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Doesn’t anyone want to do anything new? Or unexpected?!”
    “I do!” he exclaimed.
    “Me, too!” I yelled, louder than necessary.
    Then neither of us knew what to do, until he leaned in and kissed me. It was just a peck, really, but it took me aback.
    “There’s something new,” he said.
    “And unexpected,” I added, pulling away. I could feel my face flushing. I didn’t want to like him. I wanted to turn and walk away, but I couldn’t.
    “I’m sorry they did that. If it’s any consolation, it’s just what they do. Pranks are big here, especially on the new students.”
    I didn’t respond. I wasn’t going to say something like “it’s okay,” because it wasn’t.
    “Can I show you something?” he asked. “Something amazing.”
    “Why?” I said it without thinking but then realized that’s what I really wanted to know—
why? Why did you follow me? Why did you just kiss me? Why are you even talking to me?
But I couldn’t ask him any of that.
    “You’ll see. Come,” he gestured to the big mausoleum in the middle of the cemetery. “It’s the Founders Tomb.”
    I hesitated.
    “You’re not afraid, are you?”
    “No,” I said. I wasn’t afraid of the tomb.
    As we walked silently toward the vault, I heard my blood pulsing in my ears. My heart was thumping soloudly I worried Malcolm might hear it as we slipped into the narrow entrance and stood alone in the darkness. He stopped in front of the farthest slab wall. As my eyes adjusted to the gloom, an artwork slowly revealed itself, as if being painted by an invisible artist.
    I gasped. It was extraordinary: a landscape—a view of a seemingly endless lake with one protruding rock on its horizon—faded from years trapped inside the dank stone vault.
    “Edward Hopper,” he said softly.
    “Seriously?”
    “Did you know he went here?”
    I was stunned. I had no idea. But then I smiled. Why should I be surprised at anything I learned about this place?
    “They never talk about it because he got kicked out. But, rumor is, he did it.”
    “I can’t believe it’s still here,” I breathed. “That no one’s removed it or tried to sell it somehow.”
    “No one dares touch the Founders Tomb,” Malcolm said. I couldn’t tell if he was being serious or sarcastic.
    I searched my pockets to see if there was a scrap of charcoal. There usually was. I found a stub. I stepped back from the painting to look at it again, take the whole thing in. Then I leaned in very close and started to draw. I didn’t draw
on
the painting—I’d never do that—but I drew above it: an angel in flight appearing as if she was emerging from the mist on the lake.
    I stepped back to take a look. It was only then I saw Malcolm’s face. That sublime, defective smile. “It’s incredible,” he said.
    I looked down, embarrassed. Then he seemed a little uneasy as well. I wasn’t sure why until he hesitantly asked, “You wanna see something I did?”
    I nodded, and he walked me to the other side of the chamber. There was a small intricate drawing of a forest.
    “Is it in ink?”
    He nodded and I looked closer. The trees were all the same or nearly identical. There was one tree in the center that appeared to be like the others at first glance. But coursing through its roots—its veins—was a streak of red. Bright red ink.
    “It’s a self-portrait,” I said with certainty.
    He looked surprised, but then not at all.
    “So you’re an artist, too,” I added.
    He shook his head. “No.”
    “Yes,” I insisted.
    He smiled, as if grateful that I thought so, but insisted, “It’s not something I can do.”
    “What do you mean ‘can’? You obviously can.”
    “Expectations, you know?”
    I shook my head. No, I did not know.
    “There’s just a lot of pressure to be a certain way. Do the same things my dad did. And that doesn’t include making art.”
    “What
does
it include?”
    “Wickham Hall student government, crew team captain, Harvard, Yale Law School.