Disclaimer: What? You guys know I don't own this.

Author's Note: This little gem here wormed it's way into a Gerald/Phoebe fic I'm writing. It really didn't belong there so here it is. Enjoy!

Speechless

i. session one: it's all in his smile

Mr. Wilson is rambling on and on about the merits of charcoal when the doors open then shut –rather loudly- in the back of the room.

"Ah! What an entrance! You're just in time. Ladies, meet your model."

I watch as Arnold nervously smiles at everyone and I can feel my stomach jump to my throat. Naturally, he'd be here in the same space, breathing the same air as if I can't escape him. His eyes meet mine but only briefly before he's ushered onto the makeshift podium. Wilson shoves him onto the chair and turns to the rest of us.

"This darling young man will join us for the next three classes. Focus on lines and spaces where they connect to create him. You don't know him so you are forced to create emotion based on what you see. After all, isn't that what makes art great?"

I was fighting the urge to pull out my pink book during this speech. All of my emotions are swelling inside me, building lines and lines of poetry. Instead, I pick up my charcoal- -

"Hey gorgeous, do me a solid and let me borrow…?"

"Hey kid, if you can't even bring your stuff to class maybe you shouldn't be here."

-I try to get back to that place but the dumb frat boy next to me, who is taking this class for an easy A, ruined my mood. I feel Wilson behind me. I haven't drawn a thing and I can feel his disapproval. "Don't be scared to look until you feel inspired, darling. That's what he's here for."

I know he won't leave until I look so I pry my eyes away from the easel and really look at Arnold. The summer is good to him, he is tanned, fit and unruly all at once. I want to push the hair away from his face and really look into those green eyes. I won't say goodbye again. He blinks slowly –probably bringing himself out of a daydream and a ghost of a smile dances on his lips. I'll have this picture forever and that thought is enough to take my eyes off him and begin my sketch.

My sketch is amazing…too amazing.

The room comes alive again when Wilson stops circling the room and enters the middle of the circle. Class is over. Frat boy whistles next to me.

"You're making me look bad, this was supposed to be a cake class."

"I don't have to make you look bad."

He grins and puts an arm around my shoulders. "It turns me on when you insult me. Let's break the sexual tension."

"I'm going to break your hands if you don't stop touching me."

"Hard to get, huh? Okay, I like your style. See you later."

I try to relax once he leaves because I need to be calm to deal with the inevitable. I know if I try to duck out of here, he's going to try and catch up with me. Plus, I have to deal with him for two more classes. Wilson nods his approval at my sketch and everyone files out leaving me alone with Arnold.

"Stalking me, football head?"

He grins. Long as I live, I will never forget that smile. "This is the last place I expected to see you."

"Yeah, well…" He holds the door open and we leave campus together. I know he's going to walk me home because that's who he is so I don't fight it. Two more classes remember? I paid too much for this class to ruin it now.

"So why are you modeling in my art class?"

"Been doing odd jobs all summer. What about you?"

"Art helps when I've got writer's block."

"I saw the drawing you did of Phoebe in her yearbook. Will I get to see mine?"

"Ask Wilson."

He glances at me. "I only want to see yours if you let me."

My heart is beating a million miles a minute so I tell him, "You're such a sap football head. I've got to go to work so I'll see you around."

I run all the way to the bookstore without looking back.

ii. session two: or maybe those green eyes

I am dead on my feet. I pulled a double last night, stocking bookshelves and taking inventory 'cause I knew I wouldn't be sleeping. My hands are rough and covered in paper cuts. Didn't I say goodbye to him already? I'd tried hard (even come up with a well-rehearsed speech) not to be mean on that final day of classes. I was going to skip graduation and once I left for Boston, I'd never come back –so I wanted to make this right.

Have a nice life, Arnold. Good luck.

I had more but that was all I said before the bell rang and everyone swarmed his desk. Everyone loves Arnold. It was enough for me. It's not like we had an epic friendship- just two people who happened to know each other, and had five of the same classes in four years. That's it.

Except for me…it was always so much more.

Frat boy is absent (thank god) and Wilson has Arnold seated in such a way that he has to turn to look at me. In the name of art, I finish my coffee and take another good look at him. It's scary how much he really looks like the perfect mix of his mom and dad. The stubble is gone and his face is all strong lines except for the slight laugh lines around his eyes. I decide to start there today.

In the last sketch, I cheat. I take some of my green oils and start with the eyes- then there's splashes of green all over the paper. It's a meadow and he's there daydreaming. God, I'm hopeless. Wilson holds me over at the end of class. He's not one to gush over a student's work.

"This is not what we're doing here darling but this definitely belongs in your portfolio. Too bad you want to write, art works when words fail."

I'm tired but happy when I walk out of the building and collide into Arnold. I curse up a storm because you'd think after all these years, we'd grow out of that.

He shrugs when I tell him that after I'd stopped cursing. "I daydream a lot."

"Were you waiting for me?"

He nods. That's the thing about Arnold. He's honest. "You left so abruptly last time."

"I was late."

"Helga…" He can also almost always see through my crap.

"Okay, look. My art is personal. It took me years before I started getting my writing out there. Why are you so damn nosy anyway?"

His eyes are so green. He doesn't break his stare. "I don't really know that much about you so whenever you do say something about yourself…"

He lets the sentence drift into silence but doesn't break his stare. He blinks slowly again bringing himself out of his head and smiles. "It's just a fault of mine. I care too much about my friends' lives."

Some would call that a flaw. I wouldn't.

"Anyway, I've got another gig downtown. I'll see you next time, Helga."

And now he's running away from me.

iii. final session: but whatever it is…

I spent the night trying to come up with another goodbye. I owe it to Arnold to be civil at some point in his life. I always let it be when we have to say goodbye. It's easier to be nice when I know I might never see him again and if I do then his last memory of me will be a good one. Yet when I walk into the final session with Arnold as our model, all I have is good luck.

Today, Wilson is all set up when I walk in. Arnold is barefoot and shirtless on a couch that was probably borrowed from the café on the third floor. He looks…freaking amazing. I look around and notice I'm not the only one who thinks so. Frat boy is late and he is annoyed.

"I could've been the model." He says to me and Cheryl the girl on his right. She nods. I scoff.

"No one can properly capture your ego."

He winks at me. "You can try."

Ew.

Wilson hovers over me an hour into our sketching. Arnold is laying down with one arm behind his head. I think it looks amputated in my pictures but Wilson is making happy noises behind me. It's not enough, I want to tell him. I can't get it this time. I can't get it the way I want to look. When Wilson leaves, I stop. Arnold is looking at me from the corner of his eye. He is calm. I flip to a new page a try again.

He's probably going to be my muse forever.

Wilson collects the sketch books at the end of this session and everyone crowds around to say goodbye to Arnold. I manage to tell him good luck in the process and leave it at that. What else is there to say?

"Helga, wait!"

I'd know that voice anywhere. I stop and turn around and he's running toward me barefoot and shirtless with a book in his hands. He holds it out to me, "You didn't sign it."

I take the yearbook from him. It's filled with all types of signatures. I can't find an empty space anywhere. He laughs nervously. "Sorry about that."

I shrug. "Did you even sign mine?"

He gives me a weird look. "Yeah, Phoebe passed it around."

I find a spot near my senior picture. I hate the picture but whatever. "I didn't open it."

"Not curious?"

"Already lived those four years once."

I scratch out my goodbye: I never hated you, Arnold. Thanks for putting up with me.

For good measure, I stick the sketch with the mass of green into it. He doesn't question me.

"So this is it?"

I nod. "Classes end next week. I'll be driving into Boston a few days after so…I guess this is goodbye football head."

"Good luck."

And my last image of him is sweaty, shirtless and barefoot in the middle of the quad. I think about this as I'm rushing home after work to get to my yearbook. I skip the scattered messages to find his scrawled near his senior picture:

I'm sorry we never got to spend too much time together but Boston IS only three hours away from NYC. Keep in touch, Helga. I'd love to hear from you.

Author's Note: This feels different from anything I've ever written before! First person! Present tense! I hope I did a good job. I've been up writing this, trying to get it to sound the way I picture it in my head and of course re-reading it more than usual hoping I caught mistakes that will happen due to writing at 4-5am. No sequel.