AllFreeNovel
Share Us
It sounds easy—telling yourself you deserve good things. Letting yourself want them. Letting yourself claim them.
It sounds easy, but it’s not. For a guy like me, it’s right next door to impossible.
I was stuck in Silt. Not just the Silt on the map, but the Silt in my head. The Silt that made me, trained me to survive, and taught me my life was worth precisely nothing.
The path that led out of Silt was the one that took me back to Caroline. Once I found it, it was easy.
All I had to do was follow the flame.
Halfway through the next week, I stand outside the art building before class.
I lean against the windows, listening to the smokers talking, joking around. I chew gum to keep my mouth busy, shove my fists in my pockets so I won’t bum a smoke off anyone.
Half the class is out here.
There’s a guy named Raffe, short for Rafael. He’s got dark skin and wild black hair like an afro except it comes to all these points, and he wears a motorcycle jacket but he doesn’t seem like a poser.
He and this blond girl named Annie smoke and argue about art.
Surrealism. Dadaism. Warhol. Avedon. Turner. People I’ve never heard of.
I listen to them talking about some exhibit in Chicago, realize they actually drove all the way to the city, six hours in the car so they could see this exhibit at a gallery, six hours back, and they’re still fucking arguing about it.
Off across the quad, I see Caroline coming. She angles my direction and fetches up in front of me as though the wind just blew her here by accident.
She’s picked my sister up twice already since the last time I talked to her.
I’ve talked myself out of buying cigarettes six times.
“What do you think about art?” I ask.
“I don’t think that’s a question I can answer in one sentence.”
“You ever been to Chicago?”
“Sure. Lots of times.”
“Maybe I’ll take Frankie sometime. Show her that bean. Go to a baseball game in the spring, or take her by the Art Institute to look at the paintings. She’s never seen anything like that.”
Caroline’s gaze sharpens. “Have you?”
“No.” I’m embarrassed to admit it.
“You should go, then,” she says.
Raffe and Annie are looking at us. I glance down and realize Caroline’s standing close. We’re talking low. She’s rubbing her hands over her arms in her sweater. It’s long and bulky, tied at the waist. It looks warm, but obviously it’s not warm enough for the chill.
“You should get going,” I tell her.
She looks at her watch. “I should. See you.”
She waves goodbye to Raffe and Annie. Calls them by name. Caroline knows all kinds of people. Everybody likes her.
I watch her cross the quad. The wind blows her hair around and catches the panels of her sweater, whipping it open with every stride.
If I ever learned to paint, I’d paint her just like that.
Halloween’s on Friday. When I get home from work, Caroline’s in my kitchen, asleep at my table at three in the morning.
