Shades of Darkness

To my mother, for opening up the world

I used to think that drawing studio would be my favorite way to start the school day. Then we started doing nudes, and I realized—after spending an hour and a half staring at an old dude's junk—that no amount of coffee or optimism could get me through the full two-hour class. Especially not today. Not after a month of drawing the
same
guy in the
same
chair with the
same
expression to the point where I had nightmares about his draping skin. And definitely not after pulling an all-nighter just to finish the still-life homework.

“Looking lively, Winters,” came a voice behind me.

I nearly jumped.

“Why do you think I'm in line, Davis?” I asked as I turned.

Ethan stood in the short outdoor line for Islington's saving grace: the Dark Note Café. He was the type of boy any self-respecting mother would love to have her daughter date. He was gorgeous in that sharp-angled, European model sort of way. He even dressed nice—when he had to—though today he was wearing a holey cable-knit sweater and had a beanie squashed down over his mousey-brown hair. He'd totally read you poetry by the lakeside and bring you flowers for no reason at all other than that they made him think of you. Any mother's dream.

Which was a shame because, like pretty much every other gorgeous, sensitive, artistic boy I knew, he was gayer than a rainbow-shitting unicorn.

“Let me guess,” he said, sidling up to me and hooking his arm through mine, prom style. “You didn't do the drawing homework last week either? You look like you haven't slept in ages.”

I reached over and gently rubbed a spot of charcoal from his cheek. It only made it worse, which, again in the typically unfair fashion, just made him even more attractive, in that brooding-artist sort of way.

“You know me well,” I replied. But being up until two a.m. drawing eggs didn't account for my insomnia or the dreams that followed. Ethan just didn't need to know about that right now. Before I could wonder if that counted as lying, the violinist in front of me walked off with her coffee and it was my turn to order. “Quad-shot mocha with caramel and hazelnut,
por favor
.”

“Make that two,” Ethan said. He squeezed my arm. “I love it when you're buying.”

I pulled his hat down over his eyes, but I didn't refute.

“Yeah, well, we always knew I'd be your sugar momma.”

He pulled off his hat and tried to fix his hair while I paid the barista. I didn't know of too many boarding schools that had a private espresso bar on campus, but then again, with four hundred artists locked away in the middle of Michigan's woods, an espresso bar was about the only thing keeping us from mutiny or a sexual revolution. That and homework.

“I'm still banking on Oliver,” Ethan said, sliding his hat back over his mop of hair and adjusting it so it looked just disheveled enough. His eyes took on that lovesick dreamy cast while he mused about his boyfriend. “He's gonna be the next Mozart.”

“Bank away. Just remember the little people when you two are honeymooning in Aruba.”

Ethan just laughed.

The barista leaned out the window and handed me the drinks. He was in his thirties, with long black hair and a goatee that made him look like either a performer at a Renn Faire or some heavy-metal guitarist. The tag on his T-shirt read
MICHAEL
, but he'd crossed it out and written
IKE
over it.

“How's The Hierophant coming, Kaira?” he asked.

“Oh, it's coming,” I muttered, taking a sip from both drinks, just to screw with Ethan. “Thanks again for modeling.”

Yeah, I know, a little creepy that I asked the barista to model for me, but seeing as I'd just taken a photo of him sitting on a bar stool for reference, it wasn't that big of a deal. It's not like I invited him back to my room.

“Not a problem,” he said. “Good luck in class. Your model just ordered a triple espresso, so I doubt he'll be sitting still.”

Another thing about Islington I loved and hated, depending on the moment: Everyone knew everyone else's shit.

“Thanks for the heads-up,” I said, and threw an extra dollar in his jar for tips.

Ethan snatched his drink from my hand as we walked toward the visual arts building. There weren't many kids out and I couldn't blame them; the morning sky was the usual overcast gray that Michigan seemed to favor and tourists detested. I kind of loved it, though—it made the fir trees stretching up between the school buildings a little greener, the snow a little whiter, as though everything was pushed to the edge of living and stillness, caught in the perfection of its prime. We wandered down the winding path, the hem of my patchwork coat trailing in the dusted snow at our feet, while I tried to figure out how I'd best capture the shade of brown of the cafeteria's log staircase. Probably a mix of umber and yellow, with a definite need for sharp white and black framing to make it pop. . . .

“I'll take that as a yes, then,” Ethan said, nudging me nearly into a snowdrift.

“Hm?”

“That when we're both old and decrepit we'll never force high school students to draw our private bits.”

I chuckled and said, “You're already kind of decrepit.”

“And you're already kind of old,” he retorted, flashing me a winning grin.

“Touché, young'un, touché.”

Ethan was only four months younger than me. Apparently that meant I was a geriatric.

“Ugh,” Ethan muttered into his cup. “You really
are
old. You say things like ‘young'un.' ”

I punched him in the side, gently—can't mar my delicate flower—and said nothing.

We wandered down the long asphalt drive, the academics concourse stretched out to our right and rows of house-like dorms on our left. Even with all the windows closed, I could hear someone blaring pop music from Graham (all the dorms were named after famous artists, which was often unfortunate, seeing as artists rarely had happy endings—case in point, the other female dorm: Plath) and someone else practicing tuba in the basement practice rooms of Rembrandt. Everything on campus was the same rustic style, all bare wood and raw stone, which meant it all looked like one big Christmas card when covered in snow. And, being in northern Michigan, it almost always was.

The arts building loomed at the end of the road. Nearly every wall was made of glass, including large chunks of the ceiling. It still had the rustic log-cabin charm, but with a little more Frank Lloyd Wright mixed in, complete with odd-angled corners and a second story that sat atop the first like a slightly offset block.