Strings and Schemes

Chapter 20

Raina's POV

I enter the student gallery, some first year student assistants clearing up another mess. I walk over to my studio space and unveil the pieces I'd been working on. I stare at them, but I feel nothing. I feel, empty. And these pieces only make me feel like this is the most fickle art I've ever made or seen. Worse than the art at Homesense to make people feel like their houses are more original.

I scoff, how ridiculous was I to think this art could ever hold weight to the feelings I've felt the past six weeks since I've met Zayn? He gunned down my plane, and now I'm left scrounging to find the pieces and the black box to find the last proof of life.

I can't seem to come up with the answers for how to make this art feel authentic, and in true Raina fashion, I take a brick to my art and smash it. It's cathartic, it's painful, it's healing, and it's terrifying. Starting over again, one week out from my senior gallery. The thing that will assure me a place in matriculation, or ensure that I never work as an artist again and end up in the diplomatic corps for life.

I start anew - this has to be about something deeper. I choose a new medium, something I've never sculpted with before. Leave it to me to never take the easy road.

I don't even hear the door open. I don't hear Louis call my name.

All I hear is the grinding of metal against metal as I weld another seam into place, binding the fragmented halves of a hollow figure together. Sparks flash, the smell of burning metal thick in the air.

I push my welding mask up, squinting at the piece in front of me. My hands are shaking from exhaustion, but I ignore it. Just one more piece to smooth out, and then—

"Jesus Christ, Raina, are you trying to blind yourself in here?"

I jolt, whipping around to see Louis standing in the doorway, arms crossed, sunglasses perched on his nose despite the fact that we're indoors at night.

"How long have you been standing there?" I ask, breathless.

"Long enough to know you haven't eaten since, what? Yesterday?" He gestures at the worktable, littered with half-empty water bottles, scattered sketches, and the remnants of whatever sad meal I abandoned last. "Maybe longer, considering you look like you're about five seconds away from becoming one with this sculpture."

I roll my eyes and turn back to my piece. I already feel like I'm the sculpture. Chipping pieces of myself away for others to digest.

"I'm fine," I resolve. A tense and angry tone in my voice.

Louis snorts. "Right, and I'm the Archbishop of Canterbury."

I lift my welding torch again, but before I can start, Louis strides over and yanks it right out of my hand.

"Hey—"

"Nope." He shakes his head, holding it above my reach. "I'm calling an intervention."

"For what, exactly?"

"For you acting like a tortured artist in a shitty romcom, Raina." He gestures around the studio, at the dozens of unfinished pieces, at the chaos of materials surrounding us. "You scrapped your entire final project and decided, instead, to turn this into an interactive heartbreak exhibit starring none other than Zayn fucking Malik. Excuse me if I'm slightly concerned."

I wipe sweat off my forehead with the back of my wrist, smudging charcoal in the process. "It's not about him."

Louis bursts out laughing. "Oh, babe. Every single piece in this room is about him."