As soon as we’re out in the hall, multiple stares burn holes in me. I realize, a little too late, walking out of an empty room with this boy in particular is going to build a rumor fire so big no truth can tame it.
“Should we head to English lit?” Jamie asks, oblivious to everyone around us.
Thenorises in my chest, loud and sudden, along with anxiety about the stares that will follow us if we go together, but the hopeful look on his face breaks it down.
“Sure,” I say instead, and his smile deepens.
I look up to where we’re walking and make direct eye contact with Alexis, who’s surrounded by Jenny, Hayley, and Nicole.
There’s a sour taste in my mouth when Nicole and I lock eyes. They’re all watching me as if Jamie is carrying me in his arms bridal-style.
I don’t know if this means I’ll ever be welcome to her friend group. It’s better if I’m alone anyway. Hiding out of sight, out of mind. But Jamie isn’t making it easy. And I think I might not mind it.
“The same painting is replicated everywhere,” I hear one student say.
A cluster of them are hanging outside the cafeteria, and I pause, lingering to hear what they have to say.
“It’s even down in the West Village.”
“Look, people are claiming it’s been seen in Brooklyn too.”
“Do you think it’s a group of people? One person can’t have done that in one night.”
“Someone said it’s probably some YouTuber practical joke.”
“But it’s not funny?”
“I don’t know. But what else can it be? I just don’t get why. What’s the point of it?”
The point was Mama, I say to myself.The point was the stories that died with her. The point isherstory.
I step back from the cafeteria doors, in no mood to go through another emotionally draining conversation with people who want to see me squirm.
I return to the classroom Jamie took me to this morning and find it empty. There’s a strange feeling reverberating in my chest at being here. Like a scab healing. The ache of a bruise that’s turning yellow. I sit on the floor at the back, hidden behind the stools and easels and eat my lunch there, the same labneh sandwich I made last night. I grab my phone to see whether what the students said was right. If my painting has gone viral.
It’s the first video that comes up.
People piecing together the different places it’s been seen, creating a sort of slideshow. It’s not just on buildings, but on the ground, too, in courtyards so wide it takes up the entire space. These paintings arein several shades of gray to me, different from the ones in my sketchbook, which means they are in different colors. Others just in shades of black. One is entirely in red, and I stare at it for minutes, zooming in on every detail.
Speculators wonder if it’s the same artist. But without any signature, it’s anyone’s guess. A few claim it’s Banksy, while others think it’s a Banksy wannabe. I see a couple of videos trying to decode the picture, analyzing the shades and the blur in the edge of the conch.
I scroll through the comments in a cloud of befuddlement. Most people are dying of curiosity. Comments calling it another unexplained mystery of the world. Everyone is wondering if it will happen again. Everyone is calling it a mural. I feel overwhelmed from the magnitude of the response.
I close my phone and throw it into my bag. My appetite is gone. The shock is still there, and I can’t reconcile the fact that my art has been transformed into a mural for all of New York to see.
The fact that the colors are coming back.
Joy bubbles tentatively, but the guilt as the colors come back into a world Mama doesn’t exist in anymore is louder. I’m caught in a deep purple melancholia.
I feel flickers of frustration build inside me, wishing Mama talked more about Syria. Wishing we could have visited. We never had enough money to go as a whole family, and then Syria became an open wound. I wonder if the trees my great-aunt talked to still exist or if they’ve all been martyred. I want to walk where Mama walked. Swim where she swam. Maybe my blessing would have been stronger there. Maybe I would have picked the colors straight from the nature around me. Dipped my fingers into the sea for its blue, asked the grass for the green, the sun’s rays for the yellow.
Maybe if the cancer caught up to Mama in Syria, it wouldn’t have been strong enough to try to kill her. Maybe even if she passed away, I’d have seen her ghost. I’d have painted her back to life.
I’ve had a life taken from me. A life I’ll never know in Syria.
I close my eyes, leaning my head against the cabinet behind me.
That sketchbook is in my drawer in my room right now. I think of how much trouble I’d be in if it were discovered. Would I be arrested? Of course I would be. Thisisvandalism. I could go to jail.
