He opened and closed his mouth a few times. “At the very least, it offered solid options for working in academia.”
It wasn’t like art school was my number one goal in life, but the more Dad pushed against it, the more I wanted to prove him wrong. Wrong about something. Wrong about me.
Mom was never around for these conversations. I started to wonder if Dad purposely waited until she wasn’t in the room. Maybe he thought he’d hurt her feelings, because she had pursued her art. She embodied the exact opposite of what he wanted me to do.
“The only people who succeed in artistic fields are the ones who are incredibly lucky and phenomenally talented,” Dad said another day. “And even then, they struggle. It’s not going to be good for you.”
“Got it, Dad. You don’t think I’m talented enough. Or lucky enough, or whatever.”
“It’s also hard work, Leigh. Have you ever worked so hard at something there was nothing else you could do? Truly worked hard?”
I thought of the art show in Berlin. I thought of Nagori singling me out, warning me the months would disappear quickly. He’d been right about time. And Dad was right about the work. I hadn’t been working hard enough. Was I capable of it?
That last conversation with him lit the match: I was going to prove my father wrong. I could work hard. If Nagori believed I was good enough, I was good enough. But I would do everything in my power to be better than good. I wanted to be one of the best.
Dad flitted off to the other side of the world again and I bought a new art pad, larger than what I normally worked on. When I sat down to begin, though, I found I couldn’t think. The darkness in my house pressed up against me. When Mom was quiet, our home felt like a pit deep in the ground. When she was loud and irrationally angry, our home was a storm cloud holding tightly on to all its thunder.
While Dad was unbearable with his arguments about art school, his being home seemed to buffer the storm, quieting my mother. I was enormously glad but also hated to have him be gone again.
It was on a Wednesday that Axel came and met me at my house right as I was getting off the late bus.
“Make good progress today?” he said, gesturing toward the art case tucked under my arm.
I shrugged. “Nagori seems to be liking the direction better.”
“Cool,” he said.
It wasn’t like it was weird to see him, but there was just something strange in the way that he stood there, watching me unlock the front door. He followed me inside, kicking off his shoes.
“Is your mom upstairs?” he asked.
Most of the lights were off and it was quiet. “Um, I assume so.”
He came to sit on the sofa so that he was as far away from me as possible. I heard the inhalation before he spoke, as if he were steeling himself for something. “You planning to go to the thing on Friday?”
I had no idea what he was talking about. “What thing?”
“You know. Winter Formal.”
I felt my body freeze up, and my face must’ve looked funny because then he said, “Are you okay?”
“Uh, yeah. I mean. No, I wasn’t planning to go.”
“Why not?” he said. He was staring so hard at my feet I wondered if there was something wrong with them. I rubbed my toes together self-consciously. “We could go together.”
“To Winter Formal?” I said, not certain I’d heard correctly.
He nodded.
I heard the floorboards upstairs creaking slightly, which meant my mother had gotten herself out of bed. The last thing I wanted was for her to hear this conversation. I pushed up off the couch.
“Sure,” I said.
He stood up, too. “Great.”
My expression managed to stay neutral as he left, but the moment the door closed I seemed to lose control over my body. I burned like a star and smiled until my cheeks were sore.
Later, the terror settled in: I was going to a dance. How did dances work? And what if I did something wrong?
I had no idea what people were supposed to wear to this kind of thing, and it didn’t help that I basically had only one day to figure it out. In the end, Caro got Cheslin to lend me some of her dresses, and I chose one that was delicate and airy, the aquamarine chiffon draping down to my ankles.
I stood in front of the full-length mirror as I blow-dried my hair, trying to get it to fall straighter.
What had Axel meant by asking me to go with him? Were we just going as friends, or was this something more?
He was weirdly quiet when he picked me up, and he stayed that way even as we got to school. He didn’t say anything about my dress, or the lip gloss I’d taken from my mother’s drawer. I wondered if he hated it all.
I studied him out of the corner of my eye. Over his black button-down, he had on a dark vest with subtle gray stripes, and a silvery bow tie. He’d used some kind of product in his hair.
The lights of the gym were dimmed, and someone had strung white lights up in the creases of the ceiling. We found Caro immediately—she stood out in her tuxedo dress.
“You look amazing, Leigh,” she said.
“You really do,” Cheslin agreed. She was still a bit shy around us, but she smiled sweetly at me, her fingers tugging at the skirt of her vintage lace dress. “You should keep that. It’s an amazing color on you.”
“Really?” I said.
“Definitely. It even goes with that color in your hair.”
“Wait a sec—did you two come together?” Caro’s gaze bounced back and forth between me and Axel.
My face went hot.
“I’m gonna go get a soda,” said Axel. “You want anything?” I barely had time to shake my head before he vanished into the crowd.
“Did you?” Caro pressed.
“I’m not sure it’s what you think it is,” I said, my stomach starting to twist. I didn’t really want to talk about this. At least not here, with a couple hundred other people around us.
But then the DJ put on a crowd favorite, some song that I barely recognized, and Cheslin grabbed at Caro’s arm to go dance.
Axel came and found me again. There was no soda in his hand, but I didn’t say anything about it. We leaned against a wall and talked for a long while about silly things in an awkward, stilted way. My fingers were itching for my sketchbook. Why hadn’t we thought to bring a couple pads and pencils?
When Axel excused himself to go to the bathroom, I went and found myself a chair so I could sit.
Why were we here at all?
I thought of my mother alone in the house, eating cold leftovers by herself in the kitchen. Or worse, not eating at all, but back in bed and wrapped up in a million blankets.
I thought of the new pieces of art I’d started that I hoped might come out good enough for Nagori to finally say I was finished with my portfolio.
It occurred to me after a while that Axel had to be done in the bathroom and was maybe having trouble finding me again. I checked my phone, but there were no texts, and I couldn’t be sure if it was the reception crapping out. Just as I left the gym and started toward the main foyer, where I could get a better signal, I heard a voice I recognized. It sounded almost hysterical.
“I can’t believe you came with her. I thought you said there wasn’t anything between you two.”
I couldn’t help myself. I tipped my head just enough to look around the corner. It was Leanne Ryan.
And she was talking to Axel.
“There really isn’t,” he said. He sounded absolutely certain.
As quickly as possible, I made my way back to the gym. Everyone was dancing in a long train at that point, and I couldn’t stand to be there any longer. I pushed out through the back door into the biting February cold and rounded the edge of the wall in search of privacy.
“Oh, hey, Leigh.”
My eyes were stinging and everything felt greenish brown, muddy and cold, and the last thing I wanted was to interact with another human. I squinted to see who was standing beneath the outdoor lamp. It was a guy from Nagori’s art class last year. A senior. It took me a second to remember his name: Weston.
“Hey,” I said.
“It’s pretty ridiculous in there, huh?” he said.