Author's Note: ((smiles sheepishly)) I messed up my own character's name in the last chapter... I addressed the letter from the art gallery to "Mr. Johnson" when it should have been "Mr. Jenkins". Stupid mistake. I apologize, and I hope that didn't cause any confusion in the last chapter.

Blink: She's an idiot, isn't she? Can't even remember the name of her own character...

Thanks for your sympathy, Blink. ((smacks him))

Disclaimer: The newsies belong to Disney, any song lyrics belong to their respective bands/artists, and I own Suzy, Mika, Manet, Toulouse, Bob Culley, Eric Jenkins, and his family.

And I, like a firework, explode

Roman candle, lightning lights up the sky

In cracked streets, trample underfoot

Side-step, sidewalk

I see you stare into space

Have I got closer now, behind the face?

-Promenade, U2

In the middle of the night I awoke with a start, sweating, one trembling hand reaching out into the darkness. A bar of moonlight gleamed across my forearm. My skin prickled weirdly, and I dropped my arm to my side, bemused. Why...?

I glanced down at the two lumps on my covers. My unexplained outburst hadn't woken Manet or Toulouse up, which was fortunate. It was just me. Alone.

Alone.

I rubbed my eyes, trying to clear my thoughts. I was alone, but I didn't feel alone. I had a sensation in my chest not unlike the feeling I had gotten when I was eight and had realized too late that the sandwich I was eating had been covered with ants. I was terrified, but there was nowhere I could run because the problem was inside me.

Moving carefully, I slid out from underneath the sleeping forms of my two dogs and climbed out of bed. I had no idea what the hell I was doing, but for some reason it felt like the most logical thing to do.

Everything felt smooth and cold and dreamlike, but if I was dreaming, I didn't mind. I stopped next to one of Vermeer's works that I had tacked to the wall and looked into the mirror, the sheet of smooth, black water. I didn't know why I was looking.

The young man who looked back at me didn't look like me, but somehow I wasn't alarmed. It was the same angular face, the same wild, unmanageable hair, the same skinny, amber-colored chest and bony elbows, but the mouth looked somehow sadder. Or happier. Or maybe it was the eyes that had changed—dark and liquid-looking and scared. Or more confident.

Unlimited... My future is unlimited...

I stared at the image of my own face, sharp and glowing and vivid in the shadows, and I saw myself the way Bumlets saw me, the way the rest of the world saw me. Fiercely beautiful, and quiet, with art in every curve, every bone, every muscle in my body. And the terror left me in an instant, and I suddenly felt that I could do anything, that I had to try everything, now, before it all slipped through my fingers like everything else.

I saw Toulouse lift his head from behind me in the mirror, staring at me. He looked so handsome in the dark, despite the gray hairs and arthritis. It struck me that he was probably going to die soon. He tilted his head and blinked blearily at me, obviously wondering what I was doing.

"Stop looking at me like that, I'm inspired," I said softly, and I left the room.

I felt somehow liberated, although nothing more had happened to me since Bumlets and I had kissed on the steps in my garage that afternoon. Maybe it was my rejection from the studio. Maybe it was for the best that I hadn't gotten in. I didn't know.

I turned on the light in my studio, hesitated, and then turned it off again. The moonlight only intensified my feeling of freedom.

And I stood there in the middle of my studio for some time, my hands in the pockets of my sweatpants. Then I smiled, made my way over to the window, and flung it open. The cool air stung my chest and face, and my smile broadened. Release.

My mind was racing a mile a minute as I stared out into the woods, my stomach tightening slightly from the cold air blowing across me. I leaned forward, gripping the windowsill, and let out a yell that echoed in the darkness and faded away slowly. I grinned. Violent. Illogical. Beautiful.

And I painted. I painted until the sun started to come up in the east, until my fingers seemed to be frozen to the paintbrush, until my back ached from crouching over the canvas for so long. I heard my dogs moving around downstairs, but they didn't disturb me, and they kept Suzy away too; they knew what I was like when I was in a mood like this. They understood me.

At around six in the morning, when the sun was almost fully risen and the sky was a dull gray, I finally sat back and looked with satisfaction at my results. My fingers were stained with about a thousand different shades of every color imaginable, but I didn't make to clean them off. It was how they should be.

"Not bad," I murmured as I looked the painting over. "Not bad at all." I felt sure, somehow, that if I had submitted it to the gallery, they would have accepted me. Even if they hadn't liked it, they would have accepted my work anyway. Because this one was beautiful.

Manet seemed to have lost patience. She did her notorious head-butt against the studio door and started barking softly, obviously very hungry. I sighed softly and set the painting to the side so that it could dry. If I didn't hurry, she would literally break through the door. And that would suck.

"Aww shut up, ya lightweight," I muttered fondly, opening the door just as she was about to fling herself at it again. With a yelp, she went flying inside and hit the wall with a dull thud.

I blinked. "You all right?"

She looked happily up at me, tongue hanging out, and then hopped to her feet and scurried out of the studio, unhurt. Of course. I tell you, that dog had an skull of steel—and it was totally and completely empty.

I decided to go and feed the two of them before she put herself into any more dangerous situations.

Suzy and I were having a staring contest across the breakfast table, and so far, I was losing.

"I can't believe you," I said in exasperation, my eyes locked onto hers. "First you impose yourself quite violently upon my generally peaceful life, then you eat all of Manet's food so that all I have left is stuff that gives her diarrhea, and now you're actually trying to intimidate me into feeding you my Cap'n Crunch! I won't have it, I tell you!"

Suzy growled.

"Okay, okay, I'm sorry I said anything!" I grumbled, and I set my bowl of cereal down before her and crossed the kitchen to put Manet and Toulouse's dirty dishes in the sink. "I'm that not hungry anyway."

There was a thump outside, and Manet yelped, tripped over Toulouse, and flung herself at the door. She had always gotten very excited over the newspaper, for some reason. One of the world's unsolved mysteries.

"All right, keep your pants on," I sighed, wiping my hands on the back of my sweatpants and making my way to the door. I opened it, let the dogs outside, and then went down to the end of my driveway to get the newspaper before they decided to eat it. Mutts are messed up that way.

"Anythin' good this mornin'?" I murmured, pulling the paper out of its plastic casing and unfolding it. "Hmm. Baby born with two heads. Must be from Westford."

"Good morning, Thomas Jenkins!" came a sing-song voice from across the street. I looked up to see Mika jogging up to me, wearing sweatpants and her soccer t-shirt. I had forgotten how insanely active she was. Anti-intellectual...

"Mornin', Mika," I said, looking back down at my paper.

Behind me, Manet and Toulouse yipped joyfully and then lunged at Michaela, almost knocking her over with their enthusiasm. She laughed and tried, unsuccessfully, to scratch both of the behind the ears at the same time while still carrying on a conversation with me. "So... How's Eric?" she asked in a would-be casual manner, trying to pry Manet off her.

"An asshole, as usual," I answered distractedly. "I'm taking care of his dog."

"Really?" she asked.

"Yeah. Scary-lookin' thing. I'm thinking of drowning it."

Mika stared at me, then decided to let that pass without comment. "Anything worth reading this morning?" she asked.

"Not really—" I began, but then I stopped.

The whole world stopped, actually. My eyes widened slightly, and I almost dropped the paper.

Mika looked at me, eyebrows raised in slight concern. "What's up?" she asked finally, and she kicked Toulouse off her leg and tried to stand next to me so that she could see what I was reading. "Aaugh, could you get your dogs off me? What are you looking at—Tooooo-oooom!"

I ignored her, my eyes fixed on one particular article on the bottom of the first page. "Holy shit," I breathed.

Gallery Director Bob Culley Murdered

By Hannah Pinsky

At approximately 11:30 PM on Friday, September 15, Robert Culley, director of the Maynard Art Gallery, was murdered in his sleep. Police investigations show evidence of numerous stabbings in the chest, stomach, and abdominal areas, thus causing Culley to bleed to death within minutes. The question of what weapon was used remains to be answered, but police suspect that Culley was stabbed with an ordinary kitchen knife of some sort. There is no evidence as of yet pertaining to why Culley was so brutally killed; examinations of records at the gallery are presently being carried out in further detail. According to a neighbor who wishes to remain anonymous, Mr. Culley spent the afternoon at the gallery and returned home at approximately...

I really did drop the newspaper then, my hands were shaking so much. What the fuck was going on?! I was, admittedly, rather pissed off at Culley for not accepting my work, but now that he was dead... I shuddered slightly and closed my eyes, my stomach tightening convulsively.

...numerous stabbings in the chest, stomach, and abdominal areas...

I lurched forward suddenly, dropped to my knees, and retched all over the driveway. "Holy crap—Tom, are you all right?" Mika cried. She hopped lightly over Toulouse and knelt beside me, wrapping an arm around my bare shoulders. "What's goin' on? Are you okay? Listen, I can go and get some help—do you want—"

Her words were cut off by another wave of vomit. I bent low, trying to tuck my knees to my chest, disgusted by myself. This was absolutely ridiculous... but at the same time, it wasn't. All I wanted to do was to black out, to escape for a minute, to delete that article from my memory forever.

And then I looked up.

"SHIT!" I choked out, and with my last bit of energy I flung myself out of the driveway, pulling Mika with me. I groaned and fell back against the grass, which was wet with dew and felt cold and slimy against my back. Gross.

"Tom, what the hell was—" Mika started, but she soon realized that I wasn't listening to her.

"Is there a reason you were kneeling in the middle of your driveway at seven o'clock on a cold, Saturday morning?" asked Bumlets, leaning out the window of his van and smiling at me. "You all right?"

"Well I..." I hesitated, not exactly eager to disclose the fact that I had just emptied the contents of my stomach into the pavement. "I'm fine."

Michaela stared at me. "Are you all right, Tom?" she asked softly.

I lifted an eyebrow. "We just established that I'm fine," I said, a little more sharply than I had originally meant to. "How come you always—What? Why are you looking at me like that?"

"What do you mean?" she asked, her voice still unusually soft.

"You're looking at me like I've got four heads."

She sighed and shrugged slightly, before pulling herself to her feet. "I dunno," she muttered. "I guess I just—I mean, if you wanted me to go, you could have—" She sighed. "I'll see you later, Tom."

She left. And for once, Manet didn't chase after her and try to chew on her shoelaces.

"What. The. Fuck."

"Ditto," said Bumlets, staring after her, dark eyes wide. "Y'know, I've met this girl twice, and both times she's been absolutely bizarre."

"She's not always like that!" I moaned, putting my face in my hands. "I dunno—maybe you maker her horny or something. She's usually a really nice person, except for the fact that she's in love with my brother."

Bumlets climbed out of his car and began to go through the trunk to get out his tools. "Isn't he married, though?" he asked, and his voice was slightly muffled.

"He has three kids."

"Ah yes, I remember now. Floyd, right?"

I looked down at the newspaper in my hands, and then over at the puddle of you-know-what directly under Bumlets' van. If he didn't move it any time soon, he might not notice it. I just had to make sure Manet didn't try to eat it or anything.

"All right, I'm going inside," I said.

"You're leaving me?" Bumlets gasped, pouting. "What if Michaela comes back and tries to slaughter me because I make her horny? What will I do then?"

I laughed. "I'm not feeling so great—I think I'm gonna get some Pepto Bismol. I'll be back out in a little while."

"Heartburn, nausea, indigestion! Upset stomach, diarrhea! HEY! PEPTO BISMOL!"

"...I'm not even going to ask."

"I'm going on the roof now."

I smiled at him, and he stared at me for a minute, a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. Then he reached forward and gently touched my bare chest, just above my heart. I caught his hand in mine. It was brown and firm and strong, rough from working on roofs for so long. The fingers were slightly longer than mine. "I'm sick, Bumlets," I said softly, looking up.

"I know," he answered with a grin.

"Do you want to throw up?"

"Did you throw up?"

I paused. "Um, no. Of course not." I tried not to look at the puddle under his van. I had always been a terrible liar.

Bumlets smiled at me. "Well then. I don't see what the problem is," he said, and he leaned forward and softly pressed his lips against mine. I kissed him back after a moment of hesitation, running my fingers along the curve of his jawbone and through his hair. He was beautiful, and he was mine.

Toulouse nipped at the back of my leg, and I broke away, panting slightly, and stared at him. He never nipped anyone. "What?" I demanded, glaring at him.

He seemed to smile at me, before walking away to chase a butterfly with Manet. Cocky.

Bumlets' smile broadened slightly. For some reason, my dogs' obnoxious antics had always amused him. "Pepto Bismol?" he asked, touching my ear.

"Yeah, I guess."

"Cool."

I sighed and looked at him, and he tilted his head and smiled at me. "I can never tell what you're thinking," he said after a moment. "Where'd you get the poker face?"

The poker face.

The famous Thomas Jenkins poker face.

I suddenly found myself reliving all those childhood scenes most people forget when they get older, but I somehow never managed to forget because they were all I had. Eric and his friends locking me in the basement for the night while out parents were out for dinner. The girls in my art class making fun of me because I was the only boy who liked to paint. Eric letting my snake out of its tank on April Fools. Searching for the snake. My dad finding it dead in the middle of the road the next morning with tire tracks across its middle. My mother forgetting my birthday. My classmates forgetting my name.

Who's the quiet kid who sits in the back of the room?

Who?

You know who I'm talking about—the one who does nothing but paint?

Oh, him. He has a name?

Everyone has a name, stupid.

Let's just call 'im Swifty or somethin'. He's always runnin' away from his older brother like it's life or death.

Swifty. I like that.

Nine-year-old Thomas Jenkins in one word: invisible. Absolutely and completely invisible. I was the kind of kid who sat in the corner during class and pretended not to exist—and, after a while, people started to believe me. They forgot I was there. I didn't want them to know how much it hurt me when they looked through me like that, so I developed a sort of ever-present, impassive facial expression. It's been there ever since.

I was still invisible, in a way. I barely spoke to anyone but my dogs, and they didn't even speak back. It was just me—me and the dogs, me and the paint, me and the poetry at midnight and the open windows and the dog hair covering the floors.

Me and the bad grammar.

They were still there. The scars, I mean, from Eric and his friends. The thin, pale lines spider-webbing over the upper half of my right arm and across the top of my chest. I couldn't remember where half of them came from, but they still gave me a dull, nauseous feeling in the pit of my stomach whenever I looked at them. They reminded me of things I'd rather not be reminded of.

Very gently, Bumlets kissed my cheek. "I'm sorry I said anything," he said with a small smile.

I started. "No—augh, it's okay, I'm just..."

Invisible.

"You did throw up, didn't you?" said Bumlets without taking his eyes off mine. "There's a huge puddle of puke under my van, isn't there?"

"Yeah," I choked out. I swallowed with difficulty and focused on his hand, which was still held tightly in mine. He was the only thing I fucking had right now.

"Your poker face is deteriorating," he said, his smile broadening.

I swallowed again. "I know."

"Not that that's a bad thing."

"Of course not."

"Not a bad thing at all."

"Naturally."

He looked at me. "Are you still sick? …'Cause I really want to kiss you again."

Shoutouts!

Sinhe: Thank you! I'm glad you're enjoying this! ((gives you a daisy))

tuesday nellwyn: Aaaaaahh... I was hoping none of my reviewers would really know about the art industry, lol. I myself am a freshman in high school, and I admit I'm completely winging this. Thanks for your reviews! (And don't worry, I was happy when Swifty got turned down too. But I'm just mean to my characters that way.)

Braids21: Ahhh! Sprace to my door?! Oh how I love you! ((flying tackle-glomp)) Thanks for reviewing (multiple times, lol)! HOORAY FOR "THE BREAKFAST CLUB"!

Erin Go Bragh: Ohh how I love Sputchy... It's so awesome! Dutchy is my honey-pie! ((blinks)) I just said "honey-pie". Please help me.

Dakki: Dude, you've fucking memorized "The Breakfast Club". That's fantastic. I love you. (And Dalton channeling Bender, which I found vastly amusing.)

DALTON: I am going to be the lead saxophonist of The Subconscious Crew Team! ((goes into a mad saxophone solo, shaking his head around like Steven Tyler))

Thanks for reviewing!

Aelia O'Hession: I'm definitely not a fan of poodles. I like mutts, though. :-) Thanks for reviewing!!

Sapphy: (Dude, my computer finally stopped spell-checking your name. Sweet!) HAHA! Yeah, that was pretty much my reaction when I first saw The Matrix. I couldn't look at my belly-button for weeks... ((shudders)) Anyway, thanks for reviewing!

Author's Note: ((hops around)) I'm going to see Wiiiiiiiiiiiickeeeeed this weeeeeeeekeeeeeend!

Blink: Which explains the constant and rather irrelevant references in her fanfiction lately.

I'm excited.

Blink: Obsessed.

Infatuated.

Blink: Possessed.

I haven't been able to eat or sleep for days.

Blink: We're taking her to the exorcist tomorrow.

((A.D.D. moment)) Ooooh, guess what!

Blink: ((exasperatedly)) What?

I was reading Sports Illustrated last night, and I found the funniest quote about Johnny Damon. "In the seventh inning, using the blazing speed he jokingly claims he developed while trying to outrun mobs of ugly girls who chased him as a kid, the centerfielder stole second base after making his way to first on fielder's choice."

Blink and Saturday: ((picture little Johnny being chased by ugly girls)) ((pause)) ((burst out laughing))

Anyway. Thanks to all reviewers, I love you like hell—please leave another review, and join my be-an-ugly-girl-who-chases-Johnny clan! ;-)

-Saturday