4. June
CHAPTER FOUR
JUNE
The walk to campus takes ten minutes. The path cuts through faculty housing and spills out near Alaria’s main gates, where the cobblestones begin and the real world falls away.
I’ve been a student here for over a year now, but the campus still catches me off guard sometimes.
Gothic spires rise against the pale morning sky, their weathered stone softened by ivy that’s just starting to turn crimson at the edges.
The buildings look like they’ve been here forever, growing out of the earth rather than built on top of it.
Everything smells old, if “old” can have a smell, with undertones of expensive perfume drifting from the clusters of students heading to early classes.
It’s beautiful in a way that makes you feel like you should be more important than you are, just for being allowed to walk here.
Bean There Coffee Shop is tucked into the corner of Whitmore Hall, one of the smaller academic buildings, with thick windows and a copper roof gone green with age.
The coffee shop is a student favorite because it’s the only place on campus that doesn’t feel like it’s trying to intimidate you away.
Warm light spills through the windows, and I can already see Cinna’s honey-blonde hair through the glass before I push open the door.
She’s at our usual table near the back, two cups already waiting. When she spots me, her whole face lights up, like seeing me is the best part of her morning.
“You made it!” She stands to pull me into a quick hug, squeezing tight. “I was worried you’d oversleep like usual.” She sticks out her tongue.
“Please. I’m always on time.” We laugh because, what a lie.
I slide into the seat across from her and wrap my hands around the cup she pushes my way.
Vanilla latte. Perfect. “Thanks. Also, I definitely almost overslept. Carter banging around the kitchen at six in the morning is the only reason I’m here before class. I hate morning people.”
“He gets up that early?”
“Yeah, to go to the gym. Carter is a monster who has forsaken sleep and embraced suffering.” I take a sip of the latte. Yummy.
Cinna laughs, adjusting a strand of hair that’s already perfectly in place.
Her champagne-brown eyes catch the light from the window, warm with gold flecks, and I’m struck again by how pretty she is in that delicate, breakable way.
She’s wearing a soft cream blouse today that makes her look like she stepped out of a lifestyle magazine, and her nails are freshly painted a pale pink.
“Oh, yeah,” she says, then she reaches into her designer bag—because Cinna never uses a backpack, only her Saint Laurent Sac de Jour—and pulls out a small notebook, flipping it open to show me something pressed between the pages. “Look what I found on my walk this morning.”
It’s a hydrangea petal, pale blue fading to lavender at the edges, perfectly flattened. She handles it like it’s precious, which to her it probably is.
“Pretty,” I say.
“Right? The color is so delicate.”
I bet she’ll add it to her collection, which is close to legendary status at this point.
It’s pressed flowers from every season, every walk, every moment she deemed worth preserving.
She keeps them in large shadow boxes in her dorm room.
I’ve always thought she should use them in her art somehow, incorporate them into mixed media pieces or at least photograph them.
The way she arranges them shows a real eye for composition.
But whenever I suggest it, she brushes me off.
I don’t push, but it seems like a waste of something beautiful, just hiding it in a box.
Art is meant to be shared.
She tucks the petal back into her notebook and then it seems to disappear from her mind. She leans forward with her elbows on the table, eyes widening. “Oh, I wanted to tell you. Have you heard?”
I laugh. “Heard what? You’re being a bit vague.”
She smiles and blushes. “Oh, yeah. Got ahead of myself.” Her voice drops like this is top secret information. “Nancy, um… shoot what’s her last name? She was in the same gallery showcase as you. She does photography. I think it was bridges?”
“Uh, okay. I can’t think of her last name but I know who you’re talking about. She was dating some guy in his forties, right?”
“Yeah, but everyone knows that.” She bounces a little like this gossip is just too juicy. “Well, there’s a rumor that she bought her portfolio.”
I sip my latte, feeling a little lost. Sometimes Cinna gets so excited she doesn’t communicate clearly. “Bought? You mean someone bought her portfolio of work?”
“No, no. Like, she paid someone else to take the photos and then passed them off as hers.” She leans in, voice dropping even lower though no one around us is listening. “It’s all over the group chats.”
“That’s insane. No, I don’t believe that. I saw some of her work last year and it was the same style.”
“So?”
I frown at my latte. “So… you’re saying she’s been using someone else’s work this whole time? Why would she even do that? Why get into art school just to use someone else’s art?”
Cinna finally leans back, satisfied she passed on the gossip.
“I’m not sure. Her parents are rich so maybe she doesn’t want to disappoint them?
Image can be everything in some circles.
Everyone’s dissecting her socials trying to find proof.
It’s brutal.” She shakes her head, looking genuinely troubled with tension lines marring her porcelain skin.
“I feel bad for her. Even if it’s not true, people are going to remember this. You know how rumors stick.”
“Who even started it?”
“No idea. You know how it is. Someone says something to someone, and suddenly it’s everywhere.” She sighs. “This campus is so toxic sometimes.”
I nod, thinking about Nancy, who I’ve only spoken to a handful of times but who seemed genuine about her work. The idea of someone just deciding to destroy her reputation makes my stomach turn.
“People suck,” I say.
“They really do.”
After finishing our drinks, chatting some more and splitting a pastry, we gather our things and step back out onto the cobblestone path.
The clock tower on Founder’s Hall chimes the half-hour, its deep tone resonating across campus.
Cinna walks close enough that our shoulders occasionally brush, and she’s telling me about something a group of women in her dorm building did last night.
“Hey.”
I look over to find where that voice came from.
A guy is crossing the path toward us, hands in the pockets of a paint-stained army jacket, a canvas bag slung over one shoulder.
Tyler. He’s in my watercolor class, the one I don’t share with Cinna or anyone in my circle.
He has brown skin, close-cropped hair, and a smile that arrives slowly, like he’s deciding whether you’ve earned it.
“Hey,” I say back.
Cinna goes quiet beside me. I can feel her watching with fascination.
Tyler stops in front of us and tilts his head. “You thought about what you want to paint for our assignment?”
“Not yet. You?”
“No. But I was thinking we could go to the botanical garden, try to get some inspiration.”
A smile pulls at my mouth before I can stop it. “Yeah. Okay, maybe.”
“Grab lunch after?”
“Maybe.”
He grins, and it’s the full version this time, not the slow one. “Well, if your maybe turns into a yes, let me know.”
“Kay.”
He nods once, glances at Cinna with a polite half-wave, and keeps walking. I watch him go.
Cinna grabs my arm. “Oh my God.” She’s doing the girl-giggle thing, bouncing a little on her heels. “Who was that?”
My face is warm. “Just a guy in my watercolor class.”
“Just a guy, sure. He wants to take you to a botanical garden and buy you lunch. That’s a date.”
“It’s not a date. We have an assignment.”
She’s grinning so wide her eyes are almost shut; I think she lives for relationship drama. “You’re going, right?”
“Probably not. I don’t want to date anyone. I just like the flirty thing I have with Tyler. It’s innocent, you know?”
Cinna raises an eyebrow. “Hookups can be innocent.”
I laugh and swat her arm. “Stop.”
She laughs too and links her arm through mine, and we keep walking. I’m still smiling when we step inside our class building, but my attention shifts to the bulletin board near the entrance. I usually glance at it as I come and go, hoping for anything interesting. Today, I find it.
“Hold on.” I stop in front of the board because a large flyer has caught my eye. The flyer reads: The Alaria Annual Prize for Rising Artists.
The flyer is printed on heavy cream cardstock, the kind that costs money to produce, with the university’s seal embossed in gold at the top. I step closer to read the details.
Open to second-year students and above. Submit one original work in any medium.
Entries due November 15th. All winners and honorable mentions will be featured in the spring exhibition.
First prize: mentorship meeting with a visiting curator from the Museum of Modern Art and $5,000 cash.
Second prize: featured placement in the spring exhibition and $2,500 cash.
Third prize: materials scholarship for the following semester.
I knew the competition existed, obviously. Everyone in the art program knows about it. But seeing the flyer, reading the words Museum of Modern Art, makes my breath catch.
I’m in my second year so I can finally enter.
“What is it?” Cinna appears at my elbow, reading over my shoulder. “Oh. Time for that again?”
“You act like it’s nothing.” I run my finger over the flyer. “First place gets a meeting with a MoMA curator.” I can hear the longing in my own voice and hate how obvious it sounds.
“Well, you should enter.” She says it so simply, like I can just grab any of my random pieces laying around at home and throw it at the judges for an award.
“Sophomores never win. It’s always juniors or seniors.”