He’s sitting at his desk with his back to me, hunched over something small. He’s so focused he doesn’t even notice when I inch into the room to see what he’s doing. There’s a tiny sculpture, no bigger than his palm, made entirely of paperclips. He’s bent them into something organic, almost skeletal, and he’s using a dab of superglue to attach another clip to the structure. The piece looks like a ribcage spreading itself open.
It’s beautiful. And so quintessentially Aeron that my chest aches.
I open my mouth because I want to ask him if he’d like to walk to class with me. We’re in the same Visual Studies class at ten, so it only makes sense. But he’s so focused, so lost in his work, that I don’t want to risk breaking his flow. I know I get irritated when someone interrupts when I’m vibing with a piece.
I tiptoe away quietly and then head down the stairs. By the time I reach the first floor, I can hear Mom’s hairdryer humming behind her closed bedroom door. Through the front window, past the wraparound porch with its old swing, I can see that Carter’s car is already gone from the driveway.
“Mom!” I call up the stairs. “I’m heading out!”
The hairdryer shuts off. Footsteps sound on the creaking floorboards, and then she appears at the top of the stairs, halfher hair still damp and hanging loose. “Wait, wait, wait. Get back here.”
I grin and jog up a few steps to meet her. This is our thing, the thing we’ve done since I was little, since I was too small to reach her without her bending down. She opens her arms and I step into the hug, breathing in the familiar scent of her lavender face cream and the coffee still lingering on her breath.
Her next words are scripted, in a way, because we’ve had this back and forth a hundred times.
“You got this,” she says into my hair. “Whatever today throws at you.”
“What if today throws a piano?”
“Then you catch it and play a song.” She pulls back, holding me at arm’s length, and gives me the look. The Mom look, the one that sees everything. “Love you more than all the colors in the world.”
“That’s a lot of colors.”
“I know.” She boops my nose with her finger, which would be embarrassing if anyone saw it but is actually the best part of my morning. “Now go. Change the world.”
“I will.”
“That’s my girl.”
A few moments later, I’m stepping off the porch and onto the path, letting the screen door close softly behind me. The sun is fully up now, painting the neighborhood in shades of amber. The air has that crisp edge that means the summer will be fading soon.
I’m grinning. My little family. Chaotic, loud. Absolutely, unequivocally mine.
CHAPTER FOUR
JUNE
The walk to campus takes ten minutes. The path cuts through faculty housing and spills out near Alaria’s main gates, where the cobblestones begin and the real world falls away.
I’ve been a student here for over a year now, but the campus still catches me off guard sometimes. Gothic spires rise against the pale morning sky, their weathered stone softened by ivy that’s just starting to turn crimson at the edges. The buildings look like they’ve been here forever, growing out of the earth rather than built on top of it. Everything smells old, if “old” can have a smell, with undertones of expensive perfume drifting from the clusters of students heading to early classes.
It’s beautiful in a way that makes you feel like you should be more important than you are, just for being allowed to walk here.
Bean There Coffee Shop is tucked into the corner of Whitmore Hall, one of the smaller academic buildings, with thick windows and a copper roof gone green with age. The coffee shop is a student favorite because it’s the only place on campus that doesn’t feel like it’s trying to intimidate you away. Warmlight spills through the windows, and I can already see Cinna’s honey-blonde hair through the glass before I push open the door.
She’s at our usual table near the back, two cups already waiting. When she spots me, her whole face lights up, like seeing me is the best part of her morning.
“You made it!” She stands to pull me into a quick hug, squeezing tight. “I was worried you’d oversleep like usual.” She sticks out her tongue.
“Please. I’malwayson time.” We laugh because, what a lie. I slide into the seat across from her and wrap my hands around the cup she pushes my way. Vanilla latte. Perfect. “Thanks. Also, I definitely almost overslept. Carter banging around the kitchen at six in the morning is the only reason I’m here before class. I hate morning people.”
“He gets up that early?”
“Yeah, to go to the gym. Carter is a monster who has forsaken sleep and embraced suffering.” I take a sip of the latte.Yummy.
Cinna laughs, adjusting a strand of hair that’s already perfectly in place. Her champagne-brown eyes catch the light from the window, warm with gold flecks, and I’m struck again by how pretty she is in that delicate, breakable way. She’s wearing a soft cream blouse today that makes her look like she stepped out of a lifestyle magazine, and her nails are freshly painted a pale pink.
“Oh, yeah,” she says, then she reaches into her designer bag—because Cinna never uses a backpack, only her Saint Laurent Sac de Jour—and pulls out a small notebook, flipping it open to show me something pressed between the pages. “Look what I found on my walk this morning.”
