Page 56 of Dark Ink

“More of this kind of you, Ms Brady,” he clarified.

I made a noncommittal noise in the back of my throat.

“I want this passionate, engaged, talented student who has something to say and knows how to say it,” Professor Sauer continued. “If this is a lovely little butterfly emerging from her cocoon, please don’t retreat back inside. Forgive the cliché metaphor, Ms Brady, but spread your wings. Or I fear I may be gravely disappointed. And reflect that disappointment in your term’s final grade.”

With that, Professor Sauer moved on to the next student. He retreated into his bored, half-paying-attention slump. I grinned once more at my art. It didn’t even bother me that I’d just set myself up to receive a lower grade, should I not perform. It just felt too good to have created art, real art. Art that people looked at. Wondered at. Art that made people feel something. Art that raised expectations, even if that was, given my present situation, highly impractical.

After class was dismissed, I checked my phone to find several missed calls from Stewart. They were the kind of missed calls that stacked up like Jenga bricks. Within seconds of one another. Desperation and panic obvious in the long, long call log I scrolled through as I walked out of the studio.

Before I would have called Stewart back immediately. I probably would have dropped my artwork, already running toward the bus so that I could get to Stewart faster. If I’d received this many missed calls just days earlier, my whole world would already be Stewart: his needs, his emergency, his care afterwards, his bail, his medicine, his weak stomach, his high fever, his cruel words as I tried futility to keep him from using again.

But the rain outside felt like it could wash anything away. Clean me of anything, everything. I let it fall over me. Tilted my head up toward it. Breathed deeply.

And remained in my world. Art. Success. Rian. Me.

Rian

I was hoping she would come.

No matter how many sternly worded emails I received from college’s dean, no matter how many distressed students I had running up to me on the lawn as I struggled to light a joint, no matter how enticingly they accommodated the small, cosy space with its big windows overlooking a sea of trembling red oaks, I never quite saw the appeal of “office hours”. It was too much waiting. Too much small talk. Too much nodding and bridging my fingers under my chin and trying not to yawn.

I had no interest in grades. No desire to clarify things I couldn’t remember saying from lecture. No patience for the stuffy leather chair that smelled like old men and stuffy art history books.

But I checked the schedule I’d deleted from the registrar’s office, hunted down the little brass key from my underwear drawer, and kept the door to my office cracked just enough to hear footsteps creaking down the old hall.

I waited. Toes impatient on the oriental rug. Eyes unfocused as rain pattered gently against the peaked windows. Chin jerking at every moan of a floorboard.

For a long time no one came. I suspected many had, earlier in the term. I could easily see a line down the wainscoted hallway. Books clutched too tightly to chests. Skirts bouncing a little too eagerly against freshly shaved legs. Bottom lips held between teeth as the seconds ticked by and Professor Merrick failed to show up again. At the very least, I’d taught my class that: I was not available for them. I was not here for them. I had absolutely no interest in them.

I was here for one thing. For one person. For her and her alone.

When Eithne hesitated outside my door, I thought I must be dreaming. It was too perfect. Me being there. Her coming as I’d hoped. I couldn’t quite believe I hadn’t accidentally gotten too high while searching for the little brass key. Stumbled upon something stronger than I remembered. Smoked it a little too quickly in my excitement. Passed out with my arms hanging limp over the edge of the bed as I stared at the ceiling and sought out her face in the dancing shadows of the leaves from the tree outside.

I still wasn’t sure this was all entirely real as Eithne pressed her delicate fingers against the door. Stuck her head inside. Asked in a soft, sweet voice, “Is it alright if I come in, Professor Merrick?”

I spoke mostly to see whether I’d hear myself. “Close the door behind you, Ms Brady.”

Eithne did as I told her. She handled the door so carefully that neither of us heard the click of the metal tab slide into place. It was as if she had walked straight through the wood itself. It was as if the real world had no limits on her. It was as if she had always been there, fidgeting with the hem of her sweatshirt, and I was just now seeing her. She was just now letting me see her.

The two of us were silent for a moment as the rain drummed on what was left of the vivid red leaves of the oak. There was plenty left unsaid between us. Why she’d come to Dublin Ink the night before. Why she’d drawn me closer there in bed, falling asleep as her tears dried on my hand. Why she’d ridden me on top of that canvas. Why she seemed unwilling now to speak first when there was so much to be said.

“Would you like to take a seat?” I asked.

It seemed like something a professor would say to a student who came to his office hours one rainy afternoon. I knew it would never be us, my little Raglan Road girl and me. The innocent student. The uninterested professor. Detachment would never be ours. We could never discuss her midterm project without stolen glances or hastily locked doors. I would never let her go from my mind when she left. There was no next student for me.

But it seemed to calm her, this role playing. She thanked me with a timid politeness. With the awkwardness of a young girl who didn’t know this adult, casually, intimately, especially not carnally.

She sat, knees together, toes tucked primly beneath her as if she wasn’t the same girl who fucked me like a savage there on the roof. She placed her fingertips on her knees and cleared her throat.

“I don’t want to take up too much of your time.” Eithne’s gaze remained fixed on her fingertips. She’d cleaned the paint from beneath her nails. I hadn’t. “It’s just…well, I found your…guidance this morning very beneficial for my assignment.”

Lifting her eyes, she assessed me shyly from across the office. We could pretend there was nothing more than this, professor, student. Young girl, adult. Passing ship, passing ship. We could pretend. But not for long.

“I just wanted to say thank you, is all,” Eithne said, fingertips tightening on her knees as doubt drew her dark eyebrows together. She added, more softly this time, less sure, “I think that’s all I wanted, Professor Merrick.”

The rain was steady on the windows. The hum of the radiator, newly turned on for the coming months of cold, was steady. The ticking of the wall clock was steady, too. But all that served to do was prove how unsteady I was: my heart, my mind, my hold on my self-control.

“No,” I said.

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