Chapter 5 : Where Inspiration Hides

Dawn’s POV

The world sings inspiration.

That was what my aunt used to always tell me when I was a kid. No young girl ever wants to have to deal with her parents dying before her.

The hurt usually came from watching other kids in their full families. When they would have parents come in to school for parent day, when their mother or father-or both, sometimes-would pick them up from school. Even hearing about their holidays when they came back would be like a stab to the heart.

I was lucky, though. I was raised by my aunt, who fortunately was an amazing woman. She had taken me in with absolutely zero hesitation and raised me like her own daughter. She had never had children of her own and had never been married, either. So it was always just the two of us against the world.

Sometimes, when things became particularly hard during my teenage years and I began to feel the absence of parents more deeply, she would take time off from work and have us go to our cabin at the lake, where we would spend hours painting, drawing, sketching—anything, everything.

That was where my love for art was born, it encompassed both the saddened grief of being an orphan and the the overwhelming warmth of having been fortunate enough to have found someone who would love me just as they would have. Without fault, with fault, wholeheartedly—tenderly.

I thought about her as I snapped my next picture, the back of a woman with shoulder length black hair. She seemed to be in her late forties, her face still looked young and round, but there were streaks of silver in her otherwise black hair to indicate aging.

She looked beautiful sitting there, serene, and peaceful.

I clicked my camera another few times, taking inspiration from the world around me as I went. The still dewy, green blades of grass, an overflowing public trash can, a few bikes chained up to the side of the building. Everything that screamed of people living here.

The sound of my phone ringing brought me out of the reverie I had entered, and I quickly moved to silence it before I disturbed the peace of the park even more. But then I read the caller's name, and a smile brightened on my face as I picked it up.

“Hello?” I answered.

“Oh, so you are alive.” A woman’s anger filled voice nagged on from the other phone. Sarcasm dripped from it like a waterfall. And it was in that exact moment, that my aunt turned into a motherly figure, and shame and regret and pure, unbridled fear washed through me.

“I’m sorry, I was supposed to—” My words were cut off as she spoke over me.

“You’re d*mn right you were supposed to. But you didn’t, did you? Your poor aunt sitting at home fretting her head off waiting for a call, ‘Yes, aunty, I’m alive, thank you for worrying’, could that have been so hard?”

I bit my lip to stop myself from speaking, knowing that it would only make the situation worse. “You could have been killed! You could have been abducted! You’re lucky I’m not dramatic and level-headed, I almost called the police mind you, but—”

I took in a deep breath and plunged myself into the deep end. “I know, I’m sorry. I was irresponsible and negligent. I should have called the second I landed, I’m sorry.”

I heard her taking a few deep breaths on the other end, and for a moment I wondered what had kept her at peace for so long if she was this worried about me.

“Europe is really beautiful,” I tried again, hoping to change the topic before she could remember that she was mad at me. “It’s so different from back home, the university is something else.”

She sighed before she answered. “How’s the competition going?”

I groaned slightly into the phone before I began walking down the park again. “It’s alright. I had some hiccups, though—nothing bad. My partner for the project just isn’t who I would have chosen as my first choice.”

“Is she bad or something? I thought you had to be good to get into the competition.” The question itself was purely innocent, but I couldn’t help but laugh at the slight jab my aunt was throwing towards Craig.

“No, no I mean he’s great—I mean d*mn, I saw his art piece the other day and I,” I scoffed out a laugh at how ridiculous I knew I was about to sound. “It sounds crazy but he created this image of a wolf standing beside a girl, and I saw myself in it.”

My aunt was silent for a moment before she asked. “You mean it resonated with you? The piece?”

I shook my head despite knowing she couldn’t see me. “No, no sort of… like I was her. Like she looked like me. That’s weird, right? I mean it’s a bit egotistical to think that—”

“What did you say his name was again, dear?” My aunt asked as she cut me off.

“Uhh, Craig Blackstone? Why?”

“And you don’t know where his family might be from?” Again, I shook my head in answer to her question before I spoke up.

“No, not really. I mean we go to the same art school back home but I don’t know whether his family originated there or not.” My aunt hummed from the other end of the line and I found myself questioning why she was asking so many intricate questions about my partner.

“You’re not planning an assassination, are you?” I joked. “I mean I don’t really like the guy, but I don’t like the idea of him dead, either.”

It was meant as a joke, but there was something in my chest that felt like the underlying of the truth. I pushed that, along with any feelings I might still have towards Craig, far, far away. My aunt scoffed on the phone.

“Please, you think if I’d kill anyone I’d leave a digital footprint?” I knew she was joking back with me, but I couldn’t help but notice the strange undertone of her voice. She seemed off for some reason, whether it was that she was stressed out about work or something else back home, though, I didn’t know.

“I have to go now,” she said eventually. “I still have some other things I need to sort out, you’re alright though? You don’t need anything? I can send you some money if—”

“No, no I’m good, thank you.”

“Alright then dear, take care of yourself then.” She made me promise to send more confirming messages of me being alive and well before the two of us eventually ended the call.

I decided to continue my walk some more, enjoying the quietness of the early morning and the cool air it brought with it. Some other people seemed to have the same idea, though, as I saw a few couples walking through the garden area hand in hand, other with their arms wrapped around one another, and some even sat on the benches surrounding the water fountain in the middle of the grass.

There were other things that caught my attention as well, from the water flowing through gutters to the mountains that surrounded the university. It seemed like everything here flowed around the university in perfect unison. My phone dinged again and alerted me that a message was sent through to it.

Candice: did u try to talk to me earlier this morn?

I laughed at the woman’s strange way of texting.

Me: Before or after you hit me with a pillow and told me to get out of your face?

Candice: yikes. sorry. not a morn prsn.

If I was there with her right now, I would imagine I’d see something like an apologetic look on her face for how harsh she was this morning, but I grew up with an aunt that was basically nocturnal, it wasn’t like this was new to me.

Me: All good. You want me to get you breakfast?

Candice: yes pls. gna go back to slp

I shook my head with a laugh as I pocketed my phone again and slung the camera around my neck. It was almost time for breakfast to be served in the dining hall, and if I wanted to beat the cues then I would have to get there before the breakfast rush.

I made my way across the front of the university to around back, where I knew the main door leading into the dining hall was situated. Sam had gone through the extra trouble of taking her small group of mentees to the smaller alleyways and shortcuts of the buildings to ensure we would never be late for anything, something I was truly grateful towards her for now.

It wasn’t until I reached the dining hall did I realize I had forgotten to ask Candice what is was that she wanted. I hadn’t known her for long and wasn’t sure if she had any allergies or aversions, so I pulled my phone out again and texted her.

When I lifted my eyes from my phone to look for where the small line ended, I found that the group of girls at the end of the line were whispering and pointing to something in my direction. For a brief moment I felt conscious of myself, until I followed their line of sight and turned behind me to see something that took my breath away.

It was Craig, walking up to me from the double doors I had just entered. There was a soft breeze that pooled in with him, and for some unexplainable reason I couldn’t find a way to pull my eyes off of him.

It didn’t help that he looked like a godd*mn model this early on, and it certainly didn’t help that he kept staring at me like… like… I don’t know what. But it certainly wasn’t anything good. I mustered up a smile as he approached me.

“You ready?” he asked as he looked around the cafeteria.

“Ready…?” I trailed off as I cocked my head to the side.

“To discuss the first assignment.”

I could have slapped myself. How had I forgotten that we were going to meet up today to speak about that? That’s the entire reason you’re here, Dawn! G*d, I was an idiot sometimes!

“You forgot,” if I didn’t know any better I would have thought he was teasing me with that cock of his head and the slight upturn of his mouth.

“I didn’t forget,” I lied.

“My mistake, it slipped your mind that we were going to meet today to discuss the one thing that’s actually keeping us here?”

I gaped at him, now fully aware that he was enjoying having caught me unaware. “Just,” I blew my cheeks out in frustration. “Shut up.” I turned around and made my way to the line, feeling Craig’s looming figure walking behind me, no doubt chuckling to himself over something so stupid.

“Alright,” Craig began, “then I’d love to hear all the ideas and thoughts you have on the two of us working together, and what we should create together, since you’re obviously so prepared. You know, given that–”

“I got it,” I snapped at him as we walked towards a table for two. If I was being honest with myself, the cause of my irritation wasn’t so much the teasing from Craig and him thinking I was incompetent more than it was the fact that even as we walked through the dining hall, people kept staring at the two of us.

Seriously, had they never seen an attractive person before? You would think they hadn’t with the way they didn’t seen to take their eyes off from Craig.

“Doesn’t that bother you?” I asked under my breath as we sat down, more concerned at how blatant and obvious some people more than possibly overstepping any boundaries by asking him that question.

“The stares?” He asked as he lowered his voice, speaking in the same tone and volume I had lowered my voice to. I nodded my head in response to his question and he shrugged his shoulders as a result.

I rolled my eyes and was about to open my mouth again, before Craig pulled out a sketchbook and opened to a specific page. My eyes fell down onto what he was busy with, and saw that he had already begun to sketch out a few pieces that we could make in order to submit for the first part of the competition.