Sweet Romance13 min read
Paint, Kiss, and a Viral Lie
ButterPicks14 views
I pushed the club door and the music hit me like warm rain.
"Hey, Larissa," a yellow-haired guy waved me through. "Elias is over here."
I held my canvas tote so tight my knuckles hurt and smiled small. "Is Elias here?"
He looked me up and down. "Yep. Follow me."
We stepped into the room where bass and bright lights battled. A man slouched on a sofa like he owned the shadows. His jaw was sharp, hair dark, and he looked half-asleep and all-danger.
"Stand there," the man said when I stopped at the doorway.
I took the step forward and looked at the woman draped over him—red dress, come-hither smile. I remembered a campus rumor: Elias Jackson liked pure, innocent girls. The woman at his side was the opposite. My mouth made a polite line, and I handed him the little pink cup I’d brought.
"It’s a hangover drink," I said, voice small and steady. "I made it myself."
Elias glanced down at the cup. His hand moved to take it, then the yellow-haired guy snatched it.
"Look at this, wild-boy's gift," the yellow-haired man laughed. "Elias hates pink. Right, Elias?"
A ripple of laughter. The red-dress woman tilted her high heel, all amused. I felt the heat in my eyes, and some surprised eyelash-quiver fought to become tears.
"You think he likes this kind of girl?" she cooed, loud and sharp.
Elias’ voice was lazy. "Shut up. Give it here."
He took the cup, looked at me as if the room had shrunk to just us, and said softly, "You made this?"
"Yes." My fingers wanted to fly off the cup and touch a hundred things. "I know it might not be perfect but—"
He opened it slowly. The little cap popped. For a beat, the music and the lights and the laughter blurred into one slow frame.
"Don't stay too late," he said, and when I turned to leave the yellow-haired man walked me to the door with a grin and a "Carry on, little sister."
Outside on the street I bumped into him again.
"What's your name?" he asked when we were a few steps apart.
"Larissa," I said. "Larissa Nakamura."
"Elias Jackson," he told me. "Same school?"
"Yes," I lied a little. "First year."
He hummed and then, without any flash or fanfare, walked me toward campus and said, "You should come to class. I skip once and it causes drama."
I promised I would. He watched me dart across the dorm courtyard and said, "I'll make sure you get back in before curfew."
He left like he’d only stayed to check a door. That night my pillow soaked up my nerves. I had come to him with a small plan—a silly system in my head that would fix a fate I'd dreamed about since I was fourteen: getting close to Elias would change my luck. Maybe that was childish. Maybe it was brave. Either way, I told myself the first step went fine.
"I think the cup was hers," my roommate Camille said the next morning, poking my shoulder. "You walked like a princess last night."
"It was nothing," I said. "Just art supplies in my tote."
"You carry paint across town? Okay." Camille made a face and then pointed with her lipstick. "Also, why are you smiling?"
When we went to lunch later, Elias stopped by our table. He smiled with his mouth but kept his guard up—habit, I guessed. "You okay?" he asked me, and when I nodded he said, "Class is at two. Sit with me."
I did. I sat next to him while thirty eyes watched. The professor called on me.
"Larissa, answer problem seven," he said.
My face went blank. I only had paint and charcoal on my brain. Elias nudged my elbow with his forearm.
"Stand up," he whispered.
I stood and walked up to the front with no idea what I would say. My hand took the chalk like a muscle remembering a move. I drew a quick charcoal sketch of the professor with two sweeps. The room hummed. The professor blinked and clapped.
"Good eye," he said. "Very good."
After class Elias asked, "You draw seriously?"
"Oil painting," I said. "I can't do numbers."
He looked at my tote on the floor. "Show me later."
When the bell rang, people filed out. I hopped back into my seat and dozed off because art lectures made me sleepy. Elias watched me sleep like it was a secret he didn't want us to share.
"You took my water," he whispered when I blinked awake.
"Oh—" I scrambled to apologize. "Sorry."
He closed the bottle and said, "You sat closer. Careful."
His voice brushed my ear. I felt smaller and enormous at once.
"Can you draw me?" he asked casually a day later.
"Who—what?" I tried to hide how my heart thudded.
"Draw me. Quick sketch."
That very afternoon I stood at the lectern, chalk between my fingers. I made him languid and soft on paper, someone who could borrow the sun and make it look lazy. He liked it. He kept it. He smiled like I had just handed him an odd currency he hadn't seen before.
Weeks stitched themselves into a pattern. Elias walked me back to the dorm most nights. He'd put one arm around my waist once if a crowd thought to crush us, like a shield shown in an antique story. People whispered online that he had a new girlfriend. Someone even posted pictures: him bent, smiling, at the dorm steps, and someone else, a grainy crop, that looked a little like me. I scrolled through comments that melted from cheers to shipping and then to, weirdly, viral admiration.
"I didn't post that," I told Camille when she showed me the thread. "It must be someone else."
"You both look cute," she said. "Stop denying it."
I denied it all because I could feel goodness like a fragile layer on top of me. I wanted to stay gentle.
Then one evening, walking home through a thin alley, I felt something prick the air. "I’m scared," I said, and my voice cracked. The alley was shadowed, the lamps letting out small cold circles.
"Don't be," Elias said. His arm wrapped around me, promise and armor, and for those seconds I believed him wholly.
We left the alley under brighter lamps and he laughed low, "You’re like a little rabbit."
Then everything tilted. A soft "click" echoed, and I saw a camera flash in the corner. Elias moved fast—too fast—and pinned a black-clad man to the ground. The man’s camera clattered, and when I opened it the screen was a library of terrible photos: a dozen of me—sleeping, bathing in light, sitting alone with my sketchbook; dozens of other girls I recognized from the dorm; private images stolen and stacked like trophies.
"My God," I whispered and kicked the camera with a foot.
Elias sat on his knees and his voice cut like ice. "You're done."
At the police station the man was quiet until we walked into the evidence room. I watched as the school's officers clicked through the camera’s files. The man—Ahmed Burns—went from smug, to pale, to panicked, to hitting denial. He said it was art, that he admired, that he never meant harm. The officers didn't blink.
"There's enough for serious charges," the sergeant said. "We will start the school's process tomorrow."
Elias looked at me like he had carried my spine on his palm. That night I thought I owed him something huge, like everything. He shrugged off the attention, but I felt the knot inside me loosen for the first time.
Word spread: local forums, the school's board—Ahmed's images were found and removed, then reuploaded and removed again, like a net being pulled. He was suspended. The school promised a hearing. I kept replaying the scene where Elias crouched like a cat and the camera finally stopped blinking.
The big blowback didn't stop with the hacker. A student forum had posted a flattering set of photos of Elias and a girl—someone claimed I was his new girlfriend. The post blew up. People dredged up images of me, stitched together narratives, and painted a story I hadn’t lived. My face spread like a watercolor in hot water.
"Why?" I asked Elias one afternoon, throat tight. "Who would do that?"
He put his hand over mine. "People like a story. We'll ignore them."
"Easier said than done."
He leaned close, and I tasted faint mint. "Want me to make them stop?"
"You can't fight a feed."
"Maybe we can."
That night he messaged the yellow-haired guy, Egan, and other friends. The post disappeared. He had friends in unexpected places who could make a thread vanish like smoke. The forum closed comments and locked the thread. Someone left a trace that said, "post deleted by admin." It felt like a small victory.
School life spun around us. I sold "photo opps" and portrait sessions with Camille and our class as a fundraising project. We dressed up and posed under strings of lights, traded smiles for small fees, and the campus buzzed. I learned Elias had another string of talents: he was a runner, a photographer, a teased loner who had been pushed into a bright role by the way people liked him. He was not what the rumors said and also exactly what they expected.
Then came the confession.
It happened right after the track meet. I had just thrown the shot put farther than I'd ever managed. Adrenaline still tasted like metal in my mouth. I was heading for water when a crowd pressed and a girl in a pleated skirt pushed forward.
"Elias, I—" she began, flustered, offering a bottle like a sacrament.
He smiled, something polite. "I remember you."
The girl faltered. Someone cheered. My stomach sent a small sour wave. I walked up—dumbly hoping to claim a thing I did not own.
"She likes him," the girl blurted toward me, tears starting.
"No she doesn't," I said before I could stop myself. My voice shook, raw. "Back off."
The girl spluttered. "I—who are you?"
A ripple of laughter and eager eyes focused on us. Someone took out a phone. The air smelled of sweaty jerseys and crushed green.
"Larissa, don't," Elias murmured.
But my response was already out in the sun like a bird in a net. "I like him," I said to the whole crowd. "He doesn't belong to you."
The girl stormed away, and applause broke like waves. Elias looked at me with a new sort of surprise, almost like he hadn't guessed my heart could be so blunt.
"Are you serious?" he asked, voice low.
"Yes," I said. "I like you."
He watched me, the world contracting until all I could see were his eyes—soft and unreadable. "I won't make this a game," he said. "I know you mean it."
I thought my chest would explode with relief. The world tilted again.
But not everything unfolded in soft light. The student council chairman—Dax Cain—walked up later and asked me, "Do you know how dangerous a viral post can be?"
"I know," I said.
He gave me a look like he'd seen a thousand storms. "If you're connected with someone like Elias, you need to be careful."
"I don't need an escort," I said. "I need my life."
Dax smiled thinly and left like an officer returning to a post.
The next week a post about me and Elias popped up again—someone had filmed a moment where his head had tilted close to mine. This time the post included commentary, jokes, and edited images suggesting something more than friendship. The administration deleted it. Someone anonymous texted me pictures of my daily life. But I had already learned how to fight.
The sick man, Ahmed Burns, returned to campus the day before the hearings. He had been called in. The school set the meeting in the atrium and posted a notice: students were welcome. I went because this felt like the place where the story must end.
The atrium was full—maybe five hundred people. Phones out, expressions sharp. A banner said "Respect and Safety." The principal sat on a raised platform like an old tree, arms folded. Parents, students, and faculty filled the rows. Cameras and whispers circled.
Elias stood beside me. He hadn't told anyone to be there. He was just there. His hand found mine and squeezed.
The doors opened and Ahmed walked in. He was not the smug man from before. His steps were smaller, his shirt untucked, hair limp. People turned as he passed. A volume of whispers rose, then a low hum of cameras.
When he reached the front, the principal spoke into the microphone. "Ahmed Burns, you have been accused of taking and distributing private images of students without consent. We will show you the evidence."
The screen behind them lit with thumbnail images. Gasps flickered like lightning. Ahmed's face drained. He stared at the thumbnails of girls he'd taken in bathrooms, dorm rooms, at the club. The murmurs swelled.
"How did you get these?" Ahmed tried to say, voice cracked. "I—I needed material. Art—"
"Don't speak," the principal cut him off. "You will have a chance to explain later. We are showing the evidence to the community."
The photos filled the screen from the camera memory—untouched, brutal. Students leaned forward as if to block the images with hands. Camille swallowed audibly. I felt my face turn to ice.
"Is this art?" someone shouted from the audience.
"Look at his gallery," another student said. "He made a hobby of stealing people's lives."
Ahmed's bravado unravelled. "I—it's complicated. They wanted attention—"
"You put a camera in bathrooms," someone said. "You clicked. You violated lives."
He did a small, animal thing: he tried to speak, then turned his head. "I didn't mean—"
"Silence," Elias said, not from the stage but from where he stood beside me. His voice carried easily. "You meant to hurt people."
The room went quiet enough to hear the hum of the projector. Ahmed's mouth opened and closed. He started to sway.
"Why?" the principal asked, softer. "Why did you do it?"
"Because—" he started, and then his voice dissolved into a string of weeps. "Because I—wanted to be part of something. I wanted attention. I'm sorry. Please. I didn't—"
"And you expect us to?"
A chorus of phones lifted, flashlights blinking like accusatory stars. People recorded him. A girl stood up and shouted, "You followed me home. You put that camera in my bag. I felt like I couldn't breathe."
Another student burst into tears. A faculty member wiped their eyes as they listened. Ahmed's shoulders curled in. His eyes became round, horrified.
"Please," he begged at last. "Please, forgive me. I didn't mean—"
You could see the change: from the smug predator who thought himself invisible to the man realizing his hands had done real things. He tried to rise to his feet and explain, but the crowd had begun to turn away. Phones recorded. Someone snapped a picture of his crumbled face and sent it out. The room did not forgive; it watched, and the watching itself was a verdict.
He fell to his knees. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Please."
"Don't stand," said the principal. "You will meet with the disciplinary board."
"Please—" Ahmed said, voice small, soundless.
Students began to chant, quietly at first. "Shame," they whispered, then louder and louder until it was a roar. Some booed. Others wept for the images they'd recognized. A few got to their feet, fists raised. Someone called for police. Someone else for security to remove him.
"Don't touch me," Ahmed sobbed when two students clicked to take his phone and hand it over. He tried to snatch at the device, eyes wild. The crowd recoiled in disgust.
Elias stepped forward, palms open, and then stopped. He could have yelled. He could have singled him out for a beating. Instead he put his hand over his heart like a shield and said plainly, "You will face the law. We won't let you back into spaces you violated."
Then the principal explained the next steps: suspension, a full investigation, and pressing criminal charges. Cameras flashed as security escorted Ahmed out. A student who had been on the scene narrated into his phone: "He finally looks human," he said. "He looks broken."
Ahmed twisted toward the crowd as they closed in on the exit. His face was raw. He made a last, absurd plea: "Please don't post that video," he said, voice frayed. "Please—"
Phones clicked more furiously. Someone shouted, "Too late."
He left under a storm of shouts. The atrium hummed with a thousand reactions. Some students cried. Others applauded the courage it took to show up. We all felt like we'd just watched a small sun die.
After the crowd thinned, the principal thanked the witnesses. He said, "We will support you." Teachers handed out counseling resources. Someone hugged me. Elias put his arm around my shoulders as if to stitch the raw edges of the moment.
Later that night videos of the scene trended. Ahmed's plea, his hands, the sound of the crowd—someone had streamed it all. He was denounced in every comment section, every chat. The law moved faster because the school had made the case public.
Days later, at the hearing, Ahmed broke down. He stood in front of the student body and tried to explain, to cast his acts as mistakes, as cravings for attention. That part was real. So was the emptiness in his confession. But the jury of public narrative was already set. Students shouted things at him: "Shame!" "You disgust me!" "How could you?"
He begged for mercy and then for privacy. He begged, "I didn't mean for it to hurt this much." He tried to rationalize: "I didn't intend to share that..." The words fell flat. Security escorted him out with a limp that looked like punishment.
He posted apology videos afterward—shaky, tear-stained—but the damage had been unfathomable. He deleted social accounts, tried to retreat. The online world, however, had a memory of its own. Screenshots and recordings proliferated even as people held him in contempt.
The end was not cinematic. Ahmed's mother called him, crying on speakerphone while the principal debriefed witnesses. He stood in a tiny, institutional office and finally felt alone. He called his sister. He tried to explain. There were no easy endings. He would live with the echo.
That was the punishment I had imagined—public, humiliating, and absolutely visible. It wasn't justice in a tidy box, but it was the world saying "No" in the loudest possible voice.
In the weeks after, my life reacquired a steadier line. Camille teased me about being "Elias's postal girl." Dax, my brother, gave me a cautious look and then a tentative thumbs-up. "Don't fall," he joked once, but his eyes were softer.
Elias and I began to stitch something like a real relationship. He stayed for me outside club doors, yes, but also sat on the studio floor looking over my mess of paint tubes and told me which shadows I missed. He photographed my sketches without flinching and sent me messages that said small, ordinary things: [Bring extra canvas.] [Meet me by the old elm.] He tolerated my fan-girl tendencies and my nervousness. I stopped pretending this was a game.
One evening he knocked on my dorm door with a folded sketchbook. "I thought you'd like this," he said.
We sat on my small bed and he flipped through drawings he'd done: my hands at the easel, my profile under lamp light, a sketch of me asleep with my hair mussed. He had been stealing my life back from those other cameras and making new images that were true.
"Why did you help me with Ahmed?" I asked suddenly.
Elias closed the book and looked at me. "Because that's how people should be. Because you deserved someone who saw you, not someone who collected you. And... because I wanted to."
I laughed then, a soft, startled sound. "You make it sound simple."
"Nothing about you is simple," he said, and leaned forward. His forehead touched mine. "Can I kiss you without it being a headline?"
I nodded and that was that. The kiss wasn't like the movies. It was messy and sweet and clumsy and perfect—my lips against his, a quiet press that felt like a promise and not an announcement.
We came out of that awkward, raw place slowly. We painted together. We ran together. We argued about small things—who left paint on the couch, who took the last dumpling—and then made up by stealing sour candies and trading them like treasure.
On a quiet afternoon, we set up a small table in a campus market and offered portraits. "Five dollars," I told the line of girls and boys. "Change of clothes, fifty."
People queued. Cameras took pictures. Elias stood beside me, leaning against an umbrella pole, eyes relaxed. Students snapped, smiled, and bought our prints. We made enough for the volunteer group's fund and then split the rest to buy charcoal and a new canvas.
The rumors never fully died. People love to tell stories. But now the story was mine to tell. Sometimes I would read a comment and shrug. Other times I'd scroll and smile at a photo Elias had taken of me—just me—no edits, no captions.
Weeks later, months passing like paint layers drying, the school put up a plaque outside the atrium: "For Courage, and for Respect." Ahmed's name was not there. I never wanted it there. The word "respect" hovered like a kind sun.
On a rainy spring night Camille and I sat in my studio with paint on our hands.
"He really is good for you," she said, adding a dab of ultramarine.
"He makes me brave," I said.
"Then keep him," she said, half joking, and I felt the truth like a warm brushstroke across my shoulder blade.
Elias peered in the door and called, "Larissa?"
I looked up from my canvas. He held two steaming drinks. "For the painter," he said.
"For the runner," I offered back, raising my cup.
He laughed. "Deal." He sat beside me and wrapped his arm around my shoulders. We watched the rain smear the window into a painting.
Outside, someone passed and looked in, saw our backs, the cups, the small waterfall of light, and smiled. For once, our picture didn't need a caption.
The End
— Thank you for reading —