3: A DROWNING BALLERINA

Mrs. Matilda; the dorm supervisor of House Hera or as we call her; the watchdog, doesn’t ask me a single question as I enter the halls of House Hera; soaked and shivering from walking the short distance from the main grounds to the dorms. One look at my face, and she could tell that I’m in a sour mood, and although she’s supposed to have the authority, Mrs. Matilda already knew how the routine was with me. It starts with a question and ends with me blackmailing her into letting me off the hook.

I trudge up the silent stairs to the second floor and curse all curse-able things as I keep failing at sticking my key into the keyhole before I finally get the damn thing in and swing the door open.

“You heard me struggle and you didn’t open it?” I shoot at Evin Vandran, my roommate.

She is sitting in a binder and yellow boxers, holding a paintbrush, layering cyan paint on the blue tumultuous sea roaring to life on her canvas. “Hello to you too.” She answers, swiveling in her small chair to face me. The lower half of her wolf cut is covered in foil wrappers, the upper black strands gathered in a spiky bun. “Let me guess; Camilla’s party sucked balls.”

I sigh as she turns back to her canvas; an art landscape of a raging sea and a ballerina drowning in the vicious waves, hands outstretched reverently to the lighthouse in the distance, somehow still dancing beneath the waves. “Mrs. Killjoy Sanderson busted us.” I reply, kicking off my heels and crashing into my bed; wet clothes and all.

Our dorm room is like two separate worlds harmonized only by the mutual messiness. Evin has lime colored sheets, around thirty throw pillows and five different blankets all patterned differently piled on her bed, along with her binders and science fiction novels. On her side of the wall, she’d taped up rock bands, anime, and classical painting posters in the most chaotic order possible. Withering potted plants cramped the windowsill —they rarely ever get any sunlight because Acadia is always foggy, but that never stops Evin from hanging more plants from the ceiling that fills the room with the smell of earth every time she waters them. Her bookshelf is overstuffed with a variety of art books in the corner lodged between her bed and dresser -hand-painted by the way, with fake vines creeping up the sides and anime figurines ready to fall off the edge of the shelves.

I can still remember; the first thing she’d done to decorate her side of the room when we moved to House Hera was hammer an aro-ace flag to the ceiling above her bed right after introducing herself with a threat to make my senior year miserable if I ever used he/him pronouns on her/them.

“Is that hair-dye?” I ask, flopping on my stomach to watch her paint.

“Congratulations, you can see.” Even replies; hyper-focused on her painting, her tattooed arm moving all over the canvas with ease. “Camilla’s going to be in trouble.”

I roll my eyes. “Who gives a shit about Camilla Dune? Definitely not I. That’s entirely her problem.” I wiggle my toes and begin to gather the energy to get up and change out of my wet dress. “What color?”

Evin glances at me, raising a thin brow, her septum piercing, lip piercing, and multiple ear piercings glinting in the florescent light of her ‘painting lamp’. “The palette or the ballerina’s dress?” She asks, pushing her circular glasses higher on the bridge of her sharp Roman nose.

“The dye in your hair, Evin, duh...” I grab the half-empty bottle of RedRum on my nightstand along with the glass cup next to it. I’m fairly drunk, but I needed more to knock me out. Mostly though –and I hate to admit it, I wanted to get William Raventsone’s touch out of my head.

“Purple.” Evin answers distractedly.

“The day you dye your hair a different-“ One second the glass cup is in my hands, and the next it has slipped and because I’m drunk, my reflexes aren’t fast enough to catch it before it lands on the carpet –still in one piece but spilling RedRum all over my white fur carpet.

“Merde!” I curse loudly.

Evin winces, looking at the mess. “Good luck cleaning that up.”

I groan and take a swing from the bottle. I already have so much tidying up to do around my messy space; I didn’t want a stained white carpet added to the list. I’ll probably throw the whole shit out.

Where Evin’s side of the room was all colors, patters and hedonistic maximalism at its finest, my side was more of a messy French girl in a boarding school; everything in neutrals except for the piles of tops and underwear on my bed. I have white sheets with only two fluffy pillows and a heavy black blanket. Jewelry, perfume bottles, and an assortment of hair clips had been dumped in the furthest corner of my bed. My red bottoms Yves Saint Laurents are on the floor, kicked next to my signature black Mary Janes. The rest of my shoes were somewhere under the bed, in the wardrobe, or stolen by my sister Wilma.

Speaking of Wilma, she’d put up a corkboard on my side of the wall, with red strings connecting different messy, mostly blurred photographs; a result of whatever true crime case she was trying to crack during the week. Of course she could’ve done it all in her room at House Artemis –the dorm for Year One female students, but for some reason she prefers having her little geeky wall of crime in my room.

Staring at the corkboard, I notice a new photograph and a line of red string added to the map. “Wilma was here?”

“About three hours ago, second after you left.” Evin answers. She squints at the pink smiley clock on her nightstand. “You didn’t run into each other on your way out?”

“If I did, would I be asking you?”

Evin shakes her head, rolls her eyes, and begins to mix two bright shades of blue and grey on her palette.

Just a glance at my study table gives me a headache; it’s cluttered with textbooks overdue for return to the library, crumpled papers from my last attempt at finishing my history homework. It is the same case with my dresser, but instead of books, there are tubes of lipstick, eyeliners and mascaras, a vase of white tulips from Ben, and my old, tattered copy of Girl, Interrupted by Susanna Kaysen.

I swing my legs off the bed and wiggle my toes in front of my heater which is on the floor, plugged in and humming next to Evin’s sunset lamp because she plans to freeze herself to death by letting the air conditioner blow out snow while I like staying warm and alive.

I straighten the framed picture of mom, dad, Wilma and me that’s on my nightstand and knock off a scented candle in the process. I sigh, defeated. That’s how it is with me; scissorhands. I try to fix the messiness but only manage to add to it.

I tug my damp dress over my head and toss it in a corner, then shrug on the first oversized cotton top my hand lands on from the pile on my bed.

“What will you name that one?” I nod towards Evin’s painting even though she isn’t looking at me.

“Atlantis.”

“Uh huh?” I empty the contents of my purse so they can dry before morning, feeling a sense of dismay at the ruined cigarette. Somehow I blame it all on William. “Am I supposed to know how that correlates?” I add when Evin doesn’t elaborate.

Evin sighs. I knew she didn’t like it much when I interrupted her while she was painting, but I needed background noise, plus Evin’s voice is soothing; a calm, singing voice, and I like hearing her speak.

“Atlantis was a...” she pauses to make air quotes “mythical city that sank into the sea. In this however, I’ve reimagined the ballerina as the city. She is the embodiment of Atlantis itself, and as you can see from the tiny marble details scattered around in the waves and the...”

I can’t remember hearing or comprehending any more words because somewhere along the way, my head hits the pillow, my body snuggles beneath the blanket and I fall fast asleep.