "And how do you think that's going to happen?"

Sawyer lifted a finger so I'd give him a moment. He turned around as he rummaged in his backpack, that he still had hanging from his front. When he turned around he shook the two cans of spray paint in his hands.

It took me a moment, but when it clicked I laughed. Then I shook my head. For good measure I said, "No."

"Why not?" he asked with a grin.

I folded my arms. "Pretty sure it's a crime."

That made him snort. He pointed his chin to the dilapidated building. "That is what's a crime. Besides you wouldn't be doing something that no one else has done."

In a way he was right. Every surface that could be reached without a ladder was covered in graffiti. Some were bad, like the ones proclaiming love for an unknown person. Others were pretty good, like the one in a corner that took aim at a certain local politician. Each one was a different color, a different style, a different meaning. Some were meant to be serious, others jokes. Some didn't know what they wanted to be.

It was just like looking at a lineup of people, all with different sizes, shapes and aims in life. I'd never thought of graffiti as art until now.

I took a shaky breath as he placed the cans in my hands. My dark eyes met his. "But Sawyer, look at the wall. There's no room for me."

He held my head in his hands tenderly. "Go and make room for yourself."

I'd never been told anything scarier.

Sawyer stood silent and patient next to me as I faced a wall full of other people's ideas and feelings, as I tried to figure mine out. My throat worked with words that wouldn't come out. The sun continued its trek down the sky and the first hues of pink, purple and orange appeared in the sky. For a moment I wish I had an array of paint colors at my disposal to paint it on the wall, but all Sawyer had given me was black and white and that had to be enough. I took a tentative step forward, closer to the wall. I'd never used spray paint, and my first attempt left it running down the brick surface as the gravity took it.

I gave Sawyer a look, as if expecting his disapproval. All he did was motion for me to go on. He went back to the bike to sit on it and watch me figure myself out. I didn't mind the audience so much as I minded how uncomfortable this exercise was making me. One thing was to draw with pencils and charcoal in the privacy of my bedroom every night for years. Quite another was to pretend I could work this medium the same way as the genius who made a mural there to the left that in confident strokes and colors said that Florida Is The Land Of The Crazy.

What could I contribute? What did I dare to present to the world? What made me different from anybody else who tried?

Nothing, not a thing. And yet I never had a problem being myself until that moment. Never did I question the fact that I was hardheaded, contrary and manipulative. Never did I think there was something wrong with me, because I was simply who I was. I'd spent years seeking my parents' approval by not doing the things that actually made me, me. They would hate what I was about to do. But I finally saw that I was proud to be the way I was, flaws and all.

Be Yourself.

Cliche, I knew. I wasn't intending to be the next Banksy as I set out to steal a spot for myself on the wall. When it got darker, Sawyer turned on the front light on his bike and let me keep going until I was satisfied. In only black and white I did my best to express myself, so that anybody who ventured down here could see that it was okay to dance to their own tune. I didn't care that my finger hurt and that my arm grew tired. Now that I had the vision all I cared about was seeing it done.

It felt like forever when I felt satisfied with the result. I had no idea what time it was, but I stepped back and looked at the curves and sharp line of the words and the whole that they made and I smiled.

I twirled around and there was Sawyer, catching me in his arms, his lips descending to cover mine. I wrapped my arms around his neck to pull him closer and I surrendered to his kiss.

He was right. Who I was had died tonight and given way to a new me, an Aurora who was not afraid of her vision and her love. Guess I had to thank this stupid boy for that.

i'm so proud of Rory