Get Lost Read Free Page A

mark.”
    “Don’t you mean player?”
    “Player implies you’re participating, that you are involved in something willingly. Mark means you’re the target, and the game is you.” His words are almost like a snack for the mind—not quite profound enough to be in a philosophy book yet not meaningless enough to shrug off.
     

Chapter Two
     
    I drag my charcoal pencil around the outline of Justin’s face once more, hoping to catch its solid stone cut. For some reason, I just can’t stop thinking about him. While I didn’t spend nearly as much time with him as I would have liked, it was still long enough to get my mind wondering. Why me? Why on earth would he fall right into my world?
    Determined to at least get his eyes right, I gently shade them in with a pastel color, doing my best not to grin from ear to ear. Once they’re shaded in completely, I take my index finger and gently create a soft, smeared look with the deep blue. Resting my face on my bent arm and hand, I admire his mystery. It’s strange to be infatuated with a guy I just met, but at the same time, I can’t remember the last time anyone actually talked to me, let alone listened.
    Classmates stroll out of the room for the lunch period, while my eyes stay focused on his in the sketch. It’s like he’s got me pinned right in my desk. Picking up the pencil again, I begin editing the details of his playful lips while smiling to myself as the clever things he said yesterday ring in my ear.
    “You’ll lock up, right?” Ms. Kennedy asks from the back of the room beside the door, her purse and work bag draped over her shoulder.
    “Always.” I glance over and nod. “Anything in the kiln I need to worry about?”
    “Not today.” She shakes her bright blond hair that’s got huge twists and braids all through it. With one more pull of her pastel tie dyed dress, she pushes up her falling glasses and waves me goodbye.
    As I shade in the last few lines of the curve of his grin, I hear footsteps and voices whispering as they enter the room. Assuming it’s just students who forgot their art history books from the last class, I merely tuck my bottom lip into my mouth and continue shading.
    “I don’t remember you looking that good in real life,” a voice bellows out as his large hands land on my desk. Startled, I pop my head up to see Justin with a warm smile and what I can only assume is his best friend from the response to the drawing and his cocky demeanor. Uncomfortable, I quickly attempt to shut my sketchbook and begin to trip over my own words. “I was just…well, I mean…and well, you…but I’m…and then…”
    “It’s okay.” Justin smirks, plopping down backwards in the desk in front of me and placing a hand on the drawing to keep the book open. “It’s really good.”
    I feel flattered, and my entire body temperature reaches the level of the kiln before I can chirp out, “Thanks.”
    After a lingering look, he gives his lips a lick and points to his eyes. “I like that they’re the only things colored in the sketch.”
    Instantly, I shrug. “It’s kind of one of my trademarks, especially when I journal. I like to sketch with black and pop with a pastel color. I feel it gives attention to the appropriate detail.”
    My hand quickly flips the pages to some early sketches, and Justin responds, “Oh, I see in this one the emphasis is on the crack in the glass window.”
    “Yeah, Mr. Mox, the shop teacher, had no idea that it was one of his own shop students who put it there. I was in the courtyard sketching that very window when I saw Bret Milguard check out a girl bending over in her cheerleading uniform a few feet in front of me.”
    With a slight grin, he turns the page once more, while I glance up at the attractive blond guy who hovers almost directly over me. “And here, it’s the Jell-O on that kid’s lunch plate.”
    “He got two servings because Mrs. Pickleton,” I point to the cafeteria lady in the back of the