“You new?” the kid across from me asked, absorbed in a sheet of paper in his hands.

“Yeah,” I replied, not moving my eyes from Parker.

“Cool. What’s your name?” He glanced up, and back down, doodling in the corner of the page.

“Uh…” Just my name, that’s all he was asking.. “Oh, right.. Raine.”

“Rain? Precipitation?” He smiled, muffling a short laugh.

“Uh-huh.” I kept gazing at Parker, and I was a bit baffled by the fact that he hadn’t noticed me.

The teacher handed me a sketchbook and told me it was a free day, then went into a huge explanation of what a free day meant.. which was pretty self-explanatory, at least to me.

I walked to the front of the room, pulled a little piece of charcoal out of the wooden box on her desk, and returned to my seat. People watched me; I wished they would look away.

Going back to my empty book, I didn’t focus on anything as I started swirling the medium aimlessly against the paper.

“What are you drawing?”

I spun around, to see Parker staring at my book.