Beneath The Skin (A College Obsession Romance) (20 page)

Any chance at love would fall to pieces where Brant’s concerned. The second he loses interest—which I imagine coincides with the moment at which
he
comes—he’ll be leaving me faster than smoke from a window in that burning tower.

I’ll be the glowing embers that remain.

“
Embers
,” I mumble to myself, inspired, then lift the charcoal pencil back to the canvas and get to work.

As the hour passes, I tunnel myself into making the vision appear before me in smeared shadows and crisscrossed lines. I’m not even conscious of my hand moving; it simply exists with a messy, charcoal instrument glued to the end of it, and through the little firing neurons and warring synapses in my brain, a scene appears before me.

“Now
that’s
something.”

I turn at the voice. My worst critic Iris stands there, all her annoying pink-and-white hair tossed to one side as she tilts her head, arms folded, studying my work.

“Not today,” I mutter at her, returning to my canvas.

She ignores me, strutting up to my side to get a closer look. Even her footsteps are annoying.

“It’s a … big tower on a hill?”

“
Embers
,” I say, naming it.

She shifts her weight from one leg to the other. “I don’t get it. But there’s no fire,” she complains.

“Not yet.”

“Oh.”

A moment of gentle scratching passes as I add details to the bricks, a crack here, a hair there, a weed here, a tendril of vine there.

“Maybe the fire’s inside,” she ponders, “and we just can’t see it.”

“Sure.”

“Isn’t that how it usually goes? The problem’s burning inside us, so deep inside that we don’t even know it’s there?”

I sigh, dropping my charcoal pencil onto the desk. “What do you want, Iris?”

She bristles slightly at my brashness. “I saw your exhibit.”

“Congratulations.”

“The one with the model. The sexy model.
Object
, you called it.”

“So are you here to offer your feedback on how
obvious
and
boring
and
unoriginal
it was?” I ask, smirking at my canvas and refusing to face her. “Maybe you can bring it up in front of everyone next class instead of interrupting my studio time.”

“Actually …” She circles around the desk, coming to my other side. “I was wondering if you were planning on attending the Renée Brigand show tomorrow night.”

I frown at her. “Why would I want to subject myself to that?”

Iris looks as if I might have just stolen her bubblegum. “Because she is the most successful alumni from the art school. Because maybe—yeah, I know, this concept may be totally foreign to you—but
maybe
we have something we can learn from her. Did you know one of her pieces,
God’s Oven Mittens
,
sold for over fifty thousand dollars??”

“She’s a pretentious sell-out who’s had her ass kissed her whole life. I don’t support her ridiculous pop art.”

Iris rolls her eyes. “Why am I not surprised you’d have this reaction to getting a chance to meet
the
Renée?”

“If her work peddled any more than it already does, it’d be a damn bicycle. Besides,” I add, “I already know a Renée. My mother. And that’s enough Renées for one person to know.”

With that, I turn away and equip myself with a charcoal pencil and return to my tower, which is already fast burning down in my mind. I study my work and try to deduce how to put out a fire with charcoal.

Iris huffs. “You are such a miserable person.”

“Of course I am,” I say back mildly. “I’m an artist. Misery is our common denominator.”

She brings her face up to my ear and hisses, “
I’m a happy person. I’m happy and my work is fulfilling and I’m an artist.
You, on the other hand, are miserable, and your work is contrived—
at best
—and you do nothing but bring pain and misery to anyone you touch.”

“Better step back then,” I warn her coolly, “before I
touch
you.”

She stays put, breath held and anger flooding her eyes. I sincerely wonder, as I gage how likely I am to still put up a fight, whether she’s going to back off or not. Thankfully for the both of us, she does. After a long, measured glare, Iris finally stalks out of the room, and the sound of her annoying footsteps echo into my ears as she goes further and further down the hall.

And I’m left to wonder how much of what she said is true.

What if Brant and I actually have a chance at being something … real? Would I only be capable of ruining it, bringing my misery and my pain into Brant’s happy-go-lucky life? He has no idea the darkness that lives in me. All he sees is an “interesting person”, as he put it. His eyes are all aglow with the fantasy of me, with the idea of what he
thinks
I am. He’s infatuated with his own imagination and doesn’t know it.

My heart breaks, thinking of the way I could unintentionally break his. I wouldn’t mean to, either. Really, my pushing him away is an act of protection. I’m protecting him from my miserable, horrible self.

My finger pushes hard against the canvas, blending the tiny shadow under the bricks at the tower’s summit.

And if he was smart, he’d know to keep away. I don’t want more unhappy people in the world. There’s enough of them. Maybe the world needs more Brants. More sex demons. More pleasure for the sake of pleasure.

Maybe I should have finished him off and given him the chemical permission his brain needs to move on to the next woman.

I apply a few strokes to make grass at the foot of the tower.

Then I stand back from the desk and stare at the canvas, thinking about Renée Brigand and what sort of drawing she would have done.
She doesn’t draw
, I remind myself.
She makes “experiences”.
Ugh. The pretention is so thick, I can already imagine what sort of crap she’s going to have shown at the gallery. The amount of eye-rolling I might do is temptation enough to consider actually going.

Maybe I should find Brant and take him with me. We could make fun of the art together.

I kick myself for even thinking that.
Keep away from him.

But just that thought alone pulls me into a powerful whirlwind of his crystalline blue eyes. I watch him watch me, falling into his gaze like a big, bright pool.

I hear his voice and see him smile. “
You alright, babe?
” he’d ask.

No. Everything sucks. I suck. I’m a big ball of black oil and you’re the crisp spritz of water from a lawn sprinkler, Brant. I’m the heat that reaches into the chest of a man stranded in the desert, dropped to his knees and staring at millions of dunes ahead of him …

And you’re the oasis.

I won’t be able to control myself if I’m near him again. I’m already losing all my resolve and he’s not even in this room with me.

Just his memory is.

His face.

His strong arms and soft chuckle.

His know-it-all smirk and messy hair.

His bright, curious eyes.

I stare at the tower I’ve built on a hill. I stare at it and wonder whether anyone will know the fire that’s within it, burning it down from the inside out.

BRANT

The glass doors and windows of the School of Theatre reveal a crowd of excited students awaiting the start of the show. The lobby is lit, its bright light glowing across the darkened courtyard outside.

“Why’s the show so damn late?” Dmitri complains.

I shake my head, giving him a hearty pat on the back. “It’s not even eight yet. Calm your balls. We’re supportin’ our favorite roomie Eric.”

“Is that what we’re doing?”

I punch Dmitri in the shoulder, which he hates. Clayton and I used to do that all the time to each other. The habit has not quite grown on Dmitri. In fact, I’m probably bruising his jerking arm.

The moment we enter, I spot Chloe right away standing on the other side of the lobby with some others, including Dessie. I don’t see Clayton with her. Maybe he’s in the bathroom and I can catch him there instead of dealing with Chloe and her rolling eyes.

“I need to take a leak before the show,” I tell Dmitri.

He smirks. “Hey, maybe she’ll behave. I think she got out what she wanted to say at lunch the other day. We can sit with them, okay?”

“Clayton’s gotta be here somewhere.”

He sighs, then gives me a nod. “Good luck, man.”

I cut through the crowd, squeezing between people on my way across the lobby to the bathrooms. Halfway there, it occurs to me that Clayton might even be running lights for the show. He and Eric have gotten pretty friendly over the last year, especially with how chummy Dessie and Eric have gotten. Eric’s like, her gay BFF now, which I guess would be cool if it didn’t feel like Clayton and I have become strangers overnight.

I’m sorta jealous of Dessie.

Imagine that. Me, jealous of a girl getting more attention from a guy than me.

The bathroom proves fruitless. The rest of the lobby is just full of Theatre people I don’t know. I don’t see Clayton anywhere. I expected that I’d sorta never get to hang with him. Every time I try, our plans get delayed or put off or are riddled with distracting texts, just like the dinner he and I had at our usual place earlier this week.
Dessie has a crisis thing
, he kept saying. It’s always all about her.

I wonder if that’ll be me someday.
Oh, Nell has a thing. Sorry, bud.

The thought wrings my stomach up like a rag. I see the sad look in Nell’s eyes and relive the sickening spin I felt just before leaving her loft. That, coupled with having my camera stolen—the camera that had the beautiful candid photo I took of Nell in the car on the way to the restaurant—has left me feeling so unsettled.

I hate leaving things unsettled.

Clayton is my go-to guy. He’s always been. I’d text him and tell him when I’m having issues with a girl, or when things aren’t right in my life, or when I just want a friend. His absence is doing something to me. It’s changing me.

It’s forcing me to stand up on my own feet.

As if to exaggerate this very point I’m making, when I get back to the front of the lobby, I find Dmitri hanging out with Dessie and Chloe and their friends. There’s no way I’m joining them, not after what I endured at lunch today.

Great. I’m officially on my own.

“Girlfriend, you got some serious nerve.”

I turn and lift an eyebrow at the unfamiliar, deep voice. A very tall, very built and sculpted black god (or goddess?) with long platinum hair and drawn-on eyebrows stares down at me. He’s clad in a skintight black sleeveless shirt and pants that I imagine can’t be put on without some form of lubricant.

“Uh, sorry?”

“You, showing up here,” he says, smirking, “like there isn’t anything wrong, like nothing’s amiss, like you can just swallow up the canary and crawl back here, you little sexy pussy cat you.” His eyes run down my body, then come back up to meet my face, his lips pursing.

I seriously can’t tell if I’m being checked out or scolded right now. “Do I know you, bro?”

“I’m Avery. And you’re Brant, if I’m recognizing your pretty face from the pic on Candy’s phone. Not the dick pic. You can stop your gaping; I know I’m the sexiest thing you’ve seen all day. Shut up. Candy told me everything.”

He talks fast. “Candy? Oh, Candace. Right. Dancer. And … you’re a dancer,” I conclude, putting the relationship together. “You got some sick arms there, Avery. You … You look like you could lift a dude in the air and do twenty pirouettes without breaking a sweat.”