Envious by Katie Keller-Nieman

of my green sweatshirt sleeves around my fingers. “I know how much you hate math. It makes more sense to major in art.” I had never understood why he was a business major in the first place.
    “Yeah, maybe I could draw you sometime. Not nude though,” he laughed. “Can you believe that’s a class? You draw naked people.”
    “Wow,” I said, my voice hollow. I tried to be happy for him; maybe this could be better than classes together. Hours of Eric staring at me intently, instead of the professor. Now, that would be interesting. My grip on the ends of my sleeves began to loosen.
    “I have a drawing that’s hanging in the art building. You should see it. Tell me what you think. You want to go over before class, like…now?”
    “Sure.” I closed the notes we had been going over. This should be cool. I was sure he was an amazing artist. I had never seen any of his drawings but Aurora always complained about him paying more attention to his sketchbook than to her. If it was something that she didn’t like, I loved it.
    The gray sky began to drizzle water like a mist down on us as we walked across the grass to the large gray structure. We ducked through the door, out of the rain, and went up three flights of stairs. I was out of breath long before the top, and I slowed our procession. Eric continued to talk on and on about how excited he was about his new major, how it would take him an extra year to graduate, and how he wished it was time for finals already so he could get started in art classes.
    “Jeff, the professor, said I’m doing really great from what he’s seen. He was really impressed with my lack of contour lines, whatever that means. It must mean I’m doing something right, right?”
    “Right.” I laughed. The more excited he got, the more I did. A bright grin covered his face and his words kept spilling out with such energy that he could light a whole city for a month.
    I walked past a drawing of the dorms building, hanging in the hall, and slowed to a stop. Eric joined me in front of the picture. “Yeah, that’s the one I told you about. She looks like you.”
    It must have been the day that Eric and Aurora had a fight and I was sitting outside on the steps. Surprisingly, I looked beautiful. There was so much in the picture, but all color seemed to center around me as I stared into space. It was like the artist thought that I was the most interesting thing she could capture in the picture. All the detail lay on my figure and the rest of the image blurred out around me.
    “It really is an awesome picture,” Eric gushed. “I wish I could do something that insightful and gifted. Maybe someday…” he said. I had never seen him so enthralled by something.
    “Come on, check out mine.” He grasped my arm and dragged me over to it. It was good. It was Aurora.
    It was hard to tell at first, but there she was, looking over her shoulder with a serious expression. It was drawn in black and white and focused in on her face. “It’s not that good…” he said. “I have to take figure drawing, and that should help…”
    “It’s great, Eric. Really, you’re so talented,” I told him, and it was the truth. I just wished he wouldn’t focus his talent on Aurora. No matter how I felt about her, one thing never changed. She didn’t deserve Eric. Not now, not ever.
    “Yeah, well we starving artists need more than just talent.”
    “Don’t worry, Eric. When I’m rich, you can come over anytime to eat,” I joked with him.
    “Oh, really? Sure you can afford all I eat?” He grinned as he slapped his hand to his perfectly toned abs and slouched like he was big and fat.
    “Hmmm, okay, you’re right. I take it back.”
    “Too late. You’re stuck with me now,” he laughed.
    After we left the art building, we stood on the aging white wooden porch to the building our class was in. The rain had stopped and left the campus in a rich shade of green under the setting sun. We were early and wasting