Never Enough by Denise Jaden

I’d spent photographing our yard, this new addition made me want to tilt my head to try to frame it. It would make a great photo.
    I reached across my desk to grab my camera, then pulled it up to my face, bringing Josh and Claire quickly into focus.
    Seconds later, I had the shot. And it was perfect.
    I placed my camera on the desk gently, then looked up in time to see Josh walking to his car. As Claire headed for the front door, Josh backed his car out of our driveway. When he pulled into the street, he looked up to my bedroom window. I stayed perfectly still, hoping the dark would conceal me. But I knew by the way his eyes lingered, my room wasn’t quite dark enough.

CHAPTER EIGHT
     
    By the next day, I was so psyched at not having to go to drama class that I’d actually picked up some of Marcus’s confidence about our ability with the set.
    “Come on,” I said, grabbing him by the arm and dragging him through the hallway. “It’s our first day of stagecraft.”
    His eyebrows rose, but I suspected he was holding back a smile. “What’s got you so excited all of a sudden? Been taking your caffeine intravenously today? Or got some brilliant construction ideas?” When I let go of his arm, he shoved his hands deep into his pockets.
    “Well, no. But I’ve been looking over the script and I took a book out of the library on set design. I don’t know, I thought it might spark something.”
    Marcus didn’t agree or disagree with this, but when wewalked into the backstage area and I remembered just how haphazard the whole place was, my enthusiasm faltered.
    Marcus headed over to a pile of what looked like garbage and started pulling off pieces of drywall and wood. “Why don’t we see if there is anything usable here first?”
    Okay. What was a usable-sized piece? I moved over to the pile and followed his lead. I held up pieces and asked him if he thought this or that would work for anything, but his answer was always no.
    “What are we going to do?” I asked under my breath for probably the hundredth time.
    Marcus must have heard me, because this time he replied. “We’ll figure it out,” he said. “Just don’t give up hope.”
    When the bell rang fifty minutes later, we left the place in more of a mess than we’d found it, and even though we’d flipped through my book, the elaborate designs only depressed me more.
    Hope. How was I supposed to have hope?
    The next couple of days were much the same, except we tidied up a bit and took the odd break to walk the stage in a vain attempt to find inspiration. We headed to the Arts Club after school each day, and I became more and more comfortable being with him, even when neither of us had anything to say. In fact, the quieter it grew, the more comfortable I became. Normally I worried about saying the right thing, butI didn’t have to worry about the way I acted or what did—or didn’t—come out of my mouth with Marcus.
    *   *   *
     
    “Hey, drama queen,” Marcus said when I showed up at our lockers Monday morning. “Can’t wait to get back to our kingdom.” He nodded toward the theatre.
    Did that make him my king? I didn’t care if it was a joke. It still warmed my insides.
    I gave him an eye roll to combat my giddy smile. Just then Shayleen and Deirdre rounded the corner. Deirdre looked away like she hadn’t seen me, but Shayleen stared straight at me.
    As she passed by, she let out a breathy laugh.
    Good. Laugh all you want. He’s a real friend , I felt like saying. But I bit my lip.
    “What do you have now?” Marcus asked, distracting me.
    “Art,” I gulped out. I wished I had Marcus’s ability to not let things affect me.
    I’d finally gotten my drawing portfolio back from Mr. Dewdney with a B at the top. The plethora of notes about different ways I should try looking at my subjects made me feel like he was being nice with the B. But I had a good eye, I knew I did. It was getting it from my head to my paper that screwed me up. If