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Aurnia
Conor only let me out of the storeroom hours later when I told him that the application was finished. While the application was technically all filled out, it was a lie. I hadn’t yet decided on which piece of art to send in as a representation of my work.
I’d flipped through my portfolio from front to back time and time again without coming to a decision. It was when my eyes had started to burn and my brain got foggy that I picked one at random, attached it to the application, and called it quits. Good enough. Fine. It’ll do, it’ll do. I didn’t really care anyway. Art school wasn’t for me. The only thing that was for me was getting out of the storeroom.
The slim application sat on the counter as Mason hurried out the door after a quick check of his breath. It sat there as Rian wandered out into the night, fingers drawing in the air as he disappeared without a trace of a goodbye. It had sat there on the counter, ready to be mailed away, as Conor got up stiffly from his drawing desk where he had been as immobile as a gargoyle for hours.
“Coming?” he’d asked, hesitating at the door.
It was easy enough to pretend that I was still pissed at him for locking me in the storeroom. He didn’t have any suspicions at all when I flipped him the bird and told him I’d rather get groped on the bus by a hobo than get on his motorcycle with him. I think he even laughed. Though it was probably just the creaking of the old door.
The second the door closed and Conor’s motorcycle roared to life, the folder with my application was no longer there, sitting on the counter. It was in my fidgety fingers. It was on the coffee table in front of the floral print couch. It was spread out in front of me as my toes tapped impatiently on the old musty rug.
Why did I care so suddenly? Why was I now so sure that I could do better? That I could show the board something better from me? Why did I want to showcase something more?
When I awoke that morning, art school was a place for rich kids with cashmere scarves and home theatres. It was wide lawns with old stone buildings and manicured gardens and very high walls, very closed gates. It wasn’t a place for me. I was never going to impress a stodgy old group of men on some board. I was never going to have my art seen by a professor, unless they happened to get lost and find themselves in the wrong part of town where my graffiti was scrawled across abandoned buildings with crumbling brick and broken windows.
Art was an escape from the present; I wasn’t sure you could call that a future.
The minutes and the hours were passing and I was still there, working on my application. Trying to make it better. Anguishing over what piece of art to show. It was strange: caring so abruptly over something I’d never even thought to care about. Art school had never been a possibility before, but in that pink neon glow it seemed to be like it was the only possibility.
I’d never had anything to lose before and suddenly I had everything.
I had art school. I had Mason and Rian. I had Dublin Ink. I had Conor.
The little bell above the front door rang.
Of course I assumed that it was Conor who came back for me. That he was back to apologise in that gruff voice of his.
“Look,” I said, not looking up, “you can say you’re sorry by helping me. I know I said I didn’t care. But I do. I do care and—”
“Warms the heart,” a voice not belonging to Conor said.
I whipped around to find Nick locking the door of Dublin Ink behind his back. He placed his hand to his chest and said, “Bless your sweet little heart, baby Aurnia.”
There was only so far to scurry back away from Nick. I used up all that space in the span of mere seconds. My back was scraping against the exposed bricks on the far side of the parlour and still my feet were scrambling for more room. There was none. I knew that. Nick knew that.
He was sporting a nasty black eye and a fresh cut with rough stitches at the corner of his mouth. That didn’t stop him from smiling wickedly at me before slowly eyeing the living room. I watched him, terrified, as he tapped in disapproval the broken “Dublin Ink” neon sign, as he dragged a finger along the couch to tsk at the dust, as he rifled through a tray of tattoo needles with a curious quirk of his eyebrow. The whole time he got closer. The whole time I could not get farther away.
“Nice place,” Nick mumbled.
“How did you find me?” I asked, my voice cracking.
Nick’s hands were behind his back. He was studying the room like he was in a museum. His attention wasn’t on me. I wasn’t even sure that he had heard me.
“Didn’t your father ever teach you to clean your room?”
From his back pocket emerged the drawing of Dublin Ink. It fluttered halfway to the floor between us.
My stomach dropped: this was my fault. Whatever was going to happen, it was already my fault.
“Look, Nick,” I started, voice still faltering, “I’m sorry about bailing on you, but—”
“Shh, shh, shh,” Nick said, putting a finger to his lips. “I’m reading, love.”
He had gotten to the front of the couch, to the coffee table, to my application spread out as if just for him. The neon light fell on his coat. I could see the tatters, the tears. The reprisal for Nick’s failure had been swift, had been violent. I could only imagine what vengeance he intended to take out on me. My eyes darted toward the old rotary phone, but it was within arm’s reach of Nick on the little side table covered in doilies. I wouldn’t get two numbers in before he had his fingers around my throat. There was the door, but I’d have to outrun Nick to get to it, and I knew he was fast as a striking snake.
“Hmm,” Nick said, tapping his chin with bound fingers. He read from my application, “‘I guess I’d like to pursue art so that I can help people the way art has helped me. It’s like art has given me a gift and, I don’t know, maybe it’s just right to give it back.’”
