“Thanks for picking me up Walter,” Hayley said as she jumped into the backseat of Walter’s ride.

“No problem,” he smiled at her through his rear view mirror.

Walter had gotten his license and even though I too had a license now, I didn’t have a car nor did I want one yet. Walter liked driving me to art school when he was free certain mornings and afternoons. His car was dark and gorgeous, quite like him.

“Did you do your sketches for the Christmas holiday?” I turned around in the passenger seat to look at her.

“I did one,” she grinned widely.

I laughed, “One? Hayley. They wanted at least ten.”

“I know, I know. I was going to do them all last night, but I got busy,” she said with a smirk.

“Busy doing what?” I arched a brow at her. “Eli was at home with us yesterday.”

“You thought.”

I widened my eyes and Walter started to chuckle.

“Eli’s sneaky like that,” he said as he passed a green light.

“He snuck out to see you?” I asked Hayley who was still smirking.

“Well I wouldn’t call it sneaking out on his part,” she replied. “He doesn’t have a curfew, that’s what he told me anyway. I was the one who had to sneak out to see him.”

“You’re brave,” I laughed lightly.

“I know,” she smiled. “My parents would kill me if they knew. They’ve already told me to stop seeing Eli.”

“Really?” Walter murmured in surprise.

“Yeah,” Hayley sighed and leaned the side of her dark haired head on the window.

I already knew of course. Hayley had called me almost in tears the night that she and Eli had been caught making out in her room. They’d been fully dressed, thank goodness, but after Hayley’s parents had politely sent Eli out of their house, they’d proceeded to give her an hour long lecture. Long story short, Eli was ‘too rough looking’ for her and they wanted her to stop seeing the boy, rumoured a gang member, as soon as possible. That had been in December of last year and Hayley and Eli had been sneaking around ever since.

“Eli never said anything about that,” Walter said as he quickly accelerated to avoid a red light.

I saw Hayley smile faintly through the rear view mirror, “Probably because it makes no difference to him.”

I grinned, “That’s pretty romantic of him.”

Walter was about to pretend to gag but he stopped himself, knowing Hayley wouldn’t appreciate that. She loved his brother openly, something that Walter (and Eli too) had difficulty showing. The two of them were still quite argumentative, but when it came to the important things, like gang matters, they were as close as all of their other brothers were.

We arrived at art school and Hayley thanked Walter again before getting out of his car. She walked up the stone steps and stood close to the main doors, where other students were either smoking or making their way in and out of the building.

“Have fun at training today,” I turned and said to Walter.

He smiled at me and caressed my cheek, “Thanks, you too at Uni.”

I closed the gap between us and gave him a gentle kiss.

“I’ll see you in the evening,” he said to me.

I nodded, already knowing my plan for the day. Walter kissed my forehead one last time, before I got out of the car and joined Hayley at the entrance to the art school, where she was waiting for me.

***

On arriving to our workshop, where we were the last in our group to show up, Hayley and I got started with our projects. I was working on making prints out of various materials that I would then use to make items of clothing and accessories. It was a meticulous project and took a lot of time, but I loved it. My supervisors had said that what I’d done so far was very good.

The course itself was three years long and during the first year, we were taught about many of the areas in the Textiles industry including weaving, printing, knitting and embroidery. There was the practical side of things where we would bring our designs to life, and then there was the theoretical side where we studied things like the social and cultural aspects to textile design. I naturally preferred the practical side because I could spend hours being creative, and as for the theory part, I didn’t much enjoy having to give presentations on my research in front of the group. I still managed it though, better than I would have in the past when I was a lot quieter.

“Hey Coral,” Hayley nudged my elbow as we sat side by side at one of the tables, working on our drawings. “Is she new?”

I followed her gaze to a girl with long and dark curly hair. She was sitting on another large table, completely focused on painting. I didn’t recognise her at all.

“I think so,” I replied. “She’s pretty.”

“Yeah,” Hayley nodded in agreement. “I wonder why none of the guys have tried to chat her up.”

I chuckled, “Maybe because barely any boys take this course?”

“True,” Hayley agreed with a grin. “She must be a transfer student if she’s joined just after the Christmas holiday.”

“Yeah,” I murmured.

“She looks lonely, do you want to go and talk to her?” Hayley asked me.

“I don’t want to interrupt her,” I shook my head.

That wasn’t the only reason. Like most other pretty (soon to be popular) girls, the new girl could be a bit fake or bitchy and I would rather have avoided that. That being said, Hayley, as a pretty girl herself, wasn’t like that at all. So I wouldn’t completely rule out the possibility that the new girl was a genuinely nice person like Hayley was.

Time passed quickly and some of the teachers had come round to see how we’d gotten on with our projects during the holiday. I’d had to hold back laughter when listening to Hayley stutter through her excuses as to why she hadn’t completed her work. She’d thought she’d been so badass earlier when declaring she’d only done one sketch. It had gotten so painful to watch in the end that I’d had to go and get some more watercolour pencils just so I wouldn’t burst out laughing in front of the teacher.