In the morning of our second day, we went to visit a museum of classical art. The paintings were quite grand, and so were the sculptures. Many of them were nudes, though. I was usually fine with those. I mean: I loved art, and classic art was all about technique and style, however the subject was dressed was more of a minor detail. This time, though, each of those images immediately brought to my mind the memory of Ocean naked in the bathroom, the night before, and because of that, I spent a lot less time appreciating those artworks than I wish I could have.

To make matter worse, Ocean was with me nearly all of the time, since we got to the museum. The teacher’s instructions were that we should go in groups, and not separate from the group. Obviously, though, that meant me, Ocean and Tabatha going to visit the museum as one group. I avoided looking at her, because whenever I did, my eyes went straight to her body, and I really, really didn’t want anyone to notice that I was doing that.

Ocean herself seemed to be enjoying the visit immensely. She stopped for a long time at each of the paintings, staring intensely at them.

“Come on, Ocean!” Tabatha yelled, from the other end of the room, where we two were standing, waiting for her. “I wanna see the third floor!”

“Go ahead without me,” she said, not taking her eyes off the painting in front of her.

Tabatha scoffed. “She knows we can’t do that,” she told me.

“I wish we could,” I said, absentmindedly.

“Right? She’s just too slow.”

That was definitely not the reason I wished we could go without Ocean, but I still nodded all the same, because I didn’t want Tabatha to know there was anything more about this than what she already knew.

Later, when we were climbing the steps to the third floor, Ocean asked me a question.

“You don’t seem much interested in this, Polly,” she remarked, probably because I was always the first one of us to finish looking at all the pieces and wait for the others. “Not a fan of classical?”

“That’s not it,” I told her, sincerely. “I guess I’m just not in the mood, today.”

“Are you feeling ill?” Tabatha asked me. “We can stop, you know.”

“No, that’s not it,” I told her. “It’s just… personal stuff.”

“I see…” said Tabatha. “Hey, if it’s anything we can help you with, you can talk to us. Even if you just need someone to listen.”

I smiled. Tabatha really was a nice girl, wasn’t she? “I’ll be fine, but thanks,” I told her.

Somehow, even just that bit of conversation did already make me few a little better. By the afternoon, when we were visiting a modern art museum, I was a lot more interested in the works than I had been in the morning.

Ocean, on the other hand, thought most of them were a bore.

“Seriously, it’s just a bunch of blocks,” she said, criticizing one of the pieces we walked by. “Art is supposed to make you feel something. This just makes me feel like I wasted my ticket money.”

“Well, but there’s the concept as well,” I tried to argue, “these are here to question the very meaning of art. Duchamp once—”

“I know what the concept is,” Ocean interrupted me. “I just don’t care about it.”

Tabatha laughed. I gave up trying to argue. I mean, when you look at it, it really was just a bunch of blocks.

We arrived at the hotel at night feeling exhausted. Some of the boys and girls from the other groups suggested we checked a local bar, but the three of us were far too tired to go out again. None of us would be drinking, anyway, since we were all still minors.

Tabatha went to have a bath first, leaving Ocean and I both laying on our beds while we waited for her.

“Today was fun,” said Ocean. “Say, Polly, you’re a lot more interesting than I first assumed.”

I chuckled. “Right back at ya.”

She laid on her side, to look at me.

“I wonder why we never became friends in class, before.”

“Too many people,” I explained. Our class had over sixty students, that’s really a lot of people for just one room. “And I never thought we had an interest in common.”

“Maybe we should get to know each other better, then?” she suggested.

I snorted. Hearing her say that brought back to me the image of her naked in the bathroom. I guess I knew more about Ocean than I should.

“Sorry for suggesting it,” said Ocean, sounding mildly hurt.

“Huh? Oh, no, wait,” I protested. Shit, Polly, pay attention! Ocean had just suggested we become friends, and I laughed at her. I probably sounded like a jerk. “I’m sorry, I just… I would like to become friends with you.”

I laid on my side and look at her, as well.

“Really?” she asked me.

I nodded. “You’re fun. And sweet.” And sexy, I though. “And I like your taste in art.”

Ocean giggled. “Now you’re just mocking me,” she said.

“I mean it!” I told her.

“Even if I think most of the artists we saw this afternoon are pretentious jerks?”

“Aren’t they?” I asked, and we both laughed.

We went on chatting about art a while longer. To me, art was just a hobby, something that I was really into, in school, and one of my best subjects. It was a completely different matter for Ocean, though. I learned that she really wanted to pursue a career in plastic art, and that she often submitted her artworks for contests all around the country. Hearing that impressed me. I made her promise to show me some of her own work once we were back at home.

“Come to my place, one of these days,” she suggested. “My house is filled with the stuff. I’ll even let you choose one for yourself.”

“What? Really?” I grinned. “I’ll hold you to that.”

Ocean laughed.

“What are you two laughing about?” asked Tabatha, walking out of the bathroom.

“Ocean said she—”

“Noooo! Don’t tell her!” she exclaimed, interrupting me. “It’s a secret!”

Tabatha raised her eyebrows, incredulous.

“Fine,” she said. She sounded a little hurt, but I was fairly sure it was all an act. She walked to her bed and laid down, not looking at us. “Don’t tell me, then,” she continued. “Leave me out. I. Don’t. Care.”

Ocean giggled. “Okay, okay,” she said, “sorry Tabs. I’ll tell you. But you have to promise not to tell anyone, okay?”

Tabatha nodded.

“I’m an artist,” Ocean told her. “I do paintings, for contests here and there. I told Polly I’d give her one of mine.”

“You serious?” said Tabatha. “Why does only Polly get one? I want one too.”

“You see?” said Ocean, looking at me. “This is why I don’t want everyone to know. I don’t have enough paintings for the whole class.”

I nodded. “I won’t tell a soul,” I promised.

“You’d better,” she said, chuckling.

After that, I went to take my bath. When I finally got out again, there was only Ocean in the room, laying on her bed and messing around with her phone.

“Where’s Tabatha?” I asked.

“Marcy came over,” she explained. “They needed one more person to play cards with them.”

“Makes sense,” I said. The girls had all been split in groups of three, after all.

Ocean dropped her phone beside her, and sat up on her bed. “Are you still gonna use the bathroom? Can I take my bath now?”

“All yours,” I told her, pointing at it with my thumb.

“Great,” she said, getting up from the bed. She dashed into the bathroom, and I sat on my bed to dry my hair. Moments later, I heard her voice coming from in there. “Hey, Polly, you still there?”

“Yeah, what is it?” I replied.

“Could you help me out for a bit?”

“Sure,” I said, absentmindedly. I walked up to the bathroom, and opened the door. Ocean was standing in front of the mirror.

“It’s this zipper,” she told me, pointing at her back. Ocean was wearing a knee-length dress, which had a zipper on the back. “I can’t reach it,” she said.

“Oh, um… okay…” I said. Ocean stood with her back to me, waiting. I hesitated for a little bit. Like this, it was a bit as if I was going to undress her, and after what I had seen the night before, that kind of thought made me restless. But I had to stop thinking about that, and pull myself together. It was just a zipper, it wasn’t hard.

I quickly unzipped her dress. “There,” I told her, and turned around to leave.

“Thanks,” she told me, but I was already outside by then. I closed the bathroom door and went to lie down on the bed, where I then proceeded to bury my head in the pillow out of shame.