Page 48 of Dark Ink

The class’s attention came back to me. They were no longer the flock of loyal sheep. They were spectators of a sport. I’d been levelled with my student; opponent against opponent. I hated Eithne in that moment. Hated her defiance. Her stubbornness. Her foolishness she called “a soul”, the masochism she called love.

“Is that what you’re trying to create, Ms…?”

I paused. Her voice came through clenched teeth. She knew damned well I knew her name.

“Brady.”

“Is that what you’re trying to create, Ms Brady? A pearl? A pretty little thing rich women wear at the perfumed hollows of their throats and then store away for days, weeks, years on end? Hidden in dark velvet? Kept from the sun? Kept from life? Devoid of life?” I hadn’t realised how furious she’d made me till I was gasping for air. “Is that what you suggest the ideal of art is, Ms Brady?”

The faces watching me in the dim light were pale, drained of blood from the anger in my voice. Every face was a frightened child’s, except hers.

“What are you suggesting the ideal of art is, Professor Merrick?” Eithne shot back a little too comfortably, a little too quickly. It wasn’t the rebuttal of a student. It was the counterattack of a lover. I suspected some of the students sensed this. I didn’t give a fuck.

Apparently neither did Eithne. “Are you suggesting art should be a weapon?” Her voice rose in volume. “A dagger to cut down anything and anyone in one’s way? A bludgeon to keep people away?”

“You know that’s not what I’m fucking saying, Eithne.”

The shock on the class was great. The shock on Eithne was even greater. I’d used her name. I’d revealed an intimacy. I’d uncovered us as surely as pulling a sheet off our naked, intertwined bodies.

The stunned silence hung over the auditorium as low as those slate-grey clouds that churned and rolled and rattled the branches against the windows. I stared at her, she stared at me. There was horror on her face. She slunk back into more shadow as heads began to turn, whispers began to circulate.

I slammed my fist against the lectern. Partially to take everyone’s attention off of her. Partially because I wanted to. It felt good. And because I was that goddamn mad at myself.

I made a show of crumpling up the rest of my lecture notes. A show of shoving them into my satchel. A show of cursing low under my breath as I stormed toward the door. It was enough to allow Eithne to slip out unnoticed. To escape once more. To run. Maybe for good this time.

There was no point in telling the class they were dismissed as I slammed the door to the auditorium shut behind me. It was more than obvious. Maybe it was already clear that there was no class; that there was never any class. That there was only ever Eithne and me.

And now I’d driven a wedge between us. Cleaved us in two. Sentenced us to opposite sides of a canyon. She wasn’t going to listen to me. She certainly wasn’t going to jeopardize her place at the college for me. Her graduating for me. Her soulless, well-paying job for me. Her brother for me.

I’d still risk it all for her.

Eithne

I should have just let it go.

Things had calmed down. Gone back to normal or whatever you want to call it. Life was as it was before I met Rian. Or rather, before he saw me.

I had a new place that looked much like the other before Stewart destroyed it: yellow linoleum in the kitchen, bathroom tiles that never looked clean no matter how hard I scrubbed, worn-down carpet, thin walls, scratch marks on the keyhole at the front door.

Classes were as they were before: boring, uninspiring, steady as a dripping tap that wouldn’t turn off. I worked my shifts at The Jar. I checked in on Stewart who was one day, then one week, then one month clean. I studied. I slept when I could. I saved. I rode the bus and hardly ever daydreamed of Rian.

Hardly ever…except at night when I’d stopped running, when the noise of my day faded and there was just his voice in my ear, telling me all the bad things he was going to do to me, to my desperate body, to my greedy pussy.

Things were good. Okay, not good exactly but not bad. Not violent. Not turbulent. Not wrong. No fucking older professors. No inappropriate relationships. No touching myself in lectures. Or sneaking underneath lecterns. No art either. But it was the right choice. If a sacrifice was to be made, I’d made the right one. Art wouldn’t pay the bills. Art wouldn’t support me, protect me.

So I should have let it go.

I should have pulled up the calculator on my shitty phone, crunched the numbers, and assured myself that it wasn’t going to jeopardise my graduating, convinced myself it didn’t matter one tiny bit. I should have at least slept on it. Seen how I felt in the morning. Taken a step back. Given myself some distance.

I most certainly should not have boarded a late-night bus to Dublin Ink with the intention of confronting Rian over a B- on a recent art assignment. That was the last thing in the fucking world I should have done. But I did it anyway.

My heart pounded the whole way there over the thought of seeing Rian up close again. Not from thirty rows of desks away. Not from across a crowded campus, a passing glimpse here and there, gone so quickly I couldn’t be sure it was even him.

I feared the clamminess of my palms as I gripped the page he’d attached to my work. At his scrawled note:

A pearl. Pretty, but no more. B-

He’d written this and signed it, not Rian. But Professor Merrick. PM.

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