CHAPTER FIVE
AERON
The overhead fluorescents in the sculpture studio cut everything in half.
One half of the room gets the cold white wash from the fixtures. The other sits in the soft bleed of light from the windows along the east wall, where the afternoon sun comes through at an angle that makes the dust in the air visible to everyone.
The Professor is at the front of the class. His name was… what was it? Something with a C…
Cheng. Professor Cheng.
He’s at the front, pacing in front of the projector screen, blocking our view of it occasionally when he pauses. He’s a compact man, mid-fifties maybe, with a shaved head and reading glasses he keeps pushing up his nose with a clay-stained thumb. His hands look like they haven’t been fully clean in years. The clay has settled into the creases of his knuckles and under his nails. He’s wearing a rumpled linen button-down with the sleeves pushed up to his elbows, and there’s a small chip in one of his front teeth that shows when he talks.
He’s going over the semester syllabus, like he hasn’t already done that fifty times. Most of the students are arrangedat scattered worktables in mismatched chairs, some paying attention, some not. It’s an advanced class, so nobody is sitting in rows like freshmen classes.
I’m a freshman, technically, but I talked my way into this class, and I’m trying not to remind anyone of that fact. I’m just relaxing at a solo table, trying to do what these upperclassmen do.
I’m doing a good job of it, but my heart is still racing, like suddenly one of them will turn around and shout, “Fraud!”
I’m only half-listening to Cheng because I’m not stressed about the class itself—I can do the work. It’s people that spike my anxiety.
Cheng is talking about the semester projects, which are mostly self-directed, which means I already know the only thing I need to know: nobody is going to tell me what to make. That’s the only reason I signed up. I didn’t come here to learnhowto sculpt. I came here because I’ve been thinking about a piece that needs clay, metal, and woven fibers all at once, and none of my other classes give me that kind of freedom. Here, I can make what I want, how I want it, and the teacher will review it for what it is, not whether or not I used specific techniques or followed the “rules.”
Freshman classes are all about “follow the rules exactly, or else.” The teachers want to make sure students learn basic techniques before running wild, and I understand that, but most of them don’t trust students at all or allowanychange. I learned that in high school when I turned in a drawing I’d spent almost thirty hours pouring myself into. The art teacher admitted it was good but gave me a D- because I didn’t draw apples and fruit like everyone else. I did all the other requirements, including using a stupid grid (which I hate), but because I would’ve gone insane drawing apples I got marked down.
I figured college professors would be the same (I was right), so thank God I made it into this advanced class because it might keep me sane this semester. Cheng will give me room to breathe and explore, something I’ve struggled to get even from my sister.
My sketchbook is open on the table in front of me, angled so no one can see it unless they’re standing directly behind my shoulder. While Cheng is talking and pacing, I’m working on my concept with a soft pencil, letting the graphite drag across the page in loose, fast strokes. The piece I’m imagining is a torso. Not anatomical, not realistic. More like the suggestion of a body built from different materials: a clay chest cracked open to reveal a welded metal armature inside, with woven fibers threading through the gaps where the clay has broken away. The fibers would be raw and unfinished, trailing off the edges as they come undone.
I don’t know what it means yet. I just know the shape of it, and the shape feels right.
Here and now, just for this moment, things feel right. They always do when I’m sketching (or creating). This is the only version of me that works. The one with a pencil in his hand, creating on a page, so deep inside the process that the rest of the world just goes away. When I’m sketching, I don’t have to be anyone except me. I don’t have to figure out where I fit in a conversation or figure out whether I’m wanted or simply tolerated. The pencil moves and the world moves with it, and I’m not Aeron Belrose—little brother, tag-along, afterthought. I’m just a hand making lines.
More and more, that’s all I want to be: just a body making lines, in the act of producing art. I’m kinda tired of dealing with everything else about life.
I pause mid-stroke, feeling someone looking at me.
It’s a specific feeling, like a light source you haven’t located yet. You know it’s there because the shadows are shifting, butthe light is hard to pinpoint. I don’t look up. I keep drawing, adding cross-hatching to the metal armature, suggesting the weld marks. But the feeling stays, persistent on the left side of my face.
I glance over for a second, just to see who’s looking at me and disturbing my focus.
Dorien.
He’s sitting two tables over, leaning back in his chair with his arms crossed. He’s watching me from the corner of his eye, instead of watching Cheng. He does that sometimes—glances in my direction. I’ve caught him doing it at home, too. If I’m in the living room or kitchen, I catch him glancing at my sketchbook, trying to see whatever I’m drawing as he’s making his way to the basement to hang out with Carter. He never lingers—I think because he tries to avoid my sister—and he never says anything to me except the occasional “Hey, what’s up?”
My irritation overwhelms me and I make a stroke that’s too jagged on my sketch. I didn’t know he’d be in this class when I signed up. If I had, well… I probably would’ve signed up anyway, because I’m stubborn about things that don’t matter and spineless about things that do. But I would’ve liked the heads-up. Walking into the studio on the first day and finding Dorien already at a table, leather gloves off, hands in clay, had startled me so much I actually turned around and left.
Cheng moves on to something about material sourcing. I add fiber lines to my sketch, threading them through the broken clay like veins. The graphite is getting soft at the tip, which means the lines are thickening—actually better for this part. Softer. Less controlled. I let the pencil do what it wants.
“Fifteen-minute break,” Cheng says. “Stretch. Refill your water. Back at two thirty.”
Chair legs scrape. People stand and drift toward the hallway or cluster into small groups. I stay where I am because movingmeans risking eye contact with someone, and I’m in no mood to give anyone the “hi, I’m obviously a freshman who doesn’t belong here” smile. I keep drawing. The fibers need more texture. Maybe a looser weave, something rougher, like burlap. Should I add a new material? Maybe in addition to fiber I could…
A shadow falls across my sketchbook.
I know it’s Dorien before I look up, the shadow seemingly comfortable invading someone’s space. When I finally raise my eyes, he’s standing next to my table with his hands in his pockets and his head tilted at an angle that says he’s already been studying the sketch for several seconds before I noticed.
Great. Judgment incoming.
