We were all in art class and we were just about to begin the lesson when Miss Hart, soon to be Friar, said "Right, to you're all going to be drawing a portrait of the thing that means something to you. Know I asked you to bring in a picture of said subject so any questions?"
The boy next to me Cory raised his hand and said, "Will you be drawing anything Miss Hart?" She just smiled and nodded her head.
We were about 30 minutes into the two hour art lesson when Miss Hart's phone rang. She looked at the caller ID and said," Class I just need to take this I'll be back soon." She leaves the class with the door still open a little bit, so we could faintly hear her side of the phone call...
"Hey you... wait what... you got it... that's fantastic, okay what's the bad news?... what do you mean you lost your key?... get the locksmith to change the locks and then come and give me a copy... Anyway how's Ember... that's good, she slept for you yet?... Haha, maybe she just loves spending time with you Hee-Haw... I've grown a little since that nickname... yeh yeh I love you too Huckleberry... any way got to go see you later."
She re-entered the room and had a little smile on her lips, she just sat down and carried on drawing.
1 hour later
There's a knock at the classroom door Miss Hart looks up and smiles then says, 'Right. Times up pencils, marker and paint brushes down.' She makes the motion for the guest to come in.
The door opens and a tall tanned hunk-of-a-man walks in with a baby strapped to his chest. I swear all the girls are immediately making Disney princess doe eyes at him, Miss Hart just chuckles.
"Hey shortstack " he said with a smug grin on his face. Miss Hart looks mortified but luckily it was only me that heard the nickname as the other girls are either checking their makeup in their compact mirrors or making heart eyes and the boys are sizing him up.
"Class, this is Lucas, my fiancé. And this," she says picking the baby out of the holder," is Ember, our 8 month old baby."
Then a combination of the greetings "Hello, Hi, and OMG" are said. Miss Hart tells us that he will be here for the last 30 minutes of the class and to start sharing. The pictures range from dogs to teddy bears.
Then it's my turn and I drew a bench. Miss Hart just smiles not in a condescending way but in an ' I understand the sentiment' "why a bench?" Joe calls out. "Well..." I start "when I was younger I had this best friend we grew up together but she got... erm... attacked," everyone's faces fall Miss Hart jumps in "you don't have to share if you don't want-"
"No Miss it's okay... she survived the attack but she wasn't the same then last year she killed her self," I pause too wipe the tears that had fallen down my cheeks " she wrote her suicide note on the back of a picture of the two of us sitting on this bench." Miss Hart got up, still holding Ember, and gave a tight hug. Ember makes a little gurgling sound and that makes me giggle.
Last but not least is Miss Hart's turn to share. It's a picture of a campfire, and a dozen or more stars in the sky and in the corner there's a picture of Ember and in another corner is an accurate drawing of her engagement ring, in the third corner there's a bull with three people and the blonde, obviously Miss Hart is turned away from the boy and the brunette, the boy obviously Lucas, holding hands then in the final corner is a picture of them both lip locked and the words happy new year written above. "So I have lots of moments that even though may seem sad made me the way I am," she took a pause and looked to Lucas who just smiled in awe at the drawing.
"So the biggest one is the first time we kissed, we were in 8th grade and we were in Texas, his hometown, for the first time and we were at the campfire and it was a magical night. The next one is obviously Ember she changed my life helped pull me out of a dark place... this one is after Lucas rode a bull named tombstone!" She paused and glared at Lucas who cringed and said "technically yours and Riley's idea you singed me up for it..." " I only signed you up for it because I was reading it too fast and thought it said sheep... anyway I told him I wouldn't speak to him again if he rode the bull and I didn't speak to him or Riley for at least 4 hours! And the last one was when we ended up together that was when we were in college and everything was simple." You could see that Miss Hart's mind had wondered off so Lucas reached out to touch her shoulder and she flinched away but when she recognised it was only Lucas she relaxed into his touch.
Then the bell rang and she told everyone they got an 'A' and told them she'll see them tomorrow with another fun activity to do.
I stayed behind to talk to Miss Hart. "Miss Hart?" "Yeh Becky?" "I just wanted to say that I think I know what you went through coz it happened to me and my friend only I started to get better she went off the rails so I just wanted to say thank you for being strong enough to get through the dark times." I wasn't looking at her and when I did I see her wipe tears away and move to hug me. She replied saying," thanks to you too and how many times have I told you kids to call me Maya??" I giggled and said bye I looked back as I closed the door and saw Maya embraced in Lucas' arms with Ember in between them you could see Maya's shoulders shaking as Lucas whispered words of encouragement in her eyes.
