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.