"Anika, calm down, it's going to be great." Mindy watched as Anika kept pacing in the kitchen, something she had been doing for the last 30 minutes.
"Calm down?!" Anika stopped pacing and her body went stiff, she was shaking with how tense she was, "Telling someone to calm down never helps them calm down!"
"Uhh, Tara, are you ready yet?" Mindy called down the hallway, "I think Anika is about to combust with nervousness."
"Coming!" Tara called out from her room. She was going through her closet trying to find something to wear. What did one wear to their best friend's midterm art presentation thing? Anything, Tara. One could wear literally anything. She grabbed a tight button up and threw it over her tank top, doing up the buttons as she rushed down the hall towards her waiting roommates.
"Finally, gosh." Mindy sighed, "We are going to campus not the opera."
"Oh shut up." Tara glared at them playfully, "I literally took 10 minutes to change my clothes."
"I think you look great!" Anika's voice was an octave higher than usual, which was impressive, but let the other two know it was time to stop making jokes and get going.
"I'm glad we are doing this." Tara locked the door and jogged to catch up to the pair already making their way towards campus, "It's been a while since we all hung out, the three of us."
"Is it really considered hanging out if it's for Anika's midterm?" Mindy asked, bumping their shoulder into Anika's, trying to lighten the mood.
"Oh my gosh, you're right." Anika murmured, "I'm getting graded on this. What if I did terribly? What if you can't even tell which is mine? Its supposed to be a self portrait but what if my self doesn't look like myself—"
"Woah, Anika, calm down." Tara held up her hands in a 'slow down' gesture.
"Oh man. Wrong thing to say completely, T." Mindy brought their palm up to cover their face.
"No. It's fine. I'm fine." Anika's voice got impossibly higher and her pace towards the school doubled. "Everything is fine."
—
"Beefcake." Amber looked Chad up and down, "I didn't recognize you with your clothes on."
"Amb sexy!" Chad bounced over towards her, wrappings big arms around her and lifting her into a hug tightly against his chest.
"Oomf!" Amber's lungs emptied of air with how tightly Chad was squeezing her, "Put me down before I feed you your own spleen."
"Woah, angry hottie." Chad chuckled and set her down, his goofy grin never leaving his face.
Amber glared at him and readjusted her clothing, "What are you even doing here?"
"Well I wanted to come see all the awesome pictures of me, but they all look like other people." Chad looked around the room with a puzzled look, "I hate to say it, but you guys aren't very good at art."
Amber chuckled and patted him on the shoulder, "Keep looking big guy, I'm sure there's a drawing of you in here somewhere. Did ghostboy come with you?"
"Oh yeah!" Chad beamed, "Little bro is around here somewhere! I'll find him for you!" He basically bounced off to look for Ethan (and a drawing of himself, probably).
—
"Anik a, why are we looking at pots?" Tara tilted her head to the side, changing the angle she was looking at one very poorly sculpted pot.
"Well the midterm presentations are for all the classes in the visual arts department. Sculpture, drawing, architecture, photography, painting..." Anika looked over at Tara, trying to hide her worried expression, "I just thought we could show our support for the other students before seeing my project."
"Anika, come on." Mindy whined, "We came here to see your work, not a bunch of pots that look like melted goblins."
"Wait, did you say photography?" Tara asked, finally looking away from the pot in front of her.
"You're right, Mindy." Anika sighed, "Let's go see my self portrait."
Mindy and Anika started walking out of the ceramics room with Tara following behind. She figured it was better to just follow along if Anika was finally going to let them see her work instead of trying to ask about the photography again.
They walked into the classroom that held all the self portraits from Anika's class and they slowly made their way around the room. Obviously some students were more gifted than others. A few of the drawings looked similar to what you would find on the refrigerator of a proud parent with a 6 year old. Anika had to swat Mindy's arm a few times to get them to stop snickering.
'Art is about creative expression' Anika chastised them. And she was right. They shouldn't make fun of it just because it didn't fit a specific mold of what art should be. Besides, Mindy had zero artistic abilities, that's why they stuck to science. It was easier for them to measure liquid into a beaker than to draw a face.
"Well, here it is." Anika gestured with her hand to her project.
Mindy and Tara stepped in front of it to take a look. Anika wrung her hands nervously waiting for their responses.
"Wow Anika, how did you do that?" Mindy asked, leaning forward a bit to get closer to her drawing.
"Yeah, that looks really, really good." Tara smiled wide at her.
Anika sighed in relief at the sincerity in their voices, "Really? You think so?"
"Definitely." Mindy beamed at her, "The way you drew your eyes, it's like I'm looking at you!"
Anika felt her face start to heat up, "I was afraid it didn't look enough like me—" she started but was quickly cut off.
"Are you kidding?!" Mindy's eyes widened, pointing to parts of the picture as they explained, "You drew your face! That's your face! Your eyes are beautiful, they like, shine. And I love your hair, it's so.."
Tara took a step back and watched Mindy go into detail about every tiny aspect of Anika's drawing. Basically telling her she was beautiful in every way possible by describing her drawing. It was rather adorable, until she felt like she was intruding on some personal moment. She decided to keep making her way around the room to give the pair of red heads some space.
There were other students walking through the room, looking at drawings, laughing at them, explaining them.. you name it. Tara figured other students had the same idea as Anika and were using the excuse of looking at the other projects to avoid looking at their own.
Tara was just about back to where Mindy and Anika were talking when a picture caught her eye. She stopped walking and turned to face it.
"Woah." Tara breathed out quietly. She wasn't sure how she was supposed to feel about it, but she couldn't look away.
Each portrait had its own uniqueness to it. Some added color, some had backgrounds, or objects included. Some were just of faces, or ended at the shoulders, or showed the entire body. Some seemed more like cartoon characters or comics while others strived for realistic qualities. As long as it was the students' version of themselves, that's what mattered for the assignment. Self portrait. Pretty simple idea. But this one was anything but simple. It was Amber.
The portrait was done in what had to be pencil, on a large white sheet of paper. It was simple, clean, but extremely intricate and detailed all at the same time. It looked exactly like her. Almost every detail was what Tara pictured as reality in her head.
Her hair was dark, and down in soft curls that fell down to her waist. Tara felt her fingertips tingle wanting to reach out and brush her fingers through it. She instantly felt silly at the idea. It was just a drawing. And even if it wasn't, it's not like she would run her fingers through Amber's hair, anyway.
She took a step forward to get a better look at the details. Amber's eyebrows were penciled in darkly, the same curve and lift to them that Tara was used to. Even in a drawing, Amber was smirking at her it seemed. But her lips weren't twisted up in the flirty way she had learned to expect. They weren't smiling, or frowning. Slightly parted but neutral, giving her more of a peaceful look. Even the small wrinkle that curved around the corner of her lip was there.
Tara paused, stepping back slightly. How did she even know to look for that?
Her eyes were dark, and even drawn with pencil had an intensity that made them hard to look at, then impossible to look away. Tara felt herself stuck there, looking at these eyes drawn by Amber. They were her eyes. Tara had remembered thinking they were beautiful, but knew there were a handful of reasons why she couldn't just stare at them for long periods of time. So seeing Amber's eyes, without Amber being able to see her, was different. She wasn't sure that was the right word, but she didn't want to think about it too much either way.
Her jawline was drawn sharp, clear lines guiding you down her neck, to the hollow space at the base of it. Collar bones that drew your eyes across her chest to her shoulders and down her arms to her hands. The drawing continued down her body until the bottom of her ribs, then faded away.
But that wasn't all of it. That wasn't how Amber saw herself, apparently. Because that was only half of the drawing. The likeness was almost exact through the penciled eyes, the nose, the hair, but near the jaw things changed. The left side of the drawing— the face and body continued like that. Almost an exact image of the Amber that Tara knew.
The right side of the drawing was different. Just under the cheek bone on the right side, it was like the skin had melted away, revealing her skeleton. It wasn't bloody, or gruesome, it was actually quite beautiful. It was clean, clinical, accurate. Bones and attachments of the jaw, connecting to the skull. Half the neck had been drawn in flesh, the other half displaying the vertebrae of her neck. On the right, the clavicle, the joints of her shoulder, then her humerus were all exposed. Down the center of her chest you could see half her sternum and the ribs curving, making up the structure of her body.
What was so amazing about it was that it didn't seem like a drawing that had been cut in half by two separate views then sewn together to form one picture. They melted into one another, mixing pieces of clothing ripping into ribs. A necklace hanging loosely on her neck, draping down low on one side then slowly disappearing on the other. Skin shifting to skeleton and skeleton to skin.
Her face looked so peaceful while the rest of her was fighting a war, being torn apart. Two different realities. External versus internal.
Tara tilted her head to the right and narrowed her eyes, then tilted to the left. Something was telling her she wasn't seeing the whole thing and she was itching to figure out what she was missing.
Then she saw it. She looked at the hands that had been drawn at the ends of each arm and felt her chest clench. The arm on the right of the picture, like the rest of the body, was made of bone. Extended with the hand held open, boney fingers outstretched gently. The arm on the left side, matching theme, was body and flesh. Her arm looked strong, yet thin, falling low to the side of what body would have been. But this hand was different.
At the center of the forearm, flesh started to melt away to match the other side of the drawing and instead of outstretched fingers and an empty palm, the hand was holding something gently.
Her heart.
The place in her chest where her heart should have been was hollow. It was only ribs and empty space. Looking close enough she noticed the cracks drawn across the ribs where the heart should have been housed. They matched the cracks drawn on the heart, being held so incredibly gently by her own hand.
It was haunting. It was beautiful.
"Huh." Mindy stepped up next to Tara and folded their arms over their chest, "Now that is a drawing. Am I right, T?"
"Hmm?" Tara turned her head towards Mindy, waiting until the last second to have her eyes follow, "Oh, right. Yeah, it's umm.."
"Creepy." Mindy stated.
"Oh, well I was going to say incredible." Tara shrugged, "But I guess I can— I can see why you would say.."
Mindy looked over at Tara with a curious look, "You feeling ok?"
Tara looked back to the drawing, "Yeah, I'm good."
Anika stepped up next to them both, "Are you guys finished or should we look around some more?"
"Let's keep looking." Tara spoke softly, her eyes stills canning Amber's self portrait slowly. There was so much more to this girl than she thought. Anyone that can draw something like that... Tara just found herself being even more curious about the mysterious, brooding girl than she was before.
Mindy and Anika started walking towards one of the other classrooms, calling back for Tara to keep up. She nodded, intending to follow, until she noticed the title of Amber's self portrait.
-Broken
Tara puffed out a sigh through her nose, her jaw dropping slightly, still blown away by the drawing in front of her. She looked it over once more before following after her friends thinking only one thing—
She made broken look beautiful.
—
"I didn't know you still went out there." Ethan commented, not looking away from Amber's photograph hanging on the wall.
Amber shrugged, studying the picture as well "Not very often."
Which was totally untrue. That forgotten park was one of her favorite places. It always had been, but even more so now that it was fenced off from the world. Now it seemed like her own private escape from reality.
"It looks different." Ethan finally turned to look at her.
"Yeah well, that's what happens when people stop caring about things. They change." That was a loaded statement. More so than Amber had intended. But it didn't make it any less true.
"Change isn't always bad though." Ethan must have caught on to the underlying meaning in her words, "I like it this way." He looked back to the picture, "it's like now it's free to be itself."
Amber just nodded but didn't say anything.
"And anyway, even with the change, the right people will still care. I mean you still like it, even with it like that." Ethan gestured to the photograph and shrugged.
Amber chuckled and threw her arm around his shoulder, pulling him into a slight head lock, "Alright, Dr Phil."
Ethan laughed, the mood lightening immediately. He saw Chad waving to him from the doorway and held up his hand in a gesture to tell him to wait. "I take it moms a no show?"
Amber loosened her grip and tried to seem like she hadn't noticed, but Ethan saw the slight frown before she wiped it off her face, "yeah but that was to be expected." She nodded her head toward Chad, "You should go though. Before the puppy wets himself in excitement waiting for you."
Ethan chuckled and shoved Amber's side gently before walking backwards a few steps towards Chad, "I'll see you tomorrow though, right?"
"For your bro-tastic party? We'll see." Amber shook her head and waved as Ethan turned and jogged over to Chad.
She let out a sigh as the familiar ringtone she had set for her mother went off in her pocket. She started towards the door as she pulled it out of her pocket slowly. Talking to her mother was hard enough, doing it around a classroom full of her peers was something she definitely didn't want to endure.
—
"What's she doing here?" Mindy hit the back of their hand against Tara's arm to get her attention as they made their way to yet another classroom.
"Who?" Tara turned to look where Mindy's eyes were locked and immediately her expression shifted to one of confusion.
"I thought you said it was just going to be the three of us?" Mindy grumbled as Amelia approached.
Tara watched as Amelia walked towards her, she heard Anika whisper harshly at Mindy 'shh, that's Tara's girlfriend, be nice' and felt like it was a reminder for her to be nice, too.
Amelia smiled as soon as she saw Tara, "Hey you!"
"Hey Amelia." Tara's voice wasn't as excited as Amelia's, "what are you doing here?"
Amelia immediately wrapped her arms around Tara in a hug, "I just thought I'd join you guys for Anika's art thing."
Tara gently pushed herself out of Amelia's embrace and took a step back, "I thought I told you I was going with Anika and Mindy and that I'd see you tomorrow for the party?"
Amelia's smile faltered, catching on that Tara wasn't exactly excited to see her, "I know, I just thought- I didn't think it would be a bad thing?"
"No yeah, it's fine." Tara shook her head to herself, it wasn't a bad thing. At least, it shouldn't be. "We were headed..." Tara pointed towards the next classroom and started walking that way, not bothering to finish her sentence.
Amelia followed a little behind, a little defeated and disappointed at Tara's reaction to her arrival. She really didn't understand what was going on with them but could tell it wasn't good.
Anika looped her arm through Mindy's and pulled them in the direction of the classroom to follow behind Amelia and Tara. They let out a groan at the sudden addition to their trio, but smiled to themself at how natural it felt I have Anika's arm looped through their own.
—
"Hello mother." Amber answered the phone as soon as she walked down the hall to an empty area.
"Darling." Her mothers voice seeped through the phone, "I'm sorry I wasn't able to make it to your little presentation tonight."
Amber sighed. She wasn't sorry, and they both knew it. The last thing her mother wanted to do was support her efforts to become a photographer. "It's ok, mother. I'm sure you're busy with something important."
"I'm glad you understand. Perhaps I can make it to the next one."
Amber could tell her mothers attention was somewhere else and let the conversation end. No point in dragging out a phone call neither of them wanted to be a part of.
Shoving her phone back in her pocket she decided she was ready to go home. She had made her appearance for her grades sake, and now she just needed to grab her jacket from inside and she could go home.
—
Amelia gave Tara's hand a squeeze as they walked down the hall, Anika and Mindy trailing behind them.
"Hey little nerd hottie! Nerd hotties friends and Mindy." Chad greeted with his lopsided smile as he walked towards them, Ethan at his side.
"Oh goodness." Anika muttered quickly, bringing a hand up to cover her reddening face.
Mindy turned their head to look at Anika curiously, "you alright, Anika?"
Before Tara could say anything Amelia glared Chad's way, "what do you want, popped collar?"
"Hey, be nice." Tara spoke up, letting go of Amelia's hand to wave at him. "Hey Chad, what's up?"
"Me and my bro Ethan saw you guys and we wanted to make sure you got the invite to the OKB party tomorrow!" Chad turned and gave Ethan a fist bump. "It's going to be awesome!"
"I really don't think I'll be attending." Anika muttered, her hand still over her eyes.
Everyone turned to look at her a little confused. Except Chad, he just flexed his pecs at her and wiggled his eyebrows suggestively.
"Uh yeah," Tara turned from watching Anika to look at Chad with a smile, "we'll be there."
"That means you too, Summer psycho?" Chad asked teasingly.
"How many times do I have to tell you not to call me that, Meeks." Amelia glared at him in annoyance.
Chad dropped his jaw, "Woah, not cool Kirsch."
Tara rolled her eyes and decided she didn't want to be a part of this little battle happening and headed into the classroom, leaving the rest of them standing in the hallway.
Amelia insulting Chad, Anika turning darker shades of red by the second every time Chad smiled at her, a confused yet perfectly happy Mindy stood there with Anika's arm looped in theirs and Ethan just chuckled watching the taller ones go at it with insults.
Tara slowly made her way around the room full of photographs. She'd be lying if she said she wasn't looking for a specific one. Finally finding the one she was looking for she stopped to look at it. She was further away from it, a few students stopped in front of her blocking part of her line of vision, and other students slowly walked by making their way around the room.
It looked like the same place in the photos she had seen in Amber's folder. The one she had gotten in trouble for looking in. It made Tara wonder what was so special about this place. She could clearly see it was beautiful— the tall grass, winding tree branches and flowing stream- but what about it made Amber keep going back to it?
The main focus of the photograph was on an old fence. The wood was aged and cracking, one beam broken with slivers poking every which way. Behind the fence you could make out an old swing set with vines climbing the poles, dirty and worn seats attached to rusted chains. A large tree with swirling branches that reached over top of the lazy pond.
The colors stood out more than anything else. The grass was impossibly green, the leaves on the tree matching. The sunset in the sky an array of oranges and purples and blues. The light reflecting off the water, making it shimmer even in the photograph. The brown wood of the broken fence cracking and rough with age.
"I've seen better."
Tara heard the low sultry voice next to her, causing her to jump a little in surprise. She turned her head to see Amber standing beside her, her eyes scanning her own photograph on the wall.
"Oh, so you're not going to yell at me for looking at this one?" Tara asked, a little more sarcasm in her tone than she had intended. The sound of Amber's chuckle made her happy about it, though.
"We'll see." Amber crossed her arms loosely over her chest and kept her eyes on the photo.
Tara watched her for a second before looking back to the photograph as well, "Where'd you take this anyway?"
Amber smirked and turned to look at Tara, "Wouldn't you like to know."
"Well yeah." Tara scoffed, turning to match Amber's gaze, "That's why I asked, genius."
Tara wasn't sure why it was suddenly so easy to tease Amber. Maybe it was that they weren't in a library studying, or maybe it was the way things had felt different around Amber in general since the start of their last study session. Either way, the banter was more fun than frustrating lately, and Tara had to admit she enjoyed it.
Tara watched Amber's smirk switch to a small smile, something about her eyes felt softer than usual and she didn't miss her stare flicker quickly to her lips then back to her eyes.
"Babe, are you ready to go?"
Tara's attention was quickly pulled to the doorway behind her where Amelia was walking in, clearly annoyed with whatever had been happening in the hallway.
Amber watched Tara turn to look at Amelia and felt a slight twinge of annoyance that Tara's attention was no longer on her. Although she knew she didn't really have a claim to it to begin with.
"See you around, princess." Amber drawled as she turned to leave, sensing whatever kind of moment they were having was ending.
Tara couldn't help but smile at the nickname. That was something that had changed too. Lately they felt like actual nicknames instead of insults, and they didn't annoy Tara quite that much anymore. She was actually used to it at this point and had started to like them and the fact that they were sort of reserved for her. (Although she would never admit it.)
Amber walked past Amelia and out the door. Tara heard the faint remark of 'bitch' and saw Amelia glare at Amber with a quick reply of 'vampire.'
Their animosity had always been annoying, and she didn't quite understand it- but even Tara had to admit moments like that were still entertaining to witness.
Tara watched Amber leave then turned to look back at the photo, trying to decide what to say to Amelia. It was weird, Tara had never been to this place before, but somehow the photo captured the sense of calm. Something she figured Amber probably felt about it, too.
"I think I'm just going to finish the night with Mindy and Anika." Tara commented, not turning to look at Amelia who was now standing next to her.
"You sure?" Amelia asked, putting her hand on the small of Tara's back, "I thought we could grab some food and go back to my place—"
"Yeah, I'm sure." Tara side stepped out of Amelia's touch before turning towards her, "I'll just see you tomorrow at the party, ok?"
She didn't wait for a reply, seeing Amelia's frown was enough to know it was pretty obvious something was wrong and both of them knew it. Instead Tara just walked out the door and took hold of Mindy's free arm and started leading them out of the building to head back home. She knew she needed to talk to Amelia but just didn't feel like she had the energy for it that night. Plus, she needed to figure out what it was she wanted to say. Which meant she needed to figure out what the heck was going on and what she was feeling. So yeah, talking. That would have to wait.