I sniffle as Aubrey hands her the flyer.
Cinna reads it quickly, and her face crumples, the color draining from her cheeks. For a second, I think she might cry too. Her eyes are glassy when she looks at me.
“First Nancy,” she says quietly. “Then you. What is going on?”
Nancy.That’s right.The name clicks into place. Nancy, the photography major. People have been saying she bought her portfolio, basically paid for someone else’s work and then passed it off as her own.
“Wait.” I look between them. “Nancy was in the exhibition too.”
Cinna nods slowly. Aubrey’s eyes narrow.
“Do you think someone is targeting everyone who got in?” I ask. The theory feels absurd even as I say it, but it’s the only thing that makes any kind of sense. First Nancy, then me, and our only connecting thread is that exhibition.
“We’d have to see if another rumor pops up about someone else from it,” Aubrey says. She’s already thinking strategically, I can tell. I love that about her because I can be scattered sometimes; Aubrey is always ready to get shit done. “There were like, what, fifteen artists total?”
“Sixteen.” I know because I memorized the program; I was terrified of being the weakest one. “Including Dorien.”
If someone is targeting exhibition artists, eventually there will be a rumor about him too. Or maybe there already is, and we just haven’t heard it yet.
“We need to keep track,” Cinna says. Her voice has steadied, though she still looks shaken. “If we notice another rumor about someone from the exhibition, that confirms the pattern. Then we can figure out who’s doing this.”
“And destroy them,” Aubrey adds.
“And report them to the administration,” Cinna corrects her.
“Destroying will be more satisfying.”
They keep talking, and I’m grateful I have such good friends who are ready to defend me like this. But I’m only half-listening because my heart is aching a little too much.
This semester was supposed to be good. It had a wonderful start: my piece got into the exhibition; the faculty is talking about my work. I was finally starting to feel like maybe I belonged here, like maybe my art meant something.
And now someone is trying to tear that down.
What started out good is just a mess now. I’m stuck in a class with Dorien for the rest of the semester, someone is spreading lies about me—printing them on flyers so everyone sees—and I don’t know who’s doing this, why they’re doing it, or how to make it stop.
I fold the flyer carefully, creasing it along the lines, and slip it into my bag. I feel like I’m watching my life from somewhere outside, dreading what happens next.
CHAPTER EIGHT
DORIEN
The Belrose basement smells like old popcorn and the faint, permanent sweetness of whatever Melia uses to clean the floors.
Nothing in here has been designed, only accumulated. A sectional sofa dominates the center, its cushions sunken from years of bodies dropping into them. The fabric is a faded brown. Against the far wall, there’s a bookshelf with DVDs I bet no one has touched in ten years. And there’s a small TV propped on a stack of textbooks because the actual TV stand broke two years ago and no one bothered replacing it. There’s a braided rug under the coffee table, and the ceiling is so low it brushes the top of Carter’s head.
Nothing in here matches, but all of it fits.
That’s what I love about the Belrose house. Every room looks like it was put together by someone who cared more about the people inside it than the objects. It’s the opposite of my parents’ place, where every room looks designed for a magazine spread. People were never part of the design.
I’m sitting in the corner of the sectional with my back against the armrest, one leg stretched across the cushion, a joint pinchedbetween my index finger and thumb. The smoke curls upward toward the ceiling, where a bare bulb hangs from a fixture with a pull-chain switch. Carter is at the other end of the couch, spread out like a maniac, his legs taking up most of the middle cushion. There’s a beer balanced on his knee.
Aeron is sitting in the recliner a few feet away. He’s sitting stiffly, like the recliner will fling him off if he relaxes.
I take a slow drag from my joint and hold it, letting the smoke seep into my lungs and fill the gaps between my ribs before I exhale. A slight buzzing starts in my toes and spreads upward. Soon, there’s the world’s softest blanket over my brain, the noise in there finally dimming. It never disappears, but it dims. That’s all weed has ever been for me: a volume knob to turn life down when the static gets too loud. Other people smoke to feel something. I smoke to feel less.
If I could walk around in a bubble of numbness, I’d be happy.
Carter is scrolling through his phone with one thumb. He’s talking about a Hargrove student who fell asleep in a school pool. He didn’t drown, just fell asleep floating on his back.
