Celeste gazed at the lunch menu, a grimace on her face. Why did they always have to serve so many gross things? On a normal occasion, she would gladly eat a hamburger but here, she knew it would be too undercooked to possibly be edible. Eventually deciding it would be best to just eat later, she approached the table where she and the others normally sat at and took her seat. Lysander was seated across from her like usual, studying the empty space where her tray should be curiously.
"I don't like the school lunches," she said.
"Why don't you pack a lunch?" he asked.
She shrugged. "It never crosses my mind in the morning," she said, "I should though."
He nodded slowly, returning his gaze to his food and pushing it towards her. She was a bit surprised but shook her head quickly.
"That's really nice of you, but I couldn't," she said, "Then you wouldn't have a lunch."
He shrugged. "I'm not very hungry," he said.
"No, really," she said, "I'll eat later, I'm fine."
His brow went up. "Somehow I have a hard time believing that you'll eat later," he said, "Take it."
Celeste nibbled on her lip a bit before finally agreeing. It was a packed one, and an exquisite one at that.
"Wow," she said, "Did you buy this or make it? It's really good."
He breathed a chuckle, avoiding her gaze. "My brother made it," he said.
"Oh," she said, "I didn't even know you had a brother."
Celeste began eating her new lunch, feeling extremely grateful towards Lysander for his consideration. Maya plopped down beside her, her cheeks puffed out and her brow furrowed and she looked rather cute with that expression on her face.
"What's wrong?" Celeste asked.
"Nathaniel just blew me off," she muttered, "I went into the student council room and he was like 'I'm busy'."
Her mocking impression of Nathaniel evoked a giggle from Celeste. "I wish you'd break up with him," she sighed, feeling a pang of guilt from what she knew about him, "He's a jerk, he really is."
"What did he say when you talked to him?" Maya asked.
She shrugged. "Not much," she said, "He's just a wimp. He doesn't deserve you." She grinned at Castiel, seated across from Maya. "Date Cas instead," she said, "I'm sure he'll be ten times as chivalrous as Nathaniel."
Castiel gave her a glare and Maya sighed. "I want Nathaniel though," she said, "He's the one I love."
"I'm sorry, honey," Celeste said, "Why don't you try to win him over again?"
"How should I do that?" Maya muttered, "He doesn't pay enough attention to me to even notice that I'm trying to win him over. I could literally walk up to him in nothing but stockings and heels and he would hardly notice. That is, unless we were in public; then he would complain that I'm embarrassing him." She rolled her eyes and sighed. "Now that you mention it, I wish that I would've fallen for Castiel instead. I bet things would be a lot easier for me."
Castiel scowled at being forced into the conversation. "Instead of crying about it, why don't you buy him something… or something?"
"I'm not crying about it," she said, puffing her cheeks out even further, "and the only thing he let me buy him before was protection. He obviously doesn't need that now, considering he's hardly giving me anything at all."
"Buy him a calculator," Celeste muttered, "I bet he'd like that."
"No, seriously," Maya said, "I really have no idea what I should get him. I don't think he'd want clothes, I'm not buying him protection if he's not going to use it, and he gets mad at me when I buy him food… hmm…"
"I'm just going to tell myself that you'll break up with him before graduation," Celeste said, "Seriously, if this was a TV show, I would ship you and Castiel as a pairing."
This time Maya rolled her eyes. "I'm serious," she sighed.
"I agree with Celeste," Castiel said, before flushing a bright red, "I mean about the first part. I never liked him."
"You guys, stop telling me to break up with him," Maya said, "I'm not going to do that; not unless he does something really bad." Celeste sighed, returning to her lunch without another word on the matter.
After lunch, Celeste thanked Lysander again before walking to class with him. She hadn't realized how much taller than her he really was, since she normally wore high heels and today she wore flat boots. Her hand brushed his as she walked at his side and the touch suddenly gave her an idea; maybe if she could feel his face, she would know what she was doing wrong. As quickly as the thought sprung into mind, she pushed it away since she couldn't just walk up to him and ask to feel his face; he would wonder where her sanity had gone and she didn't want to ruin things since they were going on the right path so far. As they drew near her next class, she felt a bit unsettled, yearning for the walk to be longer.
"What's your next class?" she asked.
"History," he answered.
"Oh okay," she said. She wanted the conversation to last longer but that felt impossible since she couldn't think up a good enough conversation for him. The door to her classroom came all too soon and she waved goodbye.
"Wait," he said, to her surprise, "are you doing anything after school?"
"No," she said, her lips pinching up into a smile, "Why?"
"I was curious about your paintings that you told me about," he said, "Could you show me?"
"Yeah, sure," she said, "I'll meet you in the art room."
He gave her a smile and was on his way towards his class. Celeste turned and took her assigned seat. The second she sat down, she pulled out her sketchpad and began drawing. She drew a kitten, a tree, a pencil, anything she thought of to distract herself since she knew she wouldn't be able to focus for the rest of the day.
After school, Celeste studied her paintings, specifically pulling the one of Lysander from the group she planned to show him and hiding it in Miss Cunningham's stack of class paintings. The rest of them didn't show that she was intending for it to be about him, so she decided it was settled and began watching the clock, studying it's movements for about five minutes before deciding to paint to ease her anxiety at Lysander's being late. She set up the canvas on an easel and prepared regular paint on a pallet, a brush in her hand. She began painting the sky, giving precise details to the clouds. She had one half of the canvas filled when she decided to paint the other half as the night sky. She turned to glance up at the clock when she realized that Lysander was right beside her, watching her paint.
"Oh I didn't even notice you," she chuckled. She turned back to her painting, blending the darker blue and the lighter blue together before painting the night sky, leaving tiny spots where the stars would be.
"Is this just a leisure painting?" he asked curiously. She nodded.
"The others on the table are for the art gallery," she said, "This one I'm just doing for fun."
"You're very talented," he said. She grinned at his compliment as she finished up the painting, signing a cloud in very tiny writing before setting the painting on Miss Cunningham's desk. She turned to see him gazing at her other paintings that she had set out on the table.
"Do you like them?" she asked, "The art gallery owner hasn't seen all of them yet. The only person who has besides me and you now is Miss Cunningham."
"I do like them," he said, a small smile pinching up the corners of his lips, "They're very beautiful paintings."
Grinning, she said, "Thank you. I worked really hard on them."
"It shows," he said.
Celeste approached him and stood beside him, pointing at the paintings and listing off their names as he nodded each time to show he was listening.
After she had named them off, she turned to him. "Oh," she said, "I just remembered you didn't have a lunch. Do you want to go get something to eat?"
"Actually, I usually go eat with my brother at around this time," he said, "but you're more than welcome to join us, if you'd like."
She grinned. "That would be nice," she said, "I've never met your brother before. Oh, I have my car today so we don't have to walk."
He nodded and gestured her to lead the lead the way. She did so, leading the way out of the school and through the parking lot, to her car. She sat in the driver's seat and he in the passenger's seat.
"Okay so where are we going?" she asked.
"It's an apartment building," he said, "You just drive south down that street and its a few blocks away from the beach."
She nodded and pulled out of the parking lot, following his instructions towards his home. She drove into another parking lot for the apartment he'd instructed her to go to and let him lead the way up to his apartment. He opened the door and stood in the doorway, greeting someone.
"I brought a guest, if you don't mind," Lysander said.
"Who?" the voice inside said curiously.
Lysander stepped aside for Celeste to enter ahead of him and she gazed around. It was just a regular apartment. It was a bit small but if it was just these two living here, then it wouldn't be too cramped for them.
"Hi," she said to the boy, "I'm Celeste."
"Leigh," the boy said with a smile, "You're staying for dinner?"
"That was the plan," Celeste said. Leigh nodded and disappeared in the kitchen as she turned to Lysander to see him close the door. "Can I look around?" she asked curiously.
"If you'd like to," he said.
She gave him a smile and curiously poked her way around the apartment, careful not to look through anything. By the time she had finished, Leigh was finished with the food. Lysander led her into the kitchen, where Leigh had a dinner set up at the table. She sat in the available seat in between the two boys. With a smile, she slowly began to eat; the food was delightful.
"I don't know if it's because I haven't had a home cooked meal in a while or not, but this is really good," she said, "Who taught you how to cook?"
Leigh gave her a chuckle. "It was something I had to learn," he said, shrugging, "since Lysander and I would be living alone together, one of us has to cook, right?"
The rest of the meal was in silence as Celeste curiously wondered if every meal they had was this quiet or if it was just her. She finished her meal first and took her plate to the sink, waiting for the two boys to finish.
"That was a great meal," Celeste said, grinning, "Thank you both for having me, but I've been procrastinating my work a little too much now. I'll see you tomorrow, Lysander." She waved goodbye, which he returned.
"It was a pleasure," Leigh said.
"Bye, Leigh," she said before leaving.
As she climbed into her car, she took a few deep breaths as she realized she was making progress with him without even realizing it. What had she learned? That he has a brother named Leigh, they live alone together, he's chivalrous enough to give her his lunch and what else? Well it was progress anyway. She smiled to herself the whole drive home.