He grabs his piece, looking too excited about our assignment. “Let’s start pulling things apart.”
We work in silence for a while, me adding things to his sketch while he messes with wires. The classroom fills with the sounds of other pairs working on their own pieces, with the occasional burst of laughter from the duo near the window who seem to be having the best time ever.
My phone lights up on the table with a text from Tyler, my flirty watercolor classmate.Botanical garden has a new orchid exhibit. Still a maybe?
I type back a smiley face and lock the screen. It’s the least committal response possible, and I’m aware of that, but I like keeping Tyler in the maybe zone. The maybe zone is safe, fun, and doesn’t require me to feel anything I’m not ready to feel.
Dorien glances at my phone, then at me. He doesn’t ask, and I don’t explain.
I show Dorien the sketch I was working on and he nods mindlessly, which I take for a sign that I can proceed, so I grab an X-Acto knife and make a few small cuts in my canvas where his wire can push through.
I watch him unravel his piece. There’s something meditative about deconstruction, about taking apart something you made to see what’s left when you strip away the mistakes.
Not that his piece had any mistakes.
“So.” Dorien’s voice breaks my daze. “Anything new with the rumors?” He’s not looking at me, too focused on bending apiece of copper wire into a new shape, but I can tell he’s paying attention.
My shoulders drop because I’d kind of forgotten about the rumors for at least fifteen minutes; otherwise, they’re constantly on my mind. “Nothing new about me. The flyers stopped, at least.” I set down the knife, flexing my cramped fingers. “But there’s been another one about a guy this time. He was also in the exhibition.”
“Who?”
“Uh, I don’t know. Cinna told me this morning when she was in a hurry and I’ve been trying not to think about it, honestly. This whole thing is insane, that someone is doing this.”
“Adults can be childish.”
“Yeah. Someone started posting on the campus forums, saying this guy’s portfolio is full of AI-generated images. It doesn’t make sense because he had a literal hand-painted canvas at the exhibition.”
Dorien’s jaw tightens, but he doesn’t say anything.
I pick at a piece of crayon on my canvas. “People are believing it anyway. And…” I close my mouth before I admit that part of me is relieved the attention is off me. Everyone is talking about this new rumor, not mine anymore.
Dorien sets his piece down and glances over. “And what?”
“Just… you should watch yourself. You were in the exhibition too.”
He shrugs. “Let them talk.”
“I’m serious, Dorien. If someone’s targeting everyone who got in?—”
“Then they’ll get to me eventually.” He takes my canvas and pushes a piece of wire through a cut I made. “I don’t care. Reputation is just what other people project onto you. It doesn’t change art, the art I’ll keep making.”
I want to agree with him and have that kind of confidence, the unshakeable certainty that the art is what matters and everything else is a distraction. But I’ve spent the last week catching people staring at me across the quad, hearing conversations die when I walk into rooms. It’s hard to focus on the work when the work feels poisoned by association.
“Must be nice,” I say quietly. “Not caring.”
“I didn’t say it’s nice. I said it’s necessary.” He bends another piece of wire, and I catch my reflection in a mirror shard attached to it. “If you let them get in your head, they win. That’s what this sick fuck wants. They want other people to hurt because they hate their own lives.”
“I guess.” I take the canvas back and bend the wire Dorien just poked through. It now curves around the edge toward the front.
“I like that,” Dorien says. He pokes another wire through.
“Do you think someone is just jealous about the exhibition?” I ask. “Like they didn’t get picked?”
“Could be, but the exhibition isn’t even that important. It’s a student show.”
“That’s what I keep thinking.” A chunk of crayon falls off the front as we’re working on the canvas. I set it aside so I can melt it into the back later. “It was an honor to get into the exhibition, but it’s not like it’s the Alaria Annual or something.”
Dorien snorts. “There’s no point in anyone entering that because I’ll be winning.”
