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friends with me?” he didn’t look upset. He didn’t look like he was feeling anything.
    What could I do? Say it’s not you, it’s me? It was the truth but it was also a copout he wouldn’t buy. “I don’t want to be friends with anyone.”
    I saw him roll his tongue around in his mouth while he thought. “Shame. I suppose we’re not friends then,” he turned to his canvas and a few minutes later, class started.
    I worked on finishing up my painting of Hell. Some part of me wondered if my father would like it. I doubted that he would care enough to have an opinion on it. He’d maybe glance it up and down and just move on.
    “I’ll figure it out, you know,” I heard from Hale out of nowhere.
    I blinked and turned to him. “What are you talking about?”
    “I’ll figure it out,” he said again, assuring me of something I didn’t understand. “Why you don’t want to have friends. I’ll figure it out.”
    I laughed without humor. “You won’t. I promise you that.”
    “I will,” he nodded once.
    “Hale,” I said in a soft, warning tone, “That would require getting to know me, and you really don’t wanna know me.” What I was could scare absolutely anyone away. Not only the concept of finding out that The Devil was real, but me being half of him. If anyone got to know me that well…they wouldn’t stick around. Yet another pain to avoid.
    “The opposite of that becomes truer and truer every moment I speak with you.”
    I breathed out. “Let me rephrase that. You won’t get to know me.  Trust me when I say it’s for the best.”
    “For who?”
    His response was so quick that I was taken off guard for a few seconds. “What do you mean?”
    He took a step closer to me. Then another. “I mean, who is it best for? You? Or me?”
    “Does it matter?”
    Another step. “It does. Because if it’s for you,” he pointed at me with his brush, “then there’s nothing I can do about that. But if it’s for me, then I think it’s fair to say that the decision of what’s best for me is not yours to make.”
    Okay then. I can play this game. “It’s better for both of us.”
    He put his hands behind his back. “Alright. So I can do something about it.”
    “You can’t.”
    He just smiled. Damn it. Why is this guy so hard to shake? I feel like I couldn’t have been clearer.
    “And now I’m going to prove you wrong.”
    I rubbed my face. “Just let it go. You’ve got a hundred girls just dying to be your friend. Go pick one of them.”
    He clicked his tongue. “I don’t want to be friends with them.”
    I rolled my eyes. “Coulda fooled me.” I turned to my painting so I could start working. He stayed quiet after that and I got a break from him. I didn’t know why he decided to set his sights on me, but it wouldn’t fly.
    I wish my warning had been enough to get him to step off. But maybe a few days of him being nice and trying to be my friend, only to be met with a bitch who was trying to chase him away would do the trick. Then he would hate me. I didn’t like the idea of that, but it was better than him liking me and getting himself in trouble.
    I glanced at the painting Hale was working on and I couldn’t tell what it was. It just looked like a lot of grey and black and red. But I couldn’t ask. I shouldn’t even care. Not if I was gonna stay on my no friends thing. That choice wasn’t really up to me.
    Class ended and we were told to leave our paintings where they were again. We were finished this time and she wanted to let them finish drying.
    Hale was covered in paint and it was hard to not smile when I saw his hands. They had every color on them, even ones he didn’t use.
    We didn’t walk to gym together. He went ahead of me and I ducked behind the groups of students that were walking. That way, I wouldn’t be seen.
    The bathroom stalls were empty, so I was able to change there. If what happened yesterday happened again, I’d just start changing when I got home. I was