Chapter 8 #2
Right. I’m not supposed to know his nickname yet. “Sorry. I was told you go by that sometimes.”
His surprise falls away, and he gives me a wink that would be smarmy if he weren’t so endearing. “Only to my favorite students.”
“Well, I’m going to be one of those.” And I am. No version of my life would be without it.
He lets out a barking laugh. “You’ve missed a few things and have a bit of a curve to catch up if you want to be my favorite.”
“I’m aware, and I’m sorry, sir. From this point on, I’ll work really hard to make up what I’ve missed, and I’ll prioritize my creativity. Art is important to me.”
This is the right thing to say to Doc. He doesn’t care if students make mistakes, so long as they put in the effort after they make them. He motions to the desk against the wall. “All right, Nieve, my new favorite student. Go see my TA, Max. He can catch you up.”
Before I can argue, he returns to the person he’s helping.
Go see Max. Great. Before, I didn’t really work with him. He handled a lot of the sculpture and mixed media, but maybe this is different, too, like dinner every Thursday.
A new timeline.
Max stands in front of a large wooden easel. The girl next to him looks up from her chair, her fingers covered in charcoal as she holds a thick naked pencil. She smiles up at Max and motions with her shard at something on the paper. When he looks down at her, he’s grinning back.
Something twists in my stomach, and I want to tell her not to look at him like that. Max isn’t a nice guy. Max will never be a nice guy. But a second later, his eyes meet mine.
The green darkens, and I wait for the frown that I know Max likes to wear for me. But he doesn’t frown; his head cocks to the side.
And he looks … curious.
Maybe even interested.
I bite the inside of my cheek and take three heavy steps toward him.
“Hi,” I say, still waiting for his face to fall or the annoyance to become present.
Instead, he just looks at me. “Hi.”
I stand a little too long without saying something, and the girl I don’t recognize finally speaks, too. “Are you in this class?”
I’m an idiot. “Yeah. I … missed the first few days.”
His eyebrows rise, probably remembering how we met, but he doesn’t say anything about it. Instead, he asks, “You get everything sorted out?”
No. Carter is alive and here, but I’m not sure if I can even talk to him. Everything feels wrong and upside down, and now I’m having a friendly conversation with Max Emerson. “Yeah.”
“Good.”
I hook a thumb over my shoulder and point it at Doc. “He sent me over to ask you to catch me up.”
Max nods and glances down at the girl. He puts a hand on her shoulder briefly. “I’ll be back.”
Ugh—of course Max touches people. I add it to the things about Max I hate.
Even in this version of the past.
I follow him as we walk toward his drafting desk. I’ve never been over here. Before, I avoided every place Max was. I stayed in spaces that I knew he wasn’t going to be to avoid his glare.
Because Max has always hated me. Even before his best friend …
On his desk are several drawings of hands done in pen, pencil, and charcoal.
I pick up a charcoal drawing of older hands holding a pocket watch. It’s beautiful, but there’s something … off about it.
Max takes the paper from my hand, not aggressively, but not gently either. Like someone would do with a child. “I’m still working on those.”
I look at Max, and from his expression, he’s just as surprised at how forward I’ve been. “They seem important.”
He searches my face, but I don’t take it back. I meant it. Some art can feel technically perfect but lacks emotion. Max’s drawings need work, but already they have feeling, which is so much more important than the right strokes.
I’m in the middle of wondering if I should explain myself, but then he speaks.
“So.” He clears his throat. “There are two tracks in this program, including the mandatory weekly exercises. Individual and collaborative.”
Of course—I know this. Before, I had signed up for an individual the first day and prayed to any god that would listen that I wasn’t stuck on the collab project. The individual was the easiest way to be selected for the end-of-the-year showcase.
“Collaborative.” I say it definitively.
Max looks a little taken aback. “I … Do you want me to explain the differences?”
“No,” I tell him, looking him right in the eye. “I want the collaborative project.”
Max’s jaw tightens. “It’s not easier, if that’s why you want to do it.”
I try to shake my head, but he speaks again.
“And it means that your piece won’t be considered for the Alumni Festival at the end of the year.”
“I understand.” I want him to know that I want this. I don’t care if the group project doesn’t get submitted to the festival. In fact, I prefer it.
“You don’t want to go to the festival?”
Memories of Carter holding me close under the stars. The freckles on the tops of his shoulders that I kissed after being in the sun all day. The way he smiled at me.
The water.
It’s pull and push as I lost control.
Open your eyes, Nieve.
“No. I’m good.”
“You won’t have an opportunity to have your work submitted for galleries.”
I don’t care about galleries, one of the privileges of having the mother I do, but that’s an asshole thing to say, and it might not be the same anymore anyway, so I choose something safer.
“There are things more important than submissions. Working on something with other people and creating art as a group is just as important.”
Max smiles, but it’s at me, not with me. I’ve said the wrong thing. Again. “Okay. This year’s collaborative piece is a mural for the new theater. The theme is Shakespeare.”
I don’t remember this as the theme, but to be fair, I also wasn’t paying a lot of attention to the group project.
There’s a giant salad bowl in the middle of the table, and he motions for me to draw from it. “Pick a play. Everyone else has already gone.”
I reach in and pull out a small scrap that says R+J.
I hold it up with a half smile that I don’t feel. “Romeo and Juliet.”
Star-crossed lovers. It feels wrong and right at the same time.
“Everyone’s already started on rough sketches for the mural. You need to have the outline ready by next month. No exceptions will be made because of time off.”
Right. No exceptions because of who I am.
I spend the next two hours researching everything I can about a play I think I’ve read once. Honestly, the reviews are mixed. People online argue about love at first sight and how fickle Romeo is because he loves Rosaline at the beginning.
And at the end of class, Max looks down at his phone and asks me if I’m going to the Cattle Club for dinner.
Saying I would rather eat paint than go anywhere Carter is would just lead to more questions, so I tell him, “I think I’m going to stay here and work on my weekly assignment, since I have so much to catch up on.”
But Max doesn’t leave. Not after most of the people are gone. Not after Doc waves goodbye. And not after the light from outside disappears.
Eventually, it’s just us in the room, and after the clock changes to nine, I ask him if he’s leaving for dinner.
I can tell he’s holding back a sigh when he tells me, “I can’t leave till everyone is gone.”
Oh.
Max has been staying here, hanging around because of me, not because he was working. Shit.
“I’m sorry—” I mumble while I shove my things into my bag.
But Max only shakes his head at me. He doesn’t want my apology, and as we head outside, the sun has disappeared behind the mountains, but the last of its light still paints the sky with a beautiful pink color. I give Max a half-hearted wave as I walk toward my dorm. “Night.”
He frowns as he stops walking. “Where are you going?”
“Back to my dorm?”
Max points over his shoulder in the direction I know the Cattle Club is in. “Linden told me to bring you with.”
“Oh, that’s okay, I can just—”
“Carter will be there.” He says it almost resignedly when he cuts me off.
My mouth opens and closes. And opens again. “Carter?”
Max lets out a deep breath like I’m the one who’s playing games. “And your cousin. She’s been texting me all night.”
“My cousin and … Carter?”
“Yeah.” Now he looks at me with a challenge. “The guy you were looking for three days ago.”
All the words I want to use to defend myself are filling up in my throat, but then his phone chimes at the same time I feel mine vibrate. I don’t even need to check my phone to know who it is.
Linden.
Max looks down at it and shakes his head. “Linden wants to know where we are.”
She’ll be worried. If I don’t come to dinner, she’ll leave early to check on me, and I’ll be proving to her I’m not okay.
Small ripples. That’s what Grandee had said.
I take a breath and tell myself it won’t be horrible to sit across from Carter tonight. It won’t kill me.
Like my doll, I can do anything.