Shades of Darkness (19 page)

“Don't you worry,” I replied. “I'm a professional.”

A few moments of silence passed while we consumed our breakfast.

“You ready for today?” Jane asked. I'd nearly forgotten that she was also putting up her work this weekend.

“I think so,” I replied. “How about you?”

She nodded. “I'm feeling a lot better about it than I was a month ago, yeah. Got hit with inspiration at the last minute.” She smiled. “I think it's going to blow the department out of the water. Though I'm sure they won't think less of your work.”

“Is that a challenge?” I asked.

“Maybe,” she replied. “If you think you're up for it.”

“Now ladies,” Ethan said, leaning forward and spreading his arms between us. “Remember, this isn't a competition.”

“Correct,” I said. I gestured to Jane with a fork dripping with waffle. “She probably already won. I've seen her work before, and if she's touting some last-minute muse I'm damn well screwed.”

“I wouldn't say that. But yeah, my work's pretty much amazing. Just a few finishing touches and my masterpiece will be ready for the world.” Her smile was wide; she must have really been pleased with her work. I don't think I'd ever seen her this enthusiastic about it before. Normally she was more humble than I.

“The question is, will the world be ready for your masterpiece?” Ethan asked.

“Always the question. But in this case, probably not.”

Oliver shook his head and grabbed a grape from Ethan's tray. “You artists. I thought it was all about denouncing fame and pursuing your inner vision.”

“Can it, musician,” I replied with a smile. “We all have to bring our A-game to this. One weak display and the entire show looks like shit. A little competition keeps us on point.”

“Exactly,” Jane said. “It's all in good fun, anyway. Kaira knows I love her even if I beat her. Which I would. You know, if this were a competition. Which it should be. Because I'd win, and I like winning.” She flashed me a smile.

“I'm so glad I'm not in the same showing as you,” Chris interjected. “This is way too much pressure.”

“Yeah, you'll give the boy performance anxiety,” Ethan said.

“I highly doubt he succumbs to that,” I said, kind of surprised I was coming to Chris's aid. “I mean, he performed pretty damn well last night.”

Ethan chuckled and I felt myself blush as Elisa made a “mhmmm” noise.

“What?” Chris asked. “What did I miss?”

I finally caught my pun and blushed. “Oh for the love of—”

“The dance department thinks you're dating,” Oliver interjected. He grinned at me. “Though now I'm starting to think the
boning
rumors were true.”

“Wait, what? How would
you
know?” I asked.

He shrugged. “I have friends.”

“I'm lost,” Chris said.

Ethan just sat there and laughed silently. I reached over and pulled his hat over his eyes.

“
Apparently,
” I said, “a boy and a girl can't stand next to each other if they aren't dating. Which we apparently are now. And, how did you so eloquently put it, Oliver? Boning? We're doing that now too, according to some ballerinas. So maybe you should buy me a ring, just to cover all your bases.”

There wasn't any real anger in my rant—joking about us dating made it okay. It made the idea seem more impractical, a little safer; if it was public domain, I didn't have to take it seriously. And neither did anyone else. Especially not Chris.

“Already covered, actually,” he said. “I bought a few off of Tina. Didn't know your size so I got an array. One should fit. If not, I know how to use a belt sander.” He gestured to my fingers. “I'm sure I can sand those down a size or two if the rings run small. I
did
take shop class, you know.”

“Such a charmer,” I replied. Though I had to look away and fight the rising blush—he'd looked me dead in the eyes when he mentioned buying a ring, and there was something in the gaze that made me think he might be serious. Maybe not about the marriage, but the rings, potentially.

Thankfully, I didn't have to try to fill in the conversation. Ethan started asking Elisa questions about
Marat/Sade
and Jane piped in about her friend's involvement with the tech department, so I was able to finish my waffles in relative peace and quiet.

It wasn't until after brunch (and a heaping bowl of ice cream) that Chris pulled me aside.

“I'm sorry,” he said. We were on the path just outside the dining hall, and the snow was beginning to fall once more. Jane and Elisa and the boys were already ahead of us, running about and pretending to push one another in the snow. One good shove and those
pretends
would have consequences.

“For what?” I asked.

“For that ring joke,” he replied. “I didn't really know what to say. But I know you're not dating and I didn't want you to feel awkward about it. Just . . . trying to make light of the situation.”

“Nah, I get it.” I started walking again, heading toward the art building. My stomach was flipping with every step, but I tried to keep it cool. “You handled it well. You're funny, kid.”

We walked a little longer in silence.

“Would you . . .” he began, then trailed off. He coughed—clearly forced, but whatever—and tried again. “Maybe when you're done with your thesis tonight we could hang out? I'll just be in the painting studio finishing up work. And I have a feeling by the time you're done we'll both be ready to never look at art again.”

“What did you have in mind?” I asked. This was potentially a one-eighty from the
I understand you aren't dating
thing, but I'd give him the benefit of the doubt.

“Well, Ethan said he and Oliver were going to be watching movies.”

I shook my head. “No no, we don't want to interrupt that.”

He raised an eyebrow—it almost disappeared under his hat.

“It's code,” I said. “For when he and Oliver need
alone time
.” I made sure to do air quotes.

“Oh! Well then. Um. I suppose that kills that idea.”

“How about this,” I said. “I'll meet you in the studio and then we can go from there. Maybe you'll treat me to frozen yogurt because I made it through my thesis without a nervous breakdown. Maybe you'll treat me to extra frozen yogurt because I
had
a nervous breakdown.”

He laughed. It trailed off at the end though, and I realized we were both walking dangerous ground. Eggshells.
Had Mandy had a nervous breakdown? How long was she battling the idea of killing herself?

“Sounds like a plan,” he said. “And thank you for the heads-up about Ethan and Oliver. I might have just dropped in on them.”

I laughed. “That would have been a sight worth seeing. Your expression, I mean. Not what you stumbled into. Unless you're into that.”

He smiled.

“Not really my cup of tea,” he said. Maybe it was unconscious, but his eyes darted to me when he said it.

“Anyway, I need to head back to my room to get some stuff. I'll be in the art building until dinner, most likely. So see you around?”

He nodded. We were outside of my dorm and there was this moment, this awkward as hell second, when it felt like we should go in for a hug, but that might have been misconstrued—do we go for a cheek kiss, a nuzzle, or do we keep the space? Crows sat on the roof of the dorm, watching. Waiting. As if they, too, wanted to see if I'd break my inner promise never to fall in love again. Before the moment could linger, I did what I always did and put on the charm and slapped him on the shoulder like a bro.

“Catch you on the flip side,” I said, and turned away before I could tell if he was disappointed.

The crows fluffed their feathers. They didn't speak. Neither did Chris.

•  •  •

It was surreal, walking back into the arts building to see Mandy's cranes gone. I half expected them to still be there, like some ghostly trick birthday candles that could never be extinguished. But no, the hall was empty, abandoned, with only a few students lingering outside the textiles room farther down. The emptiness was a presence in and of itself, a wraith crying out for recognition. It felt wrong that something else should fill this space; I didn't want to cover up her presence by inserting my own.

“I'm sorry,” I whispered. I knew how it felt to be alone, to think the whole world had abandoned you. I knew what it meant to stand on the edge of your own life and peer over the precipice at the darkness thirsting for your blood.

I knew what it meant to leap.

Which was why a very, very small part of me felt okay putting up my work here, even if the rest of me felt like an interloper. Mandy might not have known how much we had in common, but I hoped that maybe . . . maybe my thesis would help heal her spirit, help put to rest any residual negativity.

Before I could get too metaphysical on myself, I put in my headphones, pulled out my portfolio of images, and got to work.

I'd settled on displaying thirteen cards in all. A strong number. Most were Major Arcana, like The Hierophant and The Wheel of Fortune, while a few were Minor—Five of Cups, Eight of Swords. I wanted to tell a story with these. I wanted to show more than my best work; I wanted to show what Islington had meant to me. I wanted this to be the culmination of my time here, both artistically and personally . . . if there even was a difference anymore.

The Eight of Swords was first. The card was a self-portrait in many ways, though I'd never admit to it in public. A girl sat on a bed with her head in her hands, eight blades piercing the cloth around her to form a cage. Very dark, all blacks and blues, and outside the window was a raven perched on a branch, an eclipsed moon behind it, and a golden key dangling from its beak. Isolation, bitterness, self-imposed distance. And yet everything needed for your own release, right within arm's reach. If only you'd look up and see it.

Next came the Ten of Swords.

I knew this card would raise a lot of shit for a lot of people. I knew some would see it as bad taste and the admin would probably think I should take it down. I didn't care. It was my shit, too, and this was how I was releasing it.

This was the first card I'd ever painted. It was how I had moved forward. It also had never been shown to anyone.

It was a close-up of two wrists, the hands upraised and a dagger resting in the palms. Across the wrists were ten slashes, five per hand. Blood dripped down the wrists and across the blade. Around the edges of the painting were pieces of notebook paper I'd collaged in. Actual entries from my actual journal, the pen smudged from tears and glue, all noting how alone I felt. How tired I was of being different. Of feeling abandoned.

The card's meaning was pretty fucking obvious: Defeat. Death. Loss of hope.

I put those cards in sequence, right at the entrance. If I was going to tell a story with my thesis, I was going to do it honestly. And luckily, from there, the cards got a little more uplifting in their tale. Islington had been my turning point; well, one of many turning points. At least the school had been for the better.

There was The Wheel of Fortune—a golden spinning wheel with a raven emblazoned on the hub and multicolored strands weaving the Milky Way—and The Star—a constellation reflected in a pool of water held within a statue's hands. The Three of Pentacles had snippets of my acceptance letter to Islington, which was mirrored in its sister card, Eight of Pentacles. The Three was all about creation and physical beauty. Eight was hard work and dedication.

It didn't seem like a project that would take very long—I was just hanging thirteen paintings, after all—but once I got all thirteen of the cards up, I began to fine tune. I moved cards around, changed height and distance and looked at them from all angles to make sure nothing looked cluttered (unless, like the cards at the beginning, I wanted it to look cluttered and chaotic). I took out a spool of silver thread and began connecting the cards, making patterns and dreamcatchers and knots. Anyone who knew how to read the cards would be able to follow a single thread and get an entirely different story from the connections. Order was everything, and I was hoping people would be able to discern different stories based on which way they viewed.

Nearly an hour passed before I was finally satisfied and done. Then came the last item: my artist's statement.

I was no creative writer. The four-paragraph essay on my project had been one of the hardest parts (and thus the one I saved until yesterday), but it detailed why I'd been drawn to the Tarot, what the cards meant to me, what I hoped the audience would gain. It was hard not to feel like the entire project was masturbatory in some way, but then again, I guess that's kind of art.

I didn't leave right away, though. Not for a while. The more I looked at the paintings, the more exposed I felt. Kids walked through and some glanced at what I'd done. Some lingered. I wanted to stand in front of them, hide the paintings from view, keep them from discussing it with their friends. It was the part of being an artist I hated the most—inviting judgment for something most people wouldn't be comfortable sharing themselves. This was a deeper part of me than my skin or makeup or clothes; this was my core. But it was also just paint on paper, and I needed to keep that in mind, especially when I got my faculty critique.

You are not the art you create. You are the life lived outside of it.

Thankfully, those who lingered were few; for the most part, my classmates kept their eyes averted as they headed toward whatever studio they would be spending the next few hours in. I wanted to give them all candy for playing coy, just as I wanted to jump up and down and tell them to look.

Man, being an artist brought out a lot of crazy.