Baby Angel | a poly romance

‣ eight

Aurelia sighs and gathers her things before making her way towards the door. She quickly walks out of the room, bumping into someone right outside.

"I'm sorry!" She apologizes quickly, helping the person pick their papers and art tools up.

"It's fine, Aurelia." Adrian says, making her look up at him. "I wasn't paying attention."

She shakes her head and stands up, putting the papers in his hand. "I wasn't either."

Adrian looks at the door as students finally begin to leave the room. He gently holds her upper arm and pulls her to the side, so they wouldn't be in the way. "I heard his classes are tough, but I'm more surprised that you passed the applications."

Aurelia lets out a long sigh before nodding her head. "After today, I'm not sure if I'm ready for this class."

Adrian laughs and shakes his head. "It's only the first day, I remember my ex girlfriend's first day and she was kind of like you. Ready to give up before giving it another shot."

He looks away from her, putting his art tools in his bag as he speaks. "I'll just tell you what I told her. Art is suggestive, and there's no such thing as good or bad art here. The only person you should want to impress is yourself. If you impress others, think of it as an accomplishment for finishing another art piece."

"Those words are really meaningful, Adrian."

"Well," he shrugs. "I guess they were."

Aurelia takes a good look at his sketches as he tucks them in the bag as well. "Are you studying ceramic and sculpture?"

Adrian grins at her and raises an eyebrow. "Couldn't resist taking a peek huh?"

She looks down ashamed. "I did... just for a second though."

"Well, if you're curious, then yes." he smiles at her before nodding for them to walk together. "Even though it's not something my parents wanted me to do, my uncle introduced it to me before he passed away when I was only five."

"I'm sorry," Aurelia says, causing him to shake his head. "Don't be, he was an asshole sometimes, but when he wasn't, he was teaching me hands on what it was like to mold clay and sculpt out different things using my hands. Besides, he took care of me most of the time, since my parents were more interested in my brother's soccer dream."

Aurelia could tell that talking about his family is bothering him, though she never asked, she did kind of trigger the topic by asking the question.

"If it makes you feel better," she speaks softly, and cautiously so the topic will be subtle. "My mother is a doctor and my father is a teacher. No one in my family expected me to be interested in art, let alone art history."

"Ah," he chuckles. "Right, Art History."

"What?"

He shakes his head as he laughs. "You just... remind me of my ex so much."

Aurelia looks away, feeling both shy and uncomfortable. Uncomfortable because she didn't want to be compared to his ex, or compared to anyone at all. However, she is shy about it. Aurelia is being herself and if that was enough to make him laugh as he is now, it made her really shy that she was making, hopefully, a good friend.

"Don't worry," he tells her, making her look at him again. "Even though things ended horribly, I would never talk down about her to you. She's honestly not worth mentioning since—actually nevermind, just all the good things I remember about her I see with you. If that makes sense."

"Well, at least they are all good things." She jokes a bit, causing him to laugh himself.

"Sorry for comparing you to her," he says softly as they exit the main campus building together. "But you're good people, It would be cool if we hang out more. That way you could have better company than my brother and his friends."