Both Sides | ✓

Chapter 47

Cleo's POV:

"Off to study again, I'm guessing," I said. I could hear Via's smile through the phone when she spoke.

"How'd you know?"

"What subject is it this time?"

"APUSH is kind of kicking my ass right now. I'm making an 88-"

"Which is fine," I said.

"Which is fine," she echoed. "But we have a test next week and I desperately need to bump my grade up. My mom... is being my mom."

"Let's run away."

"Sure. Where to?"

"Hmm... somewhere pretty. Vermont."

"Really? Vermont?" Via said. "Boring. No, let's go to a city. Tokyo would be great."

"You think that I can learn Japanese?"

"I'm being optimistic."

"Boston. Final offer."

"Deal. And, we can travel a lot. We'll go to Tokyo. And Greece. And France," Via said. "Until then; I have to study."

"I'll talk to you later, baby."

"Bye," she said and the call clicked.

I sat in the quietness of my room. For the first night in a while, I had nothing to do. No girlfriend to bother, no shift to pick up, no homework to catch up on. Lately, I'd been drawing more- items around the house or images I pictured in my head. Mostly though, I was drawing Via. I sketched her studying, pulled her smile from memory when I was alone. I had almost filled my entire sketchbook in just these past few months. When I flipped through it, it looked like she was living inside.

For an hour that night, I played around with one sketch in particular of her sitting on her bed, hair draping down around her, before Will came home.

"Cleo?" he yelled a second after the door shut.

"In my room," I called back. He shuffled in and he stopped in my doorway, leaning his head against the door frame.

"Woah, bug. That's coming out really nicely," Will said, walking closer to admire my artwork. You couldn't make out who it was yet, not unless you'd really looked at Via. I don't know if anyone looked at her as much as I did, though.

"You're not taking art classes at school, are you?"

"I was. In freshman year," I said

"Why'd you stop?"

I shrugged, looking back down at the paper. "It felt like a waste of time, I guess."

"Obviously it wasn't," Will said before clicking his tongue. "Art was the one thing mom did right, ya know. Guess you inherited her good stuff."

He began to leave as I chuckled. "Looks like you're stuck with the alcoholism then, huh?"

* * *

It was Allison who opened the door instead of Via that afternoon. That meant bad news was coming.

"Hey," she said, giving me a sad smile. "What's up, Cleo?"

"Uh, nothing really. I'm here for Via."

"Yeah... mom's home, so-"

"I can't go upstairs," I finished. "Actually, I was just gonna drive her to Maggie's and get some food-"

"She's grounded, actually."

"Oh?"

"Yeah," Allison said shuffling on her feet. "Mom's home, so..."