"Why do they even pretend this is food? I mean, this is what they do with the science experiments that go wrong, isn't it? This is actually Dweezer Thurgood's chemistry final they're serving."

He doesn't say anything in response, hoping that maybe she'll go away if he's quiet enough. He's good at quiet the way he knows she's good at loud. He knows that much about her, because he sees her around the school, antagonizing anyone who gets even close to being in her way -- relishing it even more when it's the preppy jerks from the right side of the tracks, looking down at her like they wish they could scrape her off their shoes.

"Okay, so you're the strong, silent type without the strong. Scrawny silent type. I get that. Well, I don't, because I think you're just going to get trampled on like a bug if you're scrawny and silent, but maybe that's your thing. Maybe you're into that." She holds her hands out in front of her. "Maybe you're all masochistic."

"I'm not masochistic."

She shrugs and stabs her lunch. "Whatever."

"I'm not. Or maybe I am, since I'm sitting here with you." He doesn't get up though, because that's a little too much like confrontation. Besides, it's been a long time since he's had company during lunch. She doesn't seem to take offense. In fact, she treats it more like he's given her an invitation to lean over his bag lunch from home and look at the sketchpad he has on the table next to him.

"Hey. That's Mr. Ogilvy and Nurse Ratched."

He nods and takes a drink of his milk, nearly spitting it out in protest as she takes his book from him. "Hey! Hey, that's mine!"

"I'm just looking, Michelangelo. Calm down." She pushes her tray away with the hand she's not using to hold the sketchpad, making sure the area is clear before she sets it down on the table. Keith relaxes at the knowledge that she's not going to ruin the book, even if she's going to mock him for it. "They look like they're having an affair."

"They are."

"They are not!" She looks at him, her eyes wide and surprised. "You lie."

"Pictures never lie."

"Pictures always lie." She flips the pages, pausing at some of the sketches and moving past others as if they don't interest her at all. She seems to linger the longest on the ones that are of couples or groups of people, the ones that require him to catch light and angles and motion somewhere, somehow. "You're pretty good at this."

"Thanks."

"How often do you get beat up?"

Keith can't help his laugh and he shakes his head. "Not regularly, if that's what you're asking."

"I'm just wondering, because this sort of looks like an invitation to get your head beat in. I mean, if people saw these? They'd totally know you were exposing their secrets."

"It's not my fault they're having an affair."

Watts shakes her head, and her short blonde hair fans out like some sort of hula skirt, rippling like waves of corn or something that, if he could put it into words, he wouldn't need to draw. "Not them. All these people. It's like you're drawing what's inside them."

"I'm just drawing what I see."

"Then maybe you see too much." She hands him back the book and then pulls her lunch closer and stabs it again, as if sitting for a while might have made it more palatable instead of just more congealed. "Don't ever draw me, okay?"

"Why would I draw you?"

"Oh, thanks? I'm not good enough to draw, is that it?" She's like mercury, he thinks, sliding up and down the thermometer of emotions. Then he realizes she's smiling at him, and maybe he's just taking things a bit too seriously.

"I didn't say that. Maybe I'm just worried I wouldn't get you right."

"Yeah, well, maybe I'm just worried you would." She shoves her lunch away and reaches over, snagging his bag of chips. "Your mom make your lunch every day or something?"

He shrugs. "It's cheaper."

"Probably better for you too." She gives her lunch another look and starts eating his chips. "So, you're an artist."

"And you're kind of annoying, aren't you?"

"It's a skill I've perfected over the course of many years. You'd be surprised what you can accomplish when you set your mind to it." She holds out her and, her fingers exposed, though her palms are covered with bright red leather gloves. "I'm Watts."

"Watts?"

"Yeah, Watts."

"Watts what? Or what Watts?"

"Just Watts."

"Just Watts. Okay, just Watts. I guess you should enjoy my chips, and I'm going to go to class."

"You know, there's no point in acting like you're not going to miss me." She gets up from the table as he does, falling in step with him as he carries his bag to the trash and deposits his lunch detritus in the can. "It's written all over your face."

"That I have no idea why you're following me?"

"No. That you want me to follow you." She pulls a chip out of the bag and eats it and his stomach growls. Figures, the one time his mother packs him chips he actually likes, someone snags them. "It's clear you have no friends."

"Because it takes one to know one?"

She scoffs at him and holds her next chip out to emphasize her point. "No, because you walk home alone, you sit at the lunch table alone, you don't talk to anyone and if you're not careful, everyone at school is going to just assume that you're gay."

"I'm not gay."

"I never said you were. I just said that they were going to assume that you were, which could happen, and then you'd have to mack on some really nasty girl to divert their attention."

"Doesn't everyone in the school think you're a lesbian?"

"Like I care what they think." He stops at his locker, dialing the combination as she slumps against the one next to his. "I just think it couldn't hurt you to have friends."

"You don't think having you as a friend would hurt me?"

Watts smiles. "Not if you're nice to me, but if you give me shit, Keith--" She pushes off the locker and heads down the hall, the fringe on her leather jacket swaying as she walks. "Well then, all bets are off."