table toward the center—“there. Oh, ugh, they’re talking to Bootsie, God help us all, and Griffin is waiting in line for something to drink. Kiersten is looking at somebody’s Capstone entry—Marianna Walters’s? Was that her name?”
“I don’t believe in heaven,” I say. “I think what Oscar Wilde said works better for this: ‘We are each our own devil, and we make this world our hell.’”
“God, you’re in a dark mood.” Rhodes makes a face.
“But am I wrong?”
Every time our eyes meet, it feels like it will be the last time.
“I guess it just depends on how you look at it,” she says.
Mom and Dad swoop in, all kisses and cigarette-scented hugs. I don’t have a chance to tell Rhodes I’ll come back for her as soon as Mom and Dad head to the buffet line. I don’t even get a chance to tell her goodbye.
I’m ushered over to stand by my installation, and almost immediately I’m subsumed with adults asking the kind of questions about my work I’ve spent my life dreaming of answering—what was my original vision for my work? I didn’t have a set-in-stone vision, I say. I only wanted to see where my original idea would take me. Are the fragile, ink-stained paper-cuts a product of careful planning, or can I thank some kind of happy accident? It was a happy accident, actually—a run-in with a printmaking student in my school’s makerspace.
It’s easier to lie than I thought it would be.
With my shaking hands stuffed in the pockets of my skirt it isn’t as hard to push through the Capstone nerves as I imagined—answer the questions. Smile for photos.
Let the twist in my stomach push me forward.
Laugh when I need to blow off steam.
Ask questions when I’m tired of coming up with answers on my own.
In spite of all this, I can’t shake the notion that today is a day for endings.
Sarah is lost to me, and the worst part is that I don’t know if I ever want her to come back; Rhodes will be over as soon as it began. Alice is a figment of my imagination.
It feels very brave to admit these things to myself.
It’s very grown and mature and part of being a woman to look loss in the face and keep moving forward. But I am my own devil. I created this hellscape for myself, and now I don’t know if I have the courage to rip off the bandage to set Rhodes free.
CHAPTER 29
RHODES
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Griffin finds me by Kiersten’s entry, the first just past the entrance on the right.
Everything about Kiersten’s entry screams I WANT THIS. Her section of wall is wild with color: Hand-dyed silk is stretched over wooden frames as if they’re canvases, each of them embroidered with intricate beadwork.
One is a self-portrait of Kiersten, seated in a chair and staring off into the middle distance as if she’s some sort of historical figure. Another is a collage of patterned silks sewn together in the visage of a dark, inviting path through the woods. She’s been working on this for months, long before the Capstone Award essays were due.
I want very much to not care right now.
The Capstone Award was never my goal—those breathy nudes were never meant to be. Dusk always asks me how old I feel when my feelings threaten to pull me under, and right now I feel like I’m six: I was on the verge of tears when I was offered something I didn’t want, and now I’m on the verge of tears because that thing has been passed on to someone else and my hands are now empty.
It would be very grown-up of me to simply feel joy for the success of people who deserve it, but I’m not entirely sure I have it in me today.
“This is how it was supposed to be,” I tell Griffin.
It sounds right, but I don’t believe it.
He’s handsome in a narrow-cut navy suit. A cherry-red tie stands out vibrantly against the crisp white of his shirt.
“How what was supposed to be?” Griffin cocks his head to the side to observe Kiersten’s work on his own.
“Tonight. I was never supposed to be a finalist tonight—Mom tried to defy the laws of nature by forcing it into being, and my being disqualified only set us back to the way things are supposed to be.”
Griffin follows my attention across the tent. Like the rest of the Capstone Award finalists, Kiersten stands on the other side of a whole army of