Lana jumped up and down and clapped her hands in glee. “Yay!”

“I’m excited,” I admitted, trying to suppress my pleasure both at my decision and Lana’s reaction. “I’m supposed to bring in a portfolio of my work, and he said that he would assess my suitability.”

“He’ll love it.”

“I hope so. I never thought my work was any good, you know? So I told everyone that I wasn’t interested in making money off it,” I admitted.

“I know,” Lana took my free hand and swung it, walking like we were five-year-olds on our first jaunt in the park.

“How so?”

“You were scared and deflecting, diminishing expectations in hopes of avoiding disappointment.”

“Do you really think talking like that to your patients is going to be helpful?”

“Too much?” She stopped and turned to me.

“Definitely,” I reached over and gave her a hug. “I still love you best.”

“Nah,” she said, hugging me back. “I think you love someone else best now, but I’m okay with that.”

I blushed a little and goosed her in retaliation.

“Speaking of true loves, you telling Noah about your plans?”

“No, not until after I talk to Dr. Rossum. I want to surprise him with the good news.”

***

I fingered my prepared portfolio. I had pored over my photos, but there were only I felt comfortable showing a few of them to Dr. Rossum. One of Lana’s sorority sisters was an art major and said that he was notoriously difficult and picky. I wished I had taken Lana up on her offer to come or told Noah about it. They would both be here, holding my hand if I had asked them.

But I had relied on Lana for so long. I wouldn’t even be here at Central if she hadn’t surreptitiously sent in my application. Noah could go fight a war, come back, and build an empire. I could face down one college professor.

“Don’t hover, Ms. Sullivan. Either come in or leave,” I jumped at the slightly nasal command. The door had been ajar, but I hadn’t realized he had spotted me.

I rubbed a finger across my nose, took a deep breath, and pushed the door fully open to walk through. Dr. Rossum’s office was a disaster. There were two wooden chairs set in front of his desk, but they were overflowing with magazines and papers. A small path from the door to the desk was cleared, but there was nowhere to sit. I inched in, careful not to tumble any of the piles to the ground. I stood awkwardly while he inspected me.

His gaze was so penetrating I felt like he could see all my flaws. That I didn’t know how to draw. That I hadn’t taken one art class, ever. That I spent most of my time walking in Lana’s shadow and my best friend was a boy I wrote to for four years and had never met, until recently. The organs in my throat seemed to swell, and I swallowed rapidly to try to keep my airway open. Don’t cry. Don’t cry. I ordered myself silently.

Dr. Rossum held out his hand and I laid the portfolio in his hand. For several minutes, I stood as Dr. Rossum silently paged through my pictures. He reached the end, flipped through rapidly again, and tossed it toward me like a Frisbee. I fumbled it and the photos spilled out onto the piles and the floor like refuse. My cheeks were burning as I bent to pick up the trash. Tears sat at the base of my throat, threatening to spill out if I so much as opened my mouth. I mutely tucked all the photos into my portfolio and stood up.

“Your photos look like you are trying out for the high school yearbook. Pretty pictures of flowers and trick photography? I hardly think you’d cut it as an art student here at Central. We are not here to train people to win Cosmo contests, but to capture the heart and soul of people through the lens,” he sneered the words as if just looking at my photos had begun to contaminate the department. I said nothing in my own defense because what could I say? That I liked pretty flowers and trick photography?

“Art is not about the acquisition of money. It is the portrayal of human suffering and triumph. Your photographs are as plastic as the images you are trying to digitally alter. Go back to your humanities studies.” He waved to shoo me out. I fled as if rabid dogs were chasing at my heels. My tears began to fall before I had even crossed the threshold of his office into the hallway.

It was my cursed luck that the FAC building was on the south end of campus, down by the theater and the diner that Noah had taken me to that first time. I ran home, straight down the middle of campus, tears streaming down my face. I heard ugly moaning sounds and, after a minute, came to the horrible realization that I was making them.

I had allowed myself to be convinced by my friends that I had talent, but deep down I must have known the truth. I hadn’t tried to enter the Art program here because I knew I wasn’t good enough. A little money and a lot of friendly encouragement had puffed me up, and Dr. Rossum brought me right back down to earth.

I ran up the stairs ready to bury myself in my bedroom, only when I opened the door I was greeted with the smiling faces of Lana, Noah, several sorority girls, and all of Noah’s roommates. It looked like a party was in progress. I wanted to die.

Noah

Grace stood at the doorway, her mouth slightly open, tear tracks running down her face. She was breathing heavily like she had run a mile to get here. We all froze in our tracks. And then Lana and I shook off our surprise and moved toward her at the same time. Grace rushed past us into the bedroom. I followed, but found the door locked. I didn’t even know these doors had locks. I jiggled the doorknob and then knocked. “Grace.” When she didn’t respond, I knocked louder. “Grace!”

“Stop it,” Lana hissed beside me. “You’re making it worse.” She tilted her head discretely toward the living room. Turning I could see the entire crowd of people standing and watching the drama. Grace wouldn’t want this, but I had to get in there. I didn’t know if some dickhead had attacked her outside or if she had terrible news from her family.

Swiftly I moved toward Lana’s bedroom. I would call her from the privacy of Lana’s bedroom. I didn’t ask permission or speak to anyone, but I signaled Bo with a tilt of my head. He responded immediately.

As I was shutting the door to Lana’s room behind me, I could hear Bo telling everyone to go home.

“Maybe you should just let her be,” Lana had followed me in.

“Do you know what this is about?” She turned away. “Tell me,” I grabbed her arm to pull her back.

“She wanted to surprise you,” Lana said, getting a little tearful herself.

“About what?” When Lana didn’t immediately respond, I pulled out my phone and dialed Grace’s number. Through the doors I could hear it ring, but Grace didn’t pick up. I hung up and dialed again. No answer. I dialed again. No ring. No answer. Fuck. I’d break down the door. Out in the living room, Bo sat on a chair, bent over with his elbows on his knees. He was tossing a phone back and forth between his hands.

“That hers?” I asked.

He nodded. “She opened the door and threw it at me.”

“Motherfucker,” I cursed. “Grace, talk to me.”

Lana was at my elbow again. “Maybe you should let me do it.”

“I’m not leaving until I see she is okay.”

“Just go to my bedroom and wait,” Lana gestured toward her room across the hall.

“Fine,” I ground out. I stomped off, signaling Bo to follow.

“Grace, it’s just me. What happened with Dr. Rossum?” I stopped and left the door to Lana’s room ajar so I could shamelessly eavesdrop. Bo sat down on Lana’s bed, my battle buddy, always having my back. Dr. Rossum? I mouthed to Bo. He shrugged. I had never heard of this dude. Was he one of Grace’s professors? Had he come on to her? White-hot rage flashed in front of my eyes, blinding me for a moment.

I heard a door open and soft murmurings then a soft sob. Goddamn, Grace was crying. I had never heard her cry. Shit. Was, there anything worse than hearing your girl cry and not being able to do a damn thing about it?

My phone rang, sounding unreasonably loud. Paulie it said. Fuck me. I had to take this. “What’s up?” I bit out.

“I have more details on the Halloween fight.” Paulie gleefully spilled out a number of meaningless words. I had come over to Grace’s apartment to share the good news. The guy fighting the undercard on the next UFC fight had laid down his crotch rocket on the highway in L.A. He broke five ribs and had a crushed knee. He was out, probably for good. An agent who had seen me spar Bo last week called up and invited me onto the card. I was going to fight a legitimate pay-per-view bout.

But none of the details mattered now. I had two objectives as I saw it. The first one was to make sure Grace was okay. “Paulie, I’ve got something going on right now. I’ll be at the gym first thing tomorrow. Send me any tape you have of the guy I’m fighting.” I hung up before he could blurt out more instructions.

“Can you call Paulie back and find out what’s so important while I deal with this?” I asked Bo. He nodded. “Take my truck.”

He hefted the keys I tossed him. “How’ll you get back?”

“I’ll cab it or borrow Lana’s car. I’ll figure something out,” I told him. We walked out to the living room. Grace’s door was open. I viewed that as an invitation. I gave Bo a chin nod and walked into the bedroom.

Grace was sitting on the edge of the bed. She looked ragged, a completely different person than I had left this morning. Her shoulders drooped, and it looked like it was taking a super human effort to even hold her head up.

“It’s just one person’s opinion,” Lana said consolingly, rubbing Grace’s back.

“That opinion belongs to someone whose art hangs in the Smithsonian,” Grace replied, almost too softly for me to hear.

It all made sense now. Dr. Rossum must be the head of the art department and he must have rejected her hard. “State U isn’t going to pay five grand for pictures that suck, Grace,” I said, trying to keep the anger out of my voice, I felt my body tense up into fight mode. I’d like to go and beat this Dr. Rossum into a bloody pulp.

I didn’t expect a response. Grace was too far gone inside her own head right now to listen to either Lana or me. I bent down and picked her up. She stiffened against me at first, but then collapsed against my chest.

At her surrender, I felt a flood of relief rush through me. Lana quietly shut the door behind her as I laid Grace on the bed and followed her down.

“Tell me,” I urged, holding her close. Her body felt like ice.

“Remember when I asked you what your greatest fear was?” Her head was on my chest and I could feel the faint movement of her jaw as she spoke.

“Yeah, it was water. The Marines beat it out of me.”

“My greatest fear wasn’t spiders like I told you.”

“No? You like them then?”

That didn’t even elicit a laugh, only a short shake of her head. “My biggest fear was that I wasn’t ever going to succeed at anything. Lana’s super beautiful and smart. Josh is great at sports. My Uncle Louis invented some great software program, which is why we live in a house you can’t see from the street. But me? I wasn’t anything. I’m a follower, Noah. The biggest chance I ever took was on you.” Left unsaid was that I had fucked that up by rejecting her advances because I was too screwed up to be around normal people when I got out.

“I always said I didn’t want to pursue photography, that it was just my hobby, because then it would never be judged as lacking,” she continued. I could see where this was going and my heart began to ache for her. I had pushed her into this. My goddamned big mouth about pursuit of money and success.

I felt the nod against my chest. I hugged her close. I tried not to give voice to the thousand platitudes that pushed against my tongue. My assessment of her work wasn’t going to matter right now because she was flayed open by the criticism of this Dr. Rossum, but I couldn’t keep quiet.

“Your vision of the world, Grace, of making the boring and simple objects seems so interesting is part of what makes you so amazing. If other people didn’t view your work as unique and special, no one would be asking you to take pictures. No one would be paying you real money. Real money, Grace, is the currency of criticism. Not words.”

Grace remained quiet, only the soft hiccupy sounds of her breath could be heard in the still room.

I didn’t know how to fix this. I wasn’t going to convince Grace that she was awesome at photography, so I did the one thing that I knew how to do.

Her sorrow had exhausted her. She watched me with big eyes, wet with her earlier tears, as I undressed her. I swept my hands in long, soothing motions down her body until I could hear her breath quicken and see her body flush in response. When she moved to reach for me, I looped her wrists lightly in my right hand. “Let me do all the work, honey.”

I slid down her body, running my mouth over her soft, rounded belly and lower still until I rested between her lush thighs. “I promise you won’t even notice the time passing.” Then I was too busy doing other things with my tongue and mouth to say another word.