The Book at the Top of the Closet

Chapter Twenty Five

As much as I want to fall down the rabbit hole of Aria's journal, I have to emerge once in a while and participate in my own life. I still don't quite know what will happen with Liam and Wendy and whether or not I'll survive college, but just like I have to keep reading to know what happens with Aria's story, sometimes I have to put the book down and go find out what happens next in my life.

Right this minute what happens next is a lot of homework. In high school I had classes eight hours a day and homework and sports, so it didn't seem like a lot to take five classes in college. It sounded easy. I don't know if I was just wrong or if I've gotten so distracted that I let myself fall behind too much, but this doesn't feel easy. I have finals coming up and I don't even know what I'm going to do between semesters, and the future seems like a giant gaping maw waiting to devour me, and I feel so small.

My mind keeps playing thoughts like that on a loop every time I open up a book to study. And how does studying work, anyway? I keep reading and highlighting things and trying to take notes but I honestly have no idea if I'm doing this right or if it will help me remember anything I've learned.

I'm on my fifth cup of tea and my second yellow highlighter when a knock on the door interrupts my purgatory. Liam stands there, holding a tupperware container full of cookies and wearing a Mayday Parade shirt smudged with flour.

"I know you're busy studying and might forget to eat so...cookies." He holds out the container to me, and I swear I almost break down crying on the spot.

"Th-thanks," I manage, my voice cracking a bit with emotion. He pulls the lid off and grabs one of the cookies, breaking it in half. I take one of the halves, biting into it and praying for coherent sentences to form in my head.

"Anyway, I don't want to keep you from studying," he says, turning to go.

"Wait, don't go yet." I pull him toward me, still holding the crumbling bit of cookie in my other hand. "I could use a distraction, if you're free for a little while."

"I guess I could hang around a while," he says, eyes lighting up in a way that would seem silly were it not so endearing.

"So, does this mean you don't still need space?"

"It means," he puts an arm around my waist, "that I want to kiss you, and I want to hang out with you, and if you want to kiss other people sometimes, it's worth it." The cookies and tupperware and crumbs somehow miraculously make it safely onto the coffee table before our hands are too occupied to hold them.

Bolder than I've felt in a while, I push Liam toward the couch, straddling him as our words dissolve into kisses. He runs a hand through my hair and I claw at his shirt, needing something to grasp, something to hold onto as I fall. We move like dancers in a planned ballet, art that only looks chaotic from the outside- all the moving pieces are perfectly in sync.

By the time we stop for air, I have a crick in my neck and the highlighter left open on the table earlier is dried out. Outside the window, evening has deepened into night, and even the theater kids have gone quiet. We sit together on the couch and I try to think of something to say to break up the stillness and the sound of distant cars, but anything I can bring to mind is to small an expression to follow all that heat.

Finally, Liam leans toward the coffee table, closes the lid on the tupperware, and says, "Don't want these to get stale." The spell is broken, and I shake myself back to reality, remembering with a queasy lurch that I still need to study. Liam must see the look on my face, because he kisses me again, gently, and says, "I should really get going now."

"Um, thanks for the cookies," I say as he heads for the door.

"Anytime." He gives a little wave and leaves.

For a good while, I just sit there, marveling at the way my lips feel, all puffy and tingling. The way it felt to just stop thinking for a minute and be absorbed into a thousand interconnected kisses- it was amazing. I want to read some more of Aria's journal, just to have someone to share the dizzy feeling with. The open books on the coffee table stare at me accusingly, and I promise myself that if I just study for another two hours, I can read some more.

While I'm flipping through my notes, I notice that I have cookie crumbs in my hair.

#

Dear Diary,

Like some sort of addict, I've got to get Hayden out of my system. On some level I used to think that meant letting him run his course- leaning into the delicious agony of loving him until it burned itself out like a fever. Now I think maybe I have to avoid him, quit cold turkey and not come back for even a drop.

I've thrown all my pent up, anxious energy over him into working on my art. I still haven't quite picked a painting to enter, not for lack of paintings but because none of them seem quite right. I thought at first that the painting of Hayden should go in. There's something to be said for laying your soul bare. But I don't want to give him any more real estate in my mind, and this art show is the main thing keeping me distracted while I try and get over him once and for all.

This week I've been painting two subjects, mostly. Number one, the stray cats on campus. There are so many, they're practically a primary feature of the landscape. I've been to the city animal shelter, and it's in such a sad state that I can't imagine there are any resources to dedicate to helping the cats. In fact, they probably have a better shot at life if they never encounter animal control. It struck me as strange one day that stray animals are so often seen as sort of an eyesore. Its as if the moment they stop existing purely for the pleasure and companionship of people, they become a public nuisance. That led me to my second idea.

I'm doing an entire collection of paintings of discarded porcelain dolls. Sunshine drove me to every thrift shop and Goodwill within an hour's drive of campus, and I spent a small fortune on old, donated dolls. I've seen enough horror movies to know how people think of porcelain dolls, especially old ones with little flaws. A chip here, some matted hair, maybe a stain on the dress. Admittedly, I find them a bit eerie, too. But like the cats, I think they're more sad than anything else. By virtue of having been discarded, they've become something strange and foreign and maybe even uncomfortable to look at.

So far, I've painted four small paintings and one larger one, all featuring the dolls. In some of them, I've painted the dolls in pristine poses, bathed in golden afternoon light that captures every detail, flaws and all. In the others, I've posed them as if they've been dropped or piled or simply left behind, tilting against each other or piled unceremoniously in heaps on the floor. One painting is just of the side of a doll's face, the smooth curve of her cheek marred by slashes of shadow from the blinds on the window. Sunshine finds that one too creepy to look at, so I've got it stashed out of sight.

Come to think of it, I might enter that one in the show after all. I think maybe what I want is to show off a painting that breaks my heart. And for some reason, this one, with the doll's eye looking out past me as I look at it, does the trick. She knows something, that doll. She knows how it feels to be breakable.

-Aria