or Alice more.
Sarah pulls her phone from her pocket; at the front of the exhibit, Randall flicks his tablet to life and scrolls through his notifications with two fingers.
Nothing times two. They both put their devices away and return to their work.
I can scratch the Capstone announcement from the list, and I don’t know if I’m relieved or disappointed.
My notifications just show a Hearts and Spades update from Slash/Spot: seventy-five new views. Twenty-three new comments. One-hundred-sixteen kudos. But nothing from Alice. I can’t take it anymore. It’s been seven long days of wondering if I’ll ever talk to her again, of being angry that she’s freezing me out, of worrying that something serious is going on. We’ve never gone this long without chatting before.
My pulse roars in my ears. My gut flops.
I flick over to my direct message conversation with Alice. It shows that she’s active now, and the last notification is a slap in the face:
I-Kissed-Alice 12:21p: I think I need to unplug tonight. I’ll talk to you tomorrow
Tomorrow was seven days ago.
I take a deep breath. I don’t know what else to say, so I just start like I always do.
Curious-in-Cheshire 8:58a: hi
It’s marked as “seen” almost immediately.
The typing indicator bubble appears at the bottom of the screen, then disappears again.
An entire minute goes by before she starts typing again.
Then it flashes at the bottom for another minute.
This goes on for what feels like an eternity, typing and pausing, breaking, typing and pausing.
Finally:
I-Kissed-Alice 9:00a: hi
I have no idea what to say next, so I just start typing.
Where have you been?
Nope. I shake my phone to clear the text field.
I’ve missed you???
Delete, delete, delete.
Curious-in-Cheshire 9:01a: how are you
I-Kissed-Alice 9:01a: my nerves are shot. I’ve been refreshing my email for three days
I allow myself a little relief. This feels like our normal.
Curious-in-Cheshire 9:02a: I get that
I-Kissed-Alice 9:02a: I’m an absolute mess over the project though
I-Kissed-Alice 9:02a: I have no idea what I’m going to submit yet
There’s something terrifying about this, that I didn’t completely comprehend until now: Alice is going to be a competitor.
It’s a cruel twist of fate, to have Rhodes out of the way and then be forced to face down Alice to get what I want. My conscience had no issue with sidestepping Rhodes for the scholarship—her parents’ money has solved every problem she’s ever had, so there’s no doubt they’d have any trouble paying for her college. But Alice doesn’t have any options left—her depression has left her grades in shambles, and the world deserves to see everything she’s capable of.
Alice needs the Capstone every bit as much as I do.
Curious-in-Cheshire 9:04a: Alice. Your work on Hearts & Spades has been incredible. Illustrate something.
Curious-in-Cheshire 9:04a: What if you proposed a series of Alice in Wonderland illustrations, set in space? Hearts & Spades style.
Curious-in-Cheshire 9:05a: Intergalactic Alice(TM)
I-Kissed-Alice 9:05a: You know I can’t do that.
I sigh.
This argument is old news.
Curious-in-Cheshire 9:05a: You can’t hide this part of who you are from the world forever.
I-Kissed-Alice 9:05a: you don’t understand what it’s like to have the world expect something from you
I lift my eyes from the screen of my phone to glance up at the recessed lighting over our heads. We’ve had this conversation a hundred times.
I tell her to teach the world to expect something different.
She tells me it’s never that easy.
I remind her that there’s nothing harder than living in a world where people expect someone other than who you really are.
This has never been an issue for me—the world has only ever gotten exactly who I am, no compromises or apologies: Being an artist. Being bisexual. Being a loud, obstinate, angry girl. My parents have always affirmed who I am, but they’ve never been able to cope with the sheer amount of space I consume by merely existing. I’ve always sensed that I should make myself smaller around them, easier to deal with, but it’s something I’ve never actually accomplished.
Meanwhile, people like Rhodes take a lot of joy in turning up their noses at people like me, enumerating the myriad ways I’ll never have the couth to navigate their corner of society.
Alice is too concerned about what other people think, though.
It’ll ultimately be the thing that kills her.
Three phones and a tablet all ding in unison, and my train of thought is long gone. The sound echoes fractious down the wing, reverberating off every shiny, angled surface. Over the tops of younger, smaller, inexperienced heads, Sarah, Randall, and I find each other.
This is it.
I expected that it