by L.J. Shen
I never raised my voice to my father. Or anyone else, for that matter. Right now, my cool was slipping through my fingers like water.
My father stood across from me, his arms open, as if he was surrendering. “Yet it still appears a cut above the rest, though it is not half-finished.”
“Not even half-finished?!” I exclaimed wildly, throwing my arms in the air. “Is that even allowed? Is it not against your rules and regulations or whatever? Maybe I should’ve just presented you with a fucking can of Heinz.”
I was grasping at straws. The board of Carlisle Prep, and the internship judges, consisted of the three founders of the school—my father, his cousin he’d grown up with, painter Harry Fairhurst, and Lady Alma Everett-Hodkins, a former chief curator at the Guggenheim. If they’d decided to choose Vaughn, there was nothing I could do about it. I was Don Quixote, fighting windmills, knowing they’d continue turning, no matter how much I waved my imaginary sword at them.
“Lenny, his is not a good piece.” Papa closed his eyes, his face marred with pain. “It is an astonishingly brilliant one, and if you saw it, you’d agree.”
“Great idea. Why don’t you show me this quarter-finished bullshit so I can judge for myself.” I kicked a block of modeling clay, sending it spinning across the floor until it bumped against the wall. “Show me what’s so brilliant about a general fucking shape of a sculpture without the faintest detail. A shrimp in the uterus, without eyes, nose, and lips. Show me how much better he is than me.”
We both stood there for a beat before I darted toward the covered statue, intending to rip the sheet from it and see for myself. Dad snatched my hand as soon as I reached it.
I threw my head back, laughing bitterly. “Of course.”
“That’s enough, Lenora.”
“I bet it sucks. I bet you only chose him because he’s a bloody Spencer.” I turned around, smiling at him.
Emilia LeBlanc-Spencer, an artist herself, had poured a lot of millions into Carlisle Prep over the years. She was apparently helplessly in love with Harry Fairhurst’s paintings and had a few of them in her mansion.
I knew it wasn’t a wise thing to do. My father did not take well to thoughtless, vindictive behavior. But my filters had gone MIA, along with my sanity, it seemed.
“You’re an Astalis.” His nostrils flared, and he slammed his fist against his chest. “My own blood.”
“Your own blood is apparently not good enough.” I shrugged.
Suddenly, I was too tired to even go back to my room. Fighting him was useless. Nothing mattered anymore. Vaughn had won the final round and knocked me out of the race. My only mistake was to be surprised. I’d actually thought he couldn’t get the internship with an unfinished job.
But of course, Vaughn at his worst was still better than me at my best.
The bad boy of sculpting. Donatello and Michelangelo’s lovechild, with a dash of Damien Hirst and Banksy thrown in for good, rebellious measure.
“Well, if you’ll excuse me, I must go apply for approximately five hundred internships, now that my plans for the next six months are six feet under, along with my pride.” I tasted the bitterness of the words on my tongue.
As I started for the stairway, Papa grabbed my arm. I turned around, shaking him off.
“Leave me alone,” I groaned, not daring to blink and let my traitorous tears loose.
“Lenny,” he begged. “Please listen to me. You were neck and neck. There were five hundred and twenty-seven applicants, and other than Rafferty Pope, you were the final two.”
He was only making it worse. It wasn’t fair to be mad at him for not getting the internship. But it was fair to be mad because he’d chosen someone who didn’t even bother finishing his statue. That’s the part that hurt the most.
“Got it. I almost made it. Anything else?”
“I think you should be his assistant for those six months, since you are not interested in attending university. This could bump you up the other list of internships. It was my idea, and Vaughn said he’d love to have you help hi—”
“Help!” I barked out the word. “I’m not going to help him. I’m not going to assist him. I’m not going to work with him, for him, under him, or even above him. I want nothing to do with him.”
“It’s your pride talking now.” Papa fingered his beard, contemplating my reaction. “I want to speak to my daughter—my bright, talented daughter—not to her wounded ego. It’s a golden opportunity. Don’t let it go to waste.”
“I’m not—” I started.
“Please.” He scooped my hands in his, squeezing them like he was trying to drain the defiance out of me.
We had the same blue eyes—dark, big, exploring—with the same golden rings around them. Everything else, Poppy and I took from Mum. The pint-sized figure, fair hair, and the splotchy, pasty skin.
“It could open so many doors for you, working as an assistant intern at Carlisle Prep. It is a solid, paid gig. You will get to work alongside me, Harry, Alma, and so many other great artists. You will get a salary, a room with a drafting table and all the equipment, and a fantastic start to your portfolio. I’ve been to high school once, too, Lenora. Believe it or not, I know boys like Vaughn can be trying.”
“Climbing a volcano is trying,” I interjected. “Working alongside Vaughn Spencer is downright impossible.”
“Yes, and still. Would you have turned down this internship for a boy you’d met and fell in love with here in America?”
I stared at him with wild shock. First of all, he knew damn well I wasn’t in the business of falling in love. I’d been very vocal about it since Mum had died and I watched him deteriorate emotionally to the point that he was only half-human now. Second, I would never pass up an opportunity for a guy.
“Of course not.”
“Then why would you give up a position that could make or break your career for a boy you fell in hate with?” He clicked his teeth, a triumphed smile on his face.
Ugh. He was right.
He was right, and I wished I could take the merits of his argument and shove them up Vaughn’s arse.
Taking the assistant’s job was a blow to my ego, but still a win for the rest of me. Another six months of Vaughn playing his silly mind games wasn’t going to kill me. For all his power play, Vaughn had never physically hurt me.
Yet, anyway.
In England, though, he’d be a no one, just like me. No, worse than me. Because I still had the prestige of being an almost-Carlisle Prep alum—I’d only studied my last year of high school in California—and my father owned the bloody school.
Plus, Pope would be there, working alongside me. Putting Vaughn’s so-called genius work to shame.
The rules would be different.
I’d fight him harder.
He is just a boy.
Not a god, a boy.
And you’re not the same girl trembling under her mother’s quilt.
You made him bleed, and he did, human that he is.
Now. Now you can make him break.
“I’ll think about it.” I massaged my temples. I’d completely forgotten about my sister, who was probably filling a fresh bucket of tears downstairs. I’d selfishly dwelled on my own drama and forgotten all about her heartbreak.
“That’s all I’m asking.” Papa squeezed my shoulders.
I went straight to Poppy’s room, but she wasn’t there. I paused, hearing her and Papa chatting and eating in the kitchen downstairs. It sounded like a pleasant conversation about the college she’d applied and gotten in to back home—the London School of Economics. She sounded excited and hopeful. I just hoped she wasn’t faking it, that she really was happy.
Grabbing a Polaroid photo of Knight from her nightstand, I took a Sharpie and quickly drew a ballsack over his chiseled, dimpled chin, peppered with wrinkles and hair, added an elaborate moustache, and gave him a unibrow, signing the picture and writing under his face:
Stay away from the heater, Cole. Plastic
melts.
I slid it under her pillow and went into my room, inching toward my window, planning to close the shutters and curl in bed with “I Started Something I Couldn’t Finish” playing in my earbuds and a good fantasy book. Then I noticed Vaughn’s truck parked in front of my window.
What is he still doing here?
He flashed his lights twice, causing me to squint and lift my hand to block the light. Feeling the rush of anger pouring back into my stomach, I slid into my boots and ran downstairs, flinging the front door open, about to congratulate him on the internship with a spit to the face. I never made it past the threshold.
I skated over something slick and rancid. It smelled like all the armpits in the neighborhood had been lit on fire, but I didn’t have the chance to contemplate that as I dove headfirst into a white plastic bag.
He’d left a rotten pile of rubbish at my door, and I fell right into it. Slumped on the bag of trash, I wiped a yellow Post-it note from my cheek, scowling as I read it.
For your future project. - V
It was all the invitation I needed to make Vaughn’s life the hell he’d made mine.
He thought he’d won the war.
But the internship was just the battle.
He was going to raise the white flag.
Right before I burned it.
The quietest man in the room is also the deadliest.
I learned that from a young age, observing my father. People milled around him like homeless puppies, tongues flapping, eager to please. I became a man of few words as well. Not a fucking challenge, if I may say so myself. Words meant nothing to me. They had no shape or weight or price. You couldn’t mold them in your hands, measure them on a scale, put a chisel to them, carve them to perfection. On my list of ways to express myself, sculpting was number one, fucking someone’s mouth was number two, and talking sat comfortably somewhere at the bottom between smoke signals and dancing for rain.
My dad wasn’t big on words, no, but his actions spoke volumes. He crushed his business opponents with an iron fist, without a blink or a worry.
He’d showed my mother he loved her a million times—by planting a pink, cherry-blossom garden in the backyard.
By tattooing her name on his heart.
By fixing her with a look that said, I’m yours.
The less you said, the more you were feared. The simplest trick in the book, yet for some reason, men were hell-bent on running their mouths to prove something.
I had nothing to prove.
I’d showed Edgar Astalis a piece that was maybe twenty-percent done, submitted it to the board of Carlisle Prep, and bagged the internship without breaking a sweat.
It was embarrassingly easy. Pathetically so. Yes, I manipulated the board. Especially Edgar, who had a dog in this fight, and Harry, who owed me a solid. And yes, if Lenora was ever to find out, she’d kill me, her father, and her uncle.
Then again, I would beat her to it, just as I had with the internship.
Everyone on the board had agreed I needed the full six months of the internship to complete something as complex as this sculpture.
I had time.
I had a plan.
I was ready to put things in motion and finally savor the sweet, poignant taste of fresh blood.
And it looked like I was also going to have a stubborn, feisty assistant to put up with my shit—one I could keep an eye on, to make sure my secret was intact.
Taunting her with a pile of garbage was not my finest moment, but the message had hit home.
Mercy was not on the menu.
She would fight for her place next to me. Always.
After Edgar broke the news to his baby daughter, I drove around her block, playing the CDs I’d shamelessly taken from her room when she wasn’t there one day—Kinky Machine, The Stone Roses.
A couple hours later, I parked my banged-up truck next to my motorcycle—both purchased with my own money after summers of hard work in galleries—and noticed the orange glow of the fireplace in our living room through the floor-to-ceiling windows. I ran my hand over my dusty hair and cursed under my breath.
We had company.
I hated company.
Striding toward the entrance, I saw a shadow loitering in the rosebushes. The leaves danced above the sunbaked ground. I crouched down and whistled low.
Empedolces emerged from the rosebushes, strutting his ass like a Kardashian in my direction. I’d named my blind black cat after the Greek philosopher who discovered the world was a sphere. This cat, like the philosopher, thought himself to be God. He had a fierce sense of entitlement and demanded to be stroked at least an hour a day—a wish that, for a reason beyond my grasp, my sorry ass granted him.
It was by far the most human thing I ever did, being pussy-whipped by a literal pussy. Emp brushed past my dirty boot. I picked him up, rubbing the spot behind his ear. He purred like a tractor.
“Are you sure it’s a good idea for your blind ass to roam outside? These hills are full of coyotes.” I walked into the house with him in my arms. Kicking the door open, I heard the sweet laughter of my mother, my father’s deep chuckle, and a gruff, male voice with an English accent I instantly recognized.
A toxic smile spread on my lips.
Time to rock n’ roll, motherfucker.
Glasses clanked, utensils cluttered, and soft classical music seeped from the dining room. I put Emp down in the kitchen, dumped a sachet full of wet food into his bowl, and advanced into the dining area, my boots thudding against the marbled floor. When I appeared at the doorway, everyone stopped eating. Harry was the first to dab the corner of his mouth with a napkin.
He stood, opening his arms with a shit-eating smirk. “I believe congratulations are in order for my favorite prodigy.” He gave me a little bow.
Expressionless, I walked into the room, eating the distance between us. He went in for a hug, but I slid my palm into his and squeezed hard enough to hear his delicate painter bones cracking.
He extracted his palm from mine and massaged it lightly.
Mom and Dad stood up. I kissed Mom’s forehead. Dad clapped my back.
“Harry was in town visiting Edgar and his nieces,” Mom explained. “I thought it’d be nice to invite him for dinner. I just bought another piece from him. I’m planning to put it right in front of your room. Isn’t it exciting?” She turned to grin at him.
“I can hardly fucking contain myself,” I said dryly.
Considered the most critically acclaimed expressionist painter in modern art today, Harry Fairhurst usually sold his paintings for $1.2 million a pop. Not a bad gig, considering his half-assed day job as a board member and professor at Carlisle Prep. Mom, of course, would hang anything he made, including his turds, for everyone to view and admire. His paintings were all over our house: the foyer, my parents’ bedroom, the dining area, the two living rooms, and even the basement. She’d gifted some of his paintings, too.
I couldn’t escape the fucker, no matter my continent. His art chased me like a rotten fart.
“It’s a breathtaking piece, Vaughn. I can’t wait for you to see it.” Harry exhibited the modesty and humility of a newly moneyed rapper. If he could have physically sucked his own cock, his mouth would always be full.
“That’s exactly what this house needs. More Harry Fairhurst paintings—oh, and rooms.” I yawned, checking the time on my phone. We had eighteen rooms. Less than half were occupied. Emp loitered at my feet, giving Harry the stink eye. I picked him up again, scratching his neck.
“I’m off to the shower.”
“Have you eaten? I thought you’d at least like to join us in the drawing room for some port?” Mom cocked her head and smiled, every nerve in her face full of hope. “Just the one, you know.”
I loved my mother and father.
They were good parents. Involved, on top of their shit, supporting me ruthlessly with everything I did or pursued. My mother didn’t even mind that I wasn’t normal. She took it in a stride, p
robably because she was used to my father, Lord McCuntson himself.
Me and Dad, we had a lot in common.
We both hated the world.
We both watched life through death-tinted glasses.
But sometimes we pretended to be different, for her sake. Like, right now, I knew my dad would have preferred to stab his own crotch with training scissors than entertain the flamboyant, self-centered Fairhurst. Love made you do fucked-up shit.
I was glad I’d never catch it.
“One port,” I stressed.
Dad slapped my back again, his form of saying thank you, and we all settled by the fire, pretending it wasn’t fucking California and downright stupid to put fire to anything that wasn’t a joint or Alice and Arabella’s retina-insulting wardrobes. Harry sat back and pressed the tips of his fingers to one another, staring at me, the orange glow of the flame casting his face like a crescent.
Half angel, half devil.
Mostly devil, like the rest of the world.
With his sandy hair slicked back, tall frame, and greyhound-lean physique, he looked like an asshole salesman—the kind of man you wouldn’t trust with a toilet paper roll. I eyed the fire, ignoring Graham, our servant, who came in with a silver tray and gave each of us port.
“Thank you, Graham. Please take the rest of the night off. I’ll do the dishes.” Mom squeezed his arm with a warm smile.
Always such a softie for the help, this one.
Awkward silence stretched among us. I put the port to my lips, but didn’t drink.
“How’s the single life treating you, Harry?” Mom broke the tension with small talk.
He’d married a Croatian male model three years ago, but the marriage went down the shitters after he cheated on Harry, took half his shit, and ran off with a backup dancer for a pop star.
Harry’s head snapped in Mom’s direction.
“Oh, you know. Playing the field.”
“Hopefully with a pre-nup intact this time,” I muttered.
Dad snorted. We shared smirks under our breaths.
“Vaughn.” Mom scoffed.
“You weren’t supposed to hear that.”