Madison
Matt needed to mind his own damn business...
He'd thankfully kept quiet after their quick dinner, but Madison couldn't help but notice how he'd still snuck glances directed at her when he'd thought she wouldn't have noticed, and it had gotten on her nerves and more paranoid.
What could he possibly know, anyways?
They'd all returned to HKMC and set up camp out in the lounge, doing what every other freshman art student had been doing for weeks: slaving over their godforsaken outfits for their Fashion-without-Fabric costume. Madison had worked on the pants made from black garbage bags, and had Matt stand in place to get his measurements. She'd also unraveled two yellow shower loofahs to hot-glue them along the hips and down the sides.
They'd decided Matt was going for a futuristic, French Revolution-era style outfit that looked similar to the Capitol citizens of the Hunger Games movies. They'd already constructed a yellow shirt made out of plastic tablecloth and had tissue paper accenting the edges, and while Matt went about getting a pompous judge's wig and creating the hat from cardboard, Madison had almost finished the military-style jacket and cape.
Eden and Peter were off to the side, meticulously gluing a skirt together made entirely of envelopes. They'd spray painted a robin's egg-blue ombré style on each individual one and then glued them over a belt. Their project was going to look absolutely fabulous when it was complete. Peter had tried play a bunch of Macklemore, Skizzy Mars, and other obscure rap artists that no one had ever heard of off his laptop, so they'd switched to Eden's playlist which had more chill, acoustic covers to listen to.
Matt who picked up his phone as it'd started vibrating on the table, stealing everyone's attention. "I'll be right back, I have to go check something," was all he'd said as he'd walked out towards the girl's side.
No one had really thought much of it, and all was pretty quiet up until about 20-minutes later. They'd all heard a loud, shrieking yelp of pain. The three of them jumped up in their chairs.
"What the fuck was that?" Peter asked as he'd tried to look over the encasing ledge of the wall.
"It sounded kind of like Matt," Eden followed him and looked out into the girls hallway. Girl's voices could be heard laughing from someone's room, Heather's door was wide open.
Madison recognized one distinct laugh over the others; one of them was Ali. Irritated that somehow Matt was involved, Madison shot out of her chair and wandered down the hall.
Low and behold, Matt was indeed with the girls, and he'd been sitting in a desk chair in the center of Heather and Lindsay's room; the two of them along with Ali surrounded him. For some reason, Matt had thought getting a spa treatment while they were supposed to be working on their project was a good idea, so with a towel wrapped around his head, he was being dotted on by the girls giving him a mani-pedi.
A fucking mani-pedi...
Madison had actually started to feel one of her eyelids twitch, and her hands curled up into fists; she couldn't breathe and saw red.
Matt's eyes widened into saucers when he'd spotted her fuming in their doorway.
"He-Hey Madison..." he'd sputtered, totally guilty.
Lindsay turned to her and beamed. "Hey Maddie! Your just in time! Matt let us treat his hair and do his nails!"
"You didn't tell me it was going to burn," Matt muttered, his face had gone red and stared at the floor.
Ali chuckled. "This queen also let me wax him, so I took out a chunk of his leg hair, see?" she'd pointed to a spot along Matt's ankle where there was a large, smooth expanse of skin.
"I colored his hair to give him an edge," Heather announced as she'd removed the towel from his head. "It's nothing too dramatic, just a more saturated shade of brown to brighten him up a little bit."
"Dude's gotta work it when he struts down that runway next weekend," Ali agreed with a laugh.
"We need to finish our project before we even worry about him working the runway," Madison had spat out; her voice deadly quiet. Everyone turned to her; they'd just realized how unamused she'd been.
"Sorry Madison," Matt cowered. "They said it was only going to be about ten minutes or so—"
"—I don't give a flying fuck!" Madison roared. "Get your ass back out there!"
How fucking DARE he go off and have a spa day with her friends, and Heather, while she worked her ass off on an outfit that was a part of BOTH their grades. What in his tiny, little male intoxicated mind thought this was a great idea?
If Madison had something sharp in her grasp in that moment, she'd want to stab something with it. She'd pointedly ignored Ali slowly pushing the bowl of hot wax away from her.
Jokes on her, because that only reminded her to bitch them out too.
Heather tried to speak up. "Look, Madison—"
"—Shove it Heather. Don't fuck with me when my grades involved."
Heather's brown eyes darkened, but Madison didn't give her any other chance to speak up.
"If you want to give Matt a glow up, that's fine, but don't do it when he's supposed to be working with me on our project. Do it on your own time."
Lindsay looked down. "We didn't mean anything by it," she'd sounded like a scolded child.
"I really don't care at this point," Madison shot back. "Matt, get your ass back out to that lounge or I'll grab Lindsay's curling iron, and give you a real makeover. Move!"
Matt darted out of the chair, careful not to bump into anyone or the bowl of wax, and dashed out the doorway. With her hands resting on her hips, Madison shot the girls an icy glare as she'd rolled on her heels to follow him.
After they'd returned, Eden and Peter kept looking over, but Matt remained in his seat without looking up at either of them, the only time he'd ever spoken was when he'd asked Madison a question towards the project.
Other than the timid whispers and Eden's music off her laptop, the room had been silent that whole rest of the night.
Jared
"Dude, are you going to do anything other than run people over?" Jared asked Brayden one afternoon.
Brayden slouched next to him on their futon; he hadn't even dignified Jared with an actual response besides a grunt. Earlier in the day, Brayden's girlfriend had messaged him with the cliché "we need to talk," and after an hour-long phone call shortly, she'd dumped him and left him out in the cold like Marie Kondo cleaning out a closet. She'd said she wanted to explore more possibilities and felt guilty about the two of them being tied down, constricted and unable to explore new paths set out before the two of them, and they'd both deserved the freedom and respect they'd had for each other to explore those uncharted journeys...
AKA: the bitch cheated on him. Probably more than once.
For the rest of that day, Jared had dragged his roommate out of his lofted bed, skipped classes with him, and sat around in their underwear to play the latest Grand Theft Auto video game.
"I'll stop as soon as it's no longer fun," Brayden dejectedly replied.
Jared cringed as Brayden switched up his gameplay, and ran over a virtual dog.
"Hey, so I know you don't feel up to going to get anything, but did you want to order a pizza or something?" Jared asked.
"Sure, whatever bro."
"Did you want anything particular on it?"
"Whatever's fine, doesn't matter to me."
Jared sighed. The poor guy usually had so much energy, so much charisma, but Brayden had been reduced to a shell of his former self. All the life had been seeped from him, all because of that leech of a—now—ex-girlfriend. Brayden hadn't deserved it, but Jared started to get irritated because he hadn't known what else to do.
Jared thought to himself that maybe they needed to get him absolutely blasted that upcoming weekend. Make Brayden go out to some party, have a few drinks, maybe hook up with some random girl; that should work, right? It worked for most of Jared's friends back home whenever they'd gotten bent out of shape about something.
Brayden slowly rose up off the futon, and Jared was jerked out of his thoughts. Brayden ambled over to Douglas's tank. He'd tossed a couple helpings of his special food that had to special ordered off Amazon.
Jared's phone went off, and he frowned when he saw the notification on his screen.
"Dude, I don't know how to say this," Jared's forehead wrinkled. "Your turtle just sent me a friend request."
Brayden stared back, completely clueless. "Wait. What the fuck?"
"I'm not kidding man, check it out," Jared stood up and showed Brayden the notification. On Facebook, there was an actual profile named "Douglas the Turtle" that had sent him a request. He'd already had a few mutual friends like Alex, Eden, Jenna, and Ali; his profile picture was one of Brayden's senior pictures that had been crudely cut and pasted next to Douglas in his tank.
Brayden remained completely confused, but Jared couldn't help but start to snicker. "Dude, that is some shitty photoshop skills you've got there."
"I didn't do this!" Brayden exclaimed. "I can't stand it when people make profiles for their pets, I'm not that much of a douche."
"So, you had nothing to do with this?"
"Fuck no."
Jared patted him on the back. "Alright, well someone did, and I'm guessing they added you too." Not that Brayden would've known. As soon as his newest relationship status had been Facebook official, Brayden's phone had blown up with messages and comments. Jared had to take it from him, turn it off, and set it inside one of his dresser drawers; out of sight, out of mind.
Brayden still looked at Douglas's profile on Jared's phone while the turtle swam in his tank to grab at the food pellets, completely oblivious. Brayden read some posts on Douglas's wall, even a status update of how he'd had a nice swim earlier, and Jared was relieved to Brayden start to crack a smile. It'd instantly dropped when someone started to call him.
"Oh, hey dude, you're girls calling," Brayden tossed him back his phone and went back to sulk into the futon.
Jared saw Leah's name and the photo of the two of them on his screen. They hadn't seen each other in quite some time; classes were killer, especially for her teaching courses that'd taken up a lot of her time. They'd only been able to message or Facetime each other, and Jared missed her. He'd missed her laugh, her smile, being able to wrap her up in his arms and pull her close. He also sure as hell missed kissing her, among other things.
"I'll be right back, gonna take this outside," Jared nodded, hadn't cared one bit he'd been in nothing but a pair of boxer briefs out in the hallway. Everyone else was in class, and it's not like he was that hard to look at.
Jared answered the call, wondering what she wanted to talk to him about.
Eden
It had been hilarious when Matt had a spa treatment with some of the girls on the floor the other night; Eden was all for it, but hadn't said much whenever she'd been around Madison. She could tell her roommate was pissed to the max about it; it was a surprise she hadn't literally pulled Matt by his ear back into the lounge.
What was so not chill was how the mood froze over like someone died or something.
Eden felt for Madison. It wasn't cool to literally ditch your partner from working on a school project to go have fun with your friends, but even besides that, Madison has seemed not herself as of late. It'd seemed like Madison been on a whole other level: she looked exhausted, but her mood would almost be bipolar in how fast it'd switch. Whenever Eden had tried to bring it up, Madison would've brushed it off and change the subject.
Defeated, Eden had decided to leave it at that. If her roommate didn't feel like sharing anything, that was her choice; all Eden could do was continue to be there for her, be a good friend, and make sure Madison knew she had support.
Eden had set her alarm earlier than normal in order to grab a coffee and to-go breakfast for Madison when she hadn't come back to their room until five in the morning. She'd left for classes before Madison had woken up, but smiled when Madison messaged her:
OMG, I seriously love you!!!! 😍Thank you so so so much, love you baby girl! ❤❤❤
That, along with a shout out on her Instagram profile, Eden had almost forgotten her own problems, aka her Drawing II course. She'd worked her ass off making sure her projects looked better, despite her instructor's constant indifference. If she wanted to become a professional animator one day, how couldn't she get a glowing grade for her pre-requisite, freshman level drawing course? It was madness; it was worse than the time Zach almost burned down the dining hall when he'd forgotten about the loads of laundry in the basement for his part-time job, or that Harlem Shake video craze that had lasted for only one month.
It was the next day, and Eden headed to her Drawing II course with Heather, Zach, Jenna and Matt. Her heart pounded out of her chest, and she'd felt vomit rising in her stomach, and she'd wanted nothing more than to go back to bed and sleep through those next few hours.
At least Spring had finally started to make its appearance: The grass could be seen again with a few piles of slush that'd still lingered, and the sun was out again with those much needed, vitamin-D rays to get everyone out of their funk. The air was crisp, but there was a promise for the warmer months on their way.
"Are you nervous?" Zach asked Eden.
She slowly shook her head. "I'm screwed."
"You'll be fine, your practice speech sounded great," Zach reassured her. "Just do it like that again, and you've totally got it."
"If all else fails, just imagine you performed the Riddikulus spell on Arquez," Jenna smiled. "Imagine his skinny jeans making his legs pencil-thin, and then he falls over from lack of support."
Heather snorted. "Or he gets trapped in one of his aluminum foil masks and struggles to take it off."
Eden laughed, but it hadn't made her feel any better. It was her turn to showcase all her projects in chronological order from the semester to have the class critique her overall craftsmanship. Seeing her first piece, then going down the line to her latest, the class would see how her style had changed, and what improved or had possibly gotten worse.
Heather had already gone; hers hadn't been too bad to be honest. She had a cinematic style to all her work; her work looked like it could all be storyboards to whatever movie she'd imagined in her head, or whatever would make an incredible shot. She really had a good eye for cinematography.
Zach's went alright too, but Arquez hadn't liked how Zach tended to heavily outline his work, and said it flattened any depth he attempted to show. It'd reminded Eden of the comic book style, which made total sense since Zach usually read a ton in his free time.
The five of them reached the doorway to the third floor of the Applied Arts building, and Eden's anxiety skyrocketed. Everyone had given her one last look of reassurance before they'd all went in and Eden took a massive deep breath to calm herself.
There was no way it'd actually be that bad, right?...
Yup, it was actually worse than she'd thought it could be...
"Um...so, as you can...as you can see," Eden stammered out during her verbal artist statement. "My style is a mix of soft, whimsical shapes inspired by the animation style I loved as a young wom...as a young child, and as you can see," she'd paused. Someone coughed though the silence. "I hope my idea of bringing back the classic, distinguished character work our generation grew up with...I hope it will continue on and be an inspiration to another little girl like mine...I mean like me, and continue the circle...I mean cycle."
Oh. My. Goodness...Eden couldn't believe how badly she'd just butchered her speech. Had any of that even make any sense? She'd peered at the class as they'd gathered together, and spotted her friends in the middle. Matt looked like he'd just witnessed a small animal going through a meat grinder, Jenna looked constipated, Zach's smile was so warped that he'd looked like a human Picasso painting, and Heather looked like a worried mom with a sad, pitying smile. It's almost over, just get through this and it'll get better, her look seemed to say.
Please Athena, Eden prayed to herself, Give me strength.
No one had spoken for what'd felt like the longest time. Arquez moved first; he'd slid right next to her work, inspecting her strokes of the charcoal, the chalk and oil pastels, and her use of color. Eden had made sure to never even touch her whites or blacks since Arquez had pointedly forbidden the class from using them to show light or darkness. It was too easy, a copout, he'd explained.
The other students had slowly followed his example, and walked around to get closer looks. Some stayed behind, not caring one bit about any of it, which was fine with Eden. She was only worried about her instructor's criticism.
"You're so amazing with showing the reflective qualities of glass with the pastels," Heather commented. "It's spot on."
Eden threw her a grateful smile in return.
"Your outlining isn't overdone at all," Zach nervously smiled. Jenna snuck in a small pat to Eden's shoulder as she'd backed up with the others.
Arquez had remained silent in his observations, but backed up to get all the pieces in at once, which Eden knew was his way of warning the class that he was about to speak. She held her breath in anticipation, and even a few classmates stared at him, curious to what their instructor was about to say.
Arquez slowly turned, his pale eyes inquisitive as he'd regarded Eden. "You say you want to go into animation?" he'd slid his glasses up off his nose. "You're in the Animation concentration within the Entertainment Design Major, right?"
"Yea—yes sir."
Arquez nodded, but his expression had remained stoic, revealing nothing. Eden felt like an entire watermelon sat in her gut, and she was about to collapse from the weight of it.
He cleared his throat. "Well, I certainly see what you mean when mentioning drawing your style from the artists of popular, mainstream animation films you grew up with," he'd placed his hands behind his back. "Let me guess...Disney?"
Eden nodded, nervously swiping her bangs out of her green eyes. "A few of them, but not only Disney. I'd also say Toshio Suzuki anime, like Spirited Away and Howl's Moving Castle."
"Oh yes, of course, of course," Arquez nodded. "I see it now, you've certainly captured their stylea, along with names like Natalie Fransciani-Karp and Gerald Scarfe, whom both have contributed to Disney animated films."
Eden was snatched at how he'd just listed those names off the top of his head. She'd known who they were, but it'd been so long since she'd seen their names, she would've had to have done a quick Google search in order to jog her memory.
"Your style matches theirs, yes," Arquez continued. "It's almost as if you're just copying their work instead of using their foundation to incorporate it into your own style. I see your work, Eden, and all I see is someone doing their best to match the styles of the masters because if it made them successful, why not you too?"
"I...uh, I didn't mean—"
"—It could lead to issues of plagiarism down the road, possibly lawsuits, and I fail to see your own spin on it." Arquez frowned. "I see your brittle, precise strokes, and it shows me caution, as if you're worried more about matching another artist, and you need to find your own voice in your work."
"But I—"
"—Don't Interrupt me, please," Arquez warned, and the whole room ha gone cold. "Eden, I can see the effort put into your work, and I appreciate that you'd listened to that request of mine, but I see you've taken it the wrong way. You need to keep it more original, more the pure essence that is Eden Harrington."
Eden was frozen, petrified like a statue. She couldn't even have snuck a glance towards her friends and their reactions. She'd felt pressure build behind her eyes, tears that'd threatened to escape. It'd taken all her inner strength not to have lost it right there in front of everyone.
"In the main, make your work your own, don't try to copy the masters," Arquez said like he was casually chatting about the weather. "Artists get known for how their work stands out from the rest, not whether they can simply follow direction. You say you want to become an animation artist, Eden?"
She could barely nod her head.
"Then I'm afraid with the lack of originality I continue to see, I may not see it."
So blunt, so direct, so piercing; Eden felt like a machete had pierced through her chest, spilling her organs out onto the tiled floor with blood gushing out like a broken dam. All that hard work she'd put into her work, all the time spent, all the nights sacrificed to getting them just right, and all was for nothing? It wasn't fair, none of it was, but was she going to stomp around like a child having a tantrum?
Goddess, no...Eden slowly nodded her head and stared down at the ground.
"Thank you for your time Eden, now let's take a quick five while Jordan sets up his work for us. See you all soon," Arquez announced before he'd stepped out.
A few students followed suit while some sat down against the wall, others immediately went on their phones to maybe crush some candy icons, but Eden ignored her friends as they'd called out for her, and hadn't even looked back to see if they'd followed. she descended the stairwell to use the second floor's bathroom, not able to face anyone.
Luckily, the second floor was clear, so Eden had ran into one of the stalls and locked the door. She'd covered her mouth to hide most of the sound, and let out all her anguish.