“Wyatt, it’s almost June.”
I roll my eyes as dramatically as possible. “You Northerners have no sense of weather. It’s May and it’s seventy degrees out; I’ll wear flannel if I want to.”
She looks me up and down once more. Am I imagining the way her gaze lingers on my thighs?Stop it, Wyatt. Stop it. Either way, she’s smirking by the time she looks at my face again.
“I’d like to see you in a suit, even so,” she says. “Maybe next time they make us come to these. Or better yet, do the whole professor thing—elbow patches and a worn gray sweater.”
“Why do I feel like you’re trying to role-play right now?”
Aaaand now I’m just leaning into the whole thing because I can’t shut my mouth to save my life. The question earns me a grin, Ely sticking her tongue out at me like a five-year-old. “So what if I am? What are you gonna do, Wyatt—give me an F?”
“Oh, I’d figure something out.”
Which, of course, is just amping up the flirtatiousness. I need to take this down several notches if I don’t want to ruin my reputation by dragging Ely off into a janitor’s closet somewhere.
“Well.” I truly could not sound less awkward if I tried. “If you need help with bodies, you know where to find me.”What the fuck? Stop talking, Cole.
I press my lips shut to keep from making things worse and settle for a wave instead of a verbal goodbye. Verbal is not working well with my constitution at the moment.
I find Ava as quickly as I can and then stick close to her side for the rest of the welcome reception. It’s the safest place for me, because Ava is talkative, and when she’s part of a conversation, I essentially don’t have to speak at all.
¦
The first thing I do when I get back to my apartment is shut myself in the shower and press my brow against the cold tile wall. I should have done something the second I found out Ely was mystudent. I should have alerted the administration. That’s the right thing to do, isn’t it? If I opened up the faculty handbook, it would probably say something about disclosing such things.
I could tell Ava. She was my mentor before she became my friend. I probably need some outside person to check my bullshit before this spirals out of control any further. But as much as I love Ava, she might have her hands tied by university rules. She might have to report this, and I can imagine all too well how that might go. I’m a trans guy; there’s a long tradition of assuming perversion of queer and trans people, and the last thing I need is this black mark on my record from day one. Besides, it’s not going to happen again, and Ely is no longer in my class. That means the conflict of interest is officially dealt with. Right?
I stick my head under the spray so that the water falls directly onto my face.
The problem is the power imbalanceisn’tdealt with. Ely pointed that out well enough herself.
I keep managing to be an asshole despite my best attempts otherwise. I can basically hear my dad’s voice in my head, murmuring,You’ll always be a failure. It’s the same voice I heard in myhead the first day of class, I realize now. He lives eternal in my brain, no matter what I do.
My career and my reputation mean everything to me.
My dad cared more about being a good marine than being a good father. Looks like I, too, am more committed to appearances than to being a good person.
I have to make this right with Ely. I’m not sure what that looks like, but I need to figure it out. Problem is, I’m second-guessing just about everything right now, up to and including my offer to help her one-on-one. Clearly I can’t restrain myself, even for the purpose of seeming professional at a goddamn school event.
This whole summer stretches out before me, long and full of minefields.
“Mraaaow.”
I twist to meet the gaze of my three-legged black cat, Haze, who has parked himself right in front of the misty shower door to stare at me. His little pink tongue flicks out to wet his nose.
“It’s past your dinnertime, isn’t it?” I ask as Haze continues to give me that reproachful look. “Sorry, buddy. I’ll be out in a second.”
It took me years to establish myself as an artist—there were lots of part-time jobs at record stores and fast-food joints while I tried to build some kind of portfolio. My first big break came when I was twenty-four and won a local competition that was judged by a big-name dealer. After that, it was another two years until I could afford my own studio apartment and years after that before I could upgrade to a one bedroom. But even the studio was a game changer. My mind feels larger without the encroaching presence of other humans in the same tiny space. With just me and Haze here, I feel as if I stretch wide, filling every corner. I could close my eyes and expand further still, into the streets and alleys, across the bridge over the river, my imagination swimming between the skyscrapers of Manhattan.
My art is better when I’m alone.
I spoon wet food into Haze’s bowl, his damp nose nudging at my hand again and again until I finally get out of the way and let him dive in. I scratch my fingers behind his ears, then leave him to it.
My apartment is small even for a one bedroom; I’ve appropriated half the living room into a mock studio. I don’t bring any of my final products back here—I do most of my work at Parker or at a local spot I rent in an artists’ workshop—but it’s great for rough drafts. I can experiment with paints and glues and textiles without worrying about damaging a final print. Right now, my desk is covered in the detritus from a project I just finished, a meditation on self-image and the masks we wear to construct theimage we want other people to see. I’ve sculpted photos of real people into masks—laughing, angry, afraid, hopeful, sad. The collection has already found a temporary home at a gallery in SoHo. Sometimes I still can’t get over the fact that this is my real life—that actual people, actualbuyers,are going to look at something I created and potentially be moved by it.
Art is a form of telepathy, really. You have an idea, or a feeling, and you try to get someone else—someone totally different from you, with different wants and fears and interests—to share your emotions, even if just for a moment. It doesn’t always work. But when it does, it’s the best experience in the entire world.
I clear off the old shit and settle in at my desk, now a blank expanse of oak with my pens lined up patiently along the top edge.
