The Art of Feeling Small Pt. 6: Silver

I stared, blinking in and out of focus, as navy blue thread wound tighter around my first knuckle with every turn of my finger. I had never thought of anything in our apartment as particularly shitty, but as I watched, the thread pulled loose and stuffing peeked out. We had bought this cushion at the start of the semester.

I lay with my forehead against one arm of the couch. My legs dangled off the other. The couch was hard and unyielding beneath me; it did nothing for the nausea that had been rolling in my stomach since I started talking.

I pressed my face into the cushion. The material was itchy against my forehead.

Mack wasn't helping. His silence was unsettling enough without his anxious ticks. Nonstop, his legs bounced beneath mine at the other end of the couch. I kicked one foot impatiently and the drumming stopped.

"Sorry, I'm just." He sighed. I sank further into the couch. Or, I would've, if it wasn't so shitty. "That's, uh. It's a lot."

"You're telling me."

"Can't hear you, champ."

I lifted my head just long enough to say, "I feel like shit."

Mack rubbed soothing circles against my calf as if he needed to brace me for his next words. I tried to feel annoyed at the coddling, but it was soothing.

"But how do you feel about him? Ezra."

It was my turn to be quiet. Mack's patience ran even shorter than mine. A sharp pinch at the back of my knee had me jerking away and muttering, "Asshole. That's a loaded question."

"So I can hear you."

I turned onto my cheek and looked at the thread around my finger. When I spoke again, it was clear but quiet, and that was the best I could do.

"I don't want to lose him."

"And?"

"I don't know," I hissed through the squeeze in my chest. "That's all I've got."

"That's not true."

"Mack," I pleaded. He let up, massaging another circle.

"How about this: you said he was, ah, touchy, right? Because he liked you."

"I didn't realize-"

"I know, I know." Another circle. "But you reciprocated?"

My shoulders curled forward. "Yeah."

"And you were comfortable?"

"I was just doing what felt-"

I cut myself off, but the half-truth lingered. He didn't let it die. "What were you going to say?"

"I was following his lead."

Mack's next breath was loud, frustrated. "You knew, somewhere in that big dumb head of yours."

"I never thought about it."

That hadn't worked on Ezra, and it didn't work on Mack. "That's not what I said. Alex, can you seriously say you don't like him?"

The thread broke with a snap. The sting in my finger was a welcome distraction.

"That's not...I'm not-"

"You don't have to be, to like guys, or one guy, or whatever."

I wondered if I'd come down with something, because our AC was permanently set to seventy-four but my chest, my face, my gut, everything burned. I rolled over and tugged my legs away from Mack's body heat.

"I think you should at least consider it."

"That would be a waste of time." He didn't deserve the way I snapped at him. I pulled myself upright and planted my feet against the shitty rug. "This is a waste of time."

Mack's stupid-long arm anchored me down by the shoulder. Maybe I really was burning, because his hand retreated as fast as it had come. His next words were softer, the sort of tone you'd use on a cornered cat or a crying child.

"I want to understand. What are you afraid of? No one we know would care, I don't think. Is it your parents?"

"My parents?" It rang out like a slap. The heat must've reached my eyes, because his mouth hung open.

"What the fuck does this have to do with them, or anyone else? This is my life, and I've known what it would look like for- shit." There was a picture in my head, framed and mounted on a wall. It had been there for years, but it was heavy now, so heavy that I dropped my head into my hands, braced against my knees.

"I've always had this plan," I said, unsteady under the weight. It was a nice picture. Even if the angle changed, or the lighting shifted, the image stayed the same. "And it's a good plan. It makes sense, and it's safe, and everyone is happy and no one is let down and...it's a good plan. It is."

A crack had split the glass. I didn't know when. A small fissure, nothing of note.

"I keep trying to be that person."

I didn't understand how - there had been no impact - but the fissure had grown out in branches.

Mack scooted closer.

"I keep missing every mark. I can't-" I turned my cheek onto my palm to look at him, seeking some confirmation that it would be fine, nothing needed to change. I could just wait it out. Mack looked back with none of that. He returned his hand to my shoulder, and he didn't pull it back this time. That, at least, was grounding. "Is it stupid that I just- don't want anything else to change?"

Mack squeezed my shoulder like he was bracing me again. I must've sounded miserable. "Of course it's not. But Alex. Whose plan was it, really?"

I closed my eyes and I saw the frame, splintered and hardly hanging. A pair of hands reached out to steady it, neither light nor dark, old nor young, masculine nor feminine. I couldn't tell who they belonged to.

My hands dragged up, down, up my face. Mack didn't let up his grip, holding me in place as I swayed forward.

"I know this is the kind of thing that takes time." He paused, and I waited, the heels of my hands pressed over my eyes to keep the light out. "But you said you don't want to lose this guy. If you keep doing this..." His hold wobbled. I knew he was gesturing with his free hand like it might help him find the words. "This thing that you do, you're going to take forever. I don't think he'll give you that long."

I peeked at him between my fingers. "What 'thing'?"

Mack's eyebrows jumped up, dipped down, came together, all in the span of a second. "You know. That Alex tendency. I call it the Santos Special in my head."

I stared.

"Whenever something is stressing you out real bad, you just. Don't. Deal with it, that is."

"I deal with things."

"Small things, maybe. But anything big, you distract yourself. Throw yourself into school or socializing or games or whatever. And you keep pushing it off, but it doesn't go away because of course it doesn't, and you end up acting like a dick and hurting the people who care about you."

He stopped himself short. I sat up straight and his hand fell away.

"Everyone has their way of processing things. But you just- don't. And it can be really shitty."

Mack had never been one to hesitate, but he was reluctant to meet my eyes as I turned to face him. I was at a loss for something to say, but I opened my mouth anyway.

"Don't bother," he said first. "This isn't about me. There's no point talking about it; you already know, don't you?"

He'd had a first-row view for all of it. He'd watched me lose motivation in one area of my life, then another, then all of them. He'd asked, time and time again, if there was anything wrong, if there was anything he could do, if there was anything we could do. If anything needed to change. I'd told him no, no, no. I didn't want to change. And I didn't want to think about it.

"Yeah." I breathed out. "I know. And I'm gonna figure it out, okay? I'm gonna- I'll be better."

Mack nodded, rising to stand. He clapped my back, and his palm was warm. His eyes were warm. His voice was warm. "I know. Don't bug that kid 'til you've got it down, okay? He deserves that much. You've got a good three weeks away from all this to think. Take your time."

I did what I could to return his smile. After Mack left for whatever errand I had interrupted, I pulled my knees to my chest, toyed with the string still wrapped loosely around my finger, and stared ahead at the blank screen of the television.

I tucked my head against my knees, sighing long and soft through my nose. "Goddamn."

xxx

My grandparents' "yard" was really a field, unfurling for acres behind their country home. It wasn't the same as I remembered. I lay alone, colder without my cousins laughing on either side, teasing me as I pointed out the same stars year after year. The yard was hardly tended now that my grandparents were old and their family had spread so far. The grass was overgrown and itchy.

The thing about the sky was that it never changed. Not in a lifetime, at least. It had moods, and phases, but it was dependable.

It had been years since I'd seen it like this: outside of a textbook, without the lens of a telescope or the glow of a screen, unhampered by light pollution. The stars were alight and alive. They tricked the eye into seeing silver movement where there was none. They vibrated to the beat of the crickets and frogs. I used to try and count them, every single year, even though they were innumerable.

I tried again now. My body had been wound tight for the last two weeks. I thought I might find comfort in the monotony. The numbers ran away from me somewhere around two-hundred. I searched for my starting point to try again, but there was no starting point - they just went on and on, so many of them, too far away to even dream of touching one.

When I was little, I would try anyway. Arms outstretched, fingers reaching.

Maybe it was the Christmas Eve chill, or the tension that hadn't left my shoulders since Ezra's goodbye. Dread pooled low and freezing in my gut at the thought of doing so now, seeing my own miniscule hand up against all that sky. Its weight was oppressive. If the sky was a blanket, I was trapped underneath.

I tossed onto one side, curled into myself, and tried to breathe through the sudden, suffocating feeling of being terribly small.

My cheek stung with the breeze. I pulled the neck of my sweatshirt up over the bottom half of my face and shut my eyes. I took a deep breath in, hoping to catch a trace of the last person who'd worn it. Instead of paint and fresh air, I breathed in grass, my grandparents' house, and a hint of laundry detergent.

Of course Ezra had washed it.

I like him so much.

My fingers curled into the green cotton over my nose. I waited with bated breath for something. A sinking feeling, or the sudden pain in my chest that I had grown familiar with over the last couple of weeks, or some foreboding sign from the universe, like a clap of thunder.

Nothing happened. I tried again, a whisper this time. "I like him. So much."

Instead of a flood, it greeted me like morning fog clinging to a leaf. A memory. A peaceful smile from a boy on a hill, cadmium green eyes and a radiant red mouth, a blade of grass caught in burnt umber hair. It would be easy if I could dismiss it as the way he looked in the moonlight. Ezra was beautiful, objectively; it wouldn't mean anything to remember a scene like that. But barely any moonlight reached Century Plaza. Just the ugly white-pink of the courtyard lampposts.

My sweater fell away from my face as I rolled onto my back. I wondered if Ezra had worn my clothes when he was home; if he had searched for my smell, too. Though my lips were cold and wind-chapped, I aimed my words at the sky. "I like him so, so much." I miss him so, so much.

When I blinked my eyes open, the sky was just as it had been before. Unreachable. Infinite.

Wonderfully unbothered by my announcement.

"And...and I don't give a damn about rival games or aerodynamics or fraternities, God, and- and I don't want to be an aerospace engineer. I don't know what I want. Except for Ezra. I...want him."

The sky ignored me.

The stars would outlive me a million times, impassive and unfeeling, forever uninterested that I was staring at them now, angsting over small changes.

I had a conscious mind and a pulsing heart, one that beat for a magnetic boy with paint-stained fingers. I was more than them. But they were still bigger, endlessly bigger than I could ever be, and there was peace in that indifference.

"I really messed up, didn't I?"

The stars blinked back, unimpressed.

xxx

In the days leading up to the start of classes, I longed to summon Mack with a wish, like a genie or a fairy godmother. To tell him that he'd been right, and I'd been an idiot, and I didn't know how to fix it. Was it better to call Ezra, or confront him in person? How would I even find him? I didn't know whether he'd still be in the studio on Thursdays this semester. I didn't know if I would last until Thursday. It was Monday and I was a mess. I was even more distracted than normal, which frankly should not have been possible.

Even if I saw him right that second, what would I say?

I needed Mack's advice more than ever, but in the years I'd known him, he had never shown up before the third day of class. This year would be no different, and I wasn't quite pathetic enough to interrupt his vacation with my cries for help.

As it turned out, I didn't need to.

"-if you think this move is what's best for you- are you with me, Alex?"

My eyes darted up from my phone in my lap. The academic advisor for the College of Engineering regarded me with a raised eyebrow and a tone that, while not unkind, expected my full attention.

"Yes, sorry. Please continue."

This was an Important Meeting. Potentially life-changing. And she had squeezed me in at 5:30 PM on the first day of the semester. So I listened closely as she talked concerns and benefits, requirements and timelines and changes that left me dizzy. I pushed the text from Mack to the back of my mind despite its screaming colors, and I thought about the unbothered stars whenever it all became overwhelming.

"Thank you," I said as I stood. I pushed my hand into my pocket but resisted the urge to pull out my phone as she told me to think carefully about it, that it was a big move, but maybe exactly what you need.

The door closed behind me and I rushed to open the text. It was an image. Like I'd thought, the colors on the flier had been instantly familiar because I'd seen them before. On a flier I ripped from a wall in the art department last semester to show-

Ezra Ammari. That was new. The name was printed near the bottom, beneath the large font advertising a show at the Holloway Art Gallery and the even larger font presenting the theme: Reflection.

My eyes blew wide when I saw the date and time. I didn't read the rest, but I did text Mack about fifty beating heart and prayer hand emojis as I sprinted to my car.

xxx

I stopped just short of the gallery doors and did my best to smooth the wrinkles out of my button-up. I was given thirty seconds to agonize over whether a black blazer and pants were too dressy or not dressy enough before someone cleared their throat behind me. I lurched for the door, fumbling over the handle.

The entrance was dim, and for a moment I worried that I was even later than I thought. There was a security guard by the fork in the hall, and I could see more light coming from either side, but no signs of patrons except for the disgruntled man edging past me.

He seemed to know where he was going so I followed his lead, trailing him past the photographs lining the walls, past the security guard, past silvery 3-D letters spelling REFLECTION. He turned left.

"...and I want to thank you so much for this amazing opportunity."

That was Ezra's voice coming through a speaker. My heart leapt to my throat, and I didn't need a guide anymore. I wanted badly to run.

"The theme of this show is reflection. And it's funny, I think that's exactly what I needed."

The walls opened up to a wide room. More than a hundred people filled the space, but the crowd might as well have been a smudge of portland gray in the foreground. The only spot of color in the room stood at the center of the stage.

Washed in soft light, Ezra was breathtaking in a mahogany suit.

"For a while there, I was caught up in all the wrong things - opinions, limitations, bodies that have nothing to do with making meaning. I was looking for inspiration in artless places. And it took, ah," he chuckled, but something was off. "An ordeal for me to find it."

There was tension wired all throughout his posture and a controlled quality to his voice. Ezra was the most expressive person I'd ever known, but he was a disconnected circuit on that stage, bad as ever at faking a smile. Nobody else seemed to notice, captivated by his charm. The sunglasses hid it well.

"But I'm grateful that it led me here, and I'm grateful to Mr. and Mrs. Halloway for giving me the chance to share what came from it."

Three adults stood behind him. I recognized Professor Florence from pictures. The other two, entirely ancient, stepped forward to take the mic as the crowd applauded. They had to be the gallery owners.

Caroline Holloway started saying something in that uppity geriatric lilt that tended to come with old age and excessive wealth. Her words drifted right over my head as I watched Ezra slip off of the stage and escape into the crowd, carefully tipping his walking stick.

In a very normal, not obsessive way, I followed the bob of his head across the room and through an opening on the other side, into the exhibition. Ezra was nowhere to be seen, and there was another damn fork in the hall.

Polite applause spilled from the room behind me. The crowd began to move. I saw a flash of mahogany in the left branch, before some British fucks walked in front of me and cut off my view. The sight was gone when they passed.

Ezra probably would have scolded me for storming through the exhibits without stopping to admire the art. The thought of having his attention, even if it was chastising, made my head spin, and wasn't that something to admit. Reflection.

At the edges of my tunnel-vision were lots of lakes and mirrors, but more interesting concepts, too: a ghoulish sculpture of Narcissus, a nearly blinding fake sword, a forest landscape formed entirely from mist, a moon representing...something about the moon.

I made it to the final exhibition room. Ezra was there, talking to a woman who just looked expensive. Everything about him seemed all wrong, and he was standing in front of - me.

Okay, that was a conceited generalization. There were five framed paintings on medium canvases mounted behind him. One of them was of me.

His style was so familiar. Bold lines that raised off of the canvas and unworldly color.

The paintings seemed to progress from the outside in, leading to the piece at the center. That one was larger than the rest.

On the far left: a dark, crowded room. Most everything was grayscale and midnight blue, but there were two swashes of color: the ceiling, and a child. In a group of children with their heads bent in conversation, there was one boy with his chin tilted so far upward, his whole face reflected fiery orange light. The light came from the glowing image of the sun on the domed ceiling. The boy was in a planetarium. The projected solar system seemed impossibly bright, even for the dark room; or maybe that was just how the boy saw it.

The painting on the far right showed a different child. He wore thick glasses that made his eyes huge and sat against a fence beneath the night sky, holding a paintbrush to the sketchbook in his lap. Though not as vibrant as the planetarium, the moon was bright and the stars were brash. It was a beautiful sight, but he wasn't looking. The moonlight couldn't reach his face; instead, he was cast in the shadow of his own head pointed downward at the sketchbook.

In the second from the left was a young man from the shoulder up, positioned before the eyepiece of a telescope. His face - my face, if not exactly - was scrunched in concentration, like he couldn't find what he was looking for. It was no wonder; his eyes were closed.

On the right was a self-portrait. Ezra, older and without the big glasses. His eyes were clouded and unseeing, his face tilted up much like the boy in the planetarium. Except the sky was nearly gone, blotched out by swatches of darkness and practically colorless. Still, his eyes were wide open, forehead strained with the pressure. He was trying.

I realized the paintings told parallel stories; left and right; me and Ezra.

It culminated at the center piece. The two of them - us - back to back, left and right, on our hill. Ezra's eyes were still clouded but he stared out at a nonsensical night sky, with pink clouds and stardust and a super moon. The entire solar system was visible, misaligned and in all the wrong colors. Ezra's mouth hung open in wonder.

Toward the center of the canvas, the sky shifted. The colors darkened and dulled; the swirls flattened out into lines, and then blank space. I was looking out at a plain gray-blue sky, fogged by the nearby streetlamp.

"Incredible, isn't it?" said a woman next to me. She smiled apologetically when I jumped. It was Ezra's mentor, Professor Florence. I didn't remember crossing the room, but we were right in front of the series. I had been there so long, a whole new crowd had entered. Several of them stood around Ezra's exhibit.

Ezra was gone.

Her smile slipped, then slid back into place brighter than before, as her eyes darted between the portrait at the telescope and my face.

"It can take a great force to move an artist," she said. "We're as stubborn as we are inspired. You make a powerful muse."

Others were starting to look at me, too, with the same pleasant surprise.

"What's it called?" I asked like I'd been holding my breath. She pointed to the plaque beneath the center painting and I felt appropriately stupid. There was no description. Just Ezra's name, and the title of the series. Oddly, it was a question: What Did You Expect?

"I have to go." I took off across the room into a quiet back hallway to catch my breath. I leaned against the wall and worried about Ezra.

He had run away from his own exhibit. Where was Kayla? To not even show up...

There was no way. Kayla wouldn't miss this for the world if she knew.

"Ezra, you dumbass," I mumbled, fumbling my phone out of my pocket. I shot off a text, grateful to see a tiny Delivered pop up underneath- at least she hadn't blocked me.

The relief was short-lived the longer I stared, waiting for Delivered to change to Read.

"Shit." There was no telling where she was, or when she'd see, and Ezra needed her now.

I hesitated, but not as long as I should have. If Ezra heard my voice and clammed up even more, then I'd be the guy who messed with his heart and his show. But he was already missing his show. I could just- I could just look. Stay quiet and check that he was okay.

Most of the doors in the hallway said Staff Only. I tried every one anyway. I stumbled, surprised, when the last door yielded, sending a gust of crisp January air into my face.

Ezra was sitting down, but he looked ready to dart up at the sound of the door.

"Oh- hello," he greeted politely. He self-consciously tucked away a strand of hair like it wasn't perfect, like he wasn't perfect.

It was a small outdoor space. Maybe at the back of the building, maybe at the side; there was no getting my bearings when he was right there, in the flesh, after three-almost-four weeks of nothing. He sat atop a low brick wall, his back to the iron bars enclosing the area. Leaves poked through the gaps around him, rustling as he braced a hand against the wall like he was ready to flee.

He started to chew his lip when I didn't respond. He was going to break the skin. It was cold out.

So much for staying quiet.

"Hi."

xxx

can you believe we made it

if i'd waited 14 more days, it would have been a whopping 3 years since the last update. yikes!

i lost steam for a while there, and before i could get it back, i started my 2 years in the creators program and had monthly writing deadlines, so this really went to the back burner. i've known more-or-less exactly how i wanted this chapter to look since i uploaded the last one; it was just a matter of not having the time. i actually had the vast majority of it written probably a year ago, but there was one part i reaaaally didn't wanna figure out lol, so i just kept putting it off. we are so back kiddos

i decided to split the final chapter in 2 so i could edit in smaller chunks and push it out faster (and end this one on a cliffy, bc i'm feeling devious). the rest will be in your sweet little hands soon :)