A portrait of a bad end

Slinking into art class behind a group of other girls, Monica glanced around. Spotting Aurora and her little clique in one corner, she quickly placed herself as far away as possible. Maybe there was still hope. If she could just be perfectly meek and unremarkable in this class, then she could still save herself.

Everything went well at first. Today they were to look at an abstract painting at the front of the class and create whatever thing it reminded them of. Monica actually liked this part of class and soon she was going deeper and deeper into a trance. She was lost in painting, her mind forgetting all the worries she had just minutes before.

Monica's trance was suddenly broken by the presence of her teacher. Shocked by the sound of a voice beside her, she only half heard the words being said. Something about a psychological exercise and those with deeper thought processes seeing the portrait. Before Monica could ask what portrait, she looked up and realized it was her portrait. Sitting on her canvas was the rough outline of a woman, her hair pinned up like somebody out of a Victorian Era novel.

As their teacher explained that the original portrait was covered by layers of other paintings. Monica realized the true cause of the excitement. Everyone else had looked deep, picking out images of sailboats, lovers embracing, even a dog sitting. But she was the only one to reveal the deepest image.

Something welled up inside her again. It had been months, but she remembered when she was just another rich girl, doing everything her mom expected. Then she had discovered the punk and goth scenes. Even though her black lipstick was the best that money could buy, she was no longer the same. No longer a little debutante-to-be clone of her mother.

She was being noticed for her deeper thought. Caught up in the limelight of her teachers praise. She proceeded to critique her classmate's offerings. She didn't even notice her mistake of dismissing the paintings of Aurora and her friends. It was the straw that broke the camel's back.

Still on cloud nine, Monica went back to her easel. Only to scream as it seemed her painting had lunged at her! Shaken, she managed to upend an entire jar of paint over her clothes. The teacher and some of the other girls came to fuss over her. Her teacher announced that she would just have to get out of those clothes. Nobody seemed to notice the wide smile on Aurora's face at those words.

Quickly changing her expression to a little pout, Aurora took sisterly responsibility of Monica. She promised that she would get her all cleaned up. While the clothes were washed Monica could even put on her gym clothes, since that was the next class after lunch. Glad for a solution that made the issue not her problem, the teacher wrote up a note explaining Monica's accident and gave her permission to go to lunch and study hall in gym clothes until her uniform had been washed and dried.

The bell rang right at that moment and Monica was left to her sister's capable hands.