You never saw Alex's face. Not once. But you were quite sure that you'd be able to pick them out of a huge crowd. Because you knew their bouncy hair which never really stayed in a bun, so at the end of each art lesson it would just be this puffy cloud around their head. You knew their hands, covered in blue and green and red and yellow, because they mixed paint on it and sometimes accidentally touched the canvas before it dried; because when they got bored, they would just start drawing something on their skin. Every little bit of exposed skin was covered in a rainbow. They chewed on the end of their paint brushes and had to spit out dried paint directly afterwards, but they did it again and again.

Alex sat in front of you, so you could never concentrate on your own work. How could you not constantly peek at theirs, when it was so perfect? Sometimes you even thought it moved, and then you blinked and it was gone again. Your art – well. It was like comparing stick figures to an actual human being. Still, you got an A in the class. Not because you suddenly got struck by talent.

But one day, when you rushed in again in the afternoon, to get the canvas you'd forgotten earlier, you found that it had turned into a masterpiece. It was abstract and soft and edgy and completely red. Nothing like Alex's drawings. Still, you knew it was them. And after that day, maybe you just imagined it, but there was this connection between the two of you.