The Art of Us

Chapter Thirteen

Ireland

Mara had come home from Emily’s to meet a very unhappy Grace. Grace didn’t yell at Mara in front of Ireland but instead took her to the back office, where she and Jarrod did work from home for the bakery cafés. Even still, the argument got loud enough for Ireland to hear from the living room. Ireland heard her name a few times and Jade’s name a few times. It was evident that mother and daughter were fighting because Grace was mad that Mara left when she was supposed to be watching Jade. And Mara was mad that Grace took in a stray—she was referring to Ireland—without consulting how Mara felt about the whole thing.

“Don’t let it bug you,” Jade said. “They do that a lot.”

Maybe they had fought before, but Ireland would bet every dollar she would ever earn in her life on the fact that they hadn’t ever fought over her before the last few days. She was a new element to whatever struggles they had between them.

If Mara had seemed frosty before, the fight with her mom had turned her into something glacial.

The following Monday, when Mara drove them to school, Ireland tried to start a conversation. It wasn’t like they could maintain total silence when they were living in the same house. But Mara just rolled her eyes and said, “Oh no you do not. Boundaries.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means I have set a boundary. I don’t want to be friends. You live in my house, eat my food, play games with my sister, get loved on by my parents—whatever. But the boundary is that we don’t need to be friends.”

“Fair enough.” Ireland could sort of see Mara’s point of view. Ireland really had taken over Mara’s world. Her little sister, Jade, loved Ireland. Her mom loved that Ireland helped around the house so much, and her dad was thrilled to have another set of willing and happy-to-be-there hands in the bakeries. Ireland, in just three days, had found her groove in the Washington household. Mara had a great family. Ireland could see why Mara might not want to share.

Even though it was obvious Mara didn’t want to talk, Ireland asked, “Can I ask you if you like Kal Ellis?” She had to know because if Mara did like him, Ireland would have to back away from that relationship. She did not need the drama that would come from her liking the same guy Mara liked.

Mara laughed. “Superman? You mean like am I into him? That’s a big no.”

Ireland breathed out her relief. “Is there anyone you’re interested in?”

“Boundaries.”

“Right.”

The rest of the ride was in silence.

At the school, Mara locked up the car, flipped back her box braids, and stomped off without so much as a backward glance.

Ireland shrugged and sighed. She couldn’t let it get to her. It’s not like she chose to live with the Washingtons. As much as she loved the comfort and the full stomach and the hot showers, she didn’t love Mara hating on her.

Mara hadn’t told her friends about Ireland, which was fine. It’s not like it mattered to Ireland that Tinsley and Emily didn’t know. If Mara didn’t want them to know, Ireland would respect it. In fact, it was probably better that the hag and harpy weren’t in on the information. If they had been sort of petty before, they would become outright savage if they thought Ireland was intruding in their queen bee’s life.

She shrugged it off. She had her own work to do at school that had nothing to do with Mara Washington, Mara’s boundaries, or the hag and the harpy. Ireland pulled out the paints and brushes from Mr. Wasden’s art room and set them up on the worktable by the mural, then went to get the water so people could clean their brushes off.

Once everything was set up, she inspected the mural to see what new things had been added. Over the course of the weekend, she had made her peace with Janice. Janice was a responsible adult. It was her job to do her part to keep the students safe. If only Ireland’s parents had felt that same sort of obligation, how different would her life be? Ireland walked the length of the wall, not wanting to miss anything new. She smiled at the picture of the velociraptor sticking his head up out of the tree branches. He wore reading glasses and looked mildly annoyed. He had a clawed finger in front of his lips with the word “Shh!” next to him in pine bristles.

Ireland’s gaze went from the tree branches down to the ground where a flower had been added. She stopped short when she saw some terrifyingly familiar words. They were written in hot pink paint instead of lipstick and made up the bud of a flower next to the tree. The flower was the size of Ireland’s palm and the paintbrush used to write had to have been thin to be able to fit so much in the compact space. There was a small flourish at the flower’s base that wasn’t paint, but the lipstick she’d seen in the bathroom. Ireland was sure of it.

My every heartbeat is now a wracking sob, wrapped in a cloak of betrayal. I’m a hideous beast now—scarred, repulsive, and howling at the uncaring moon.

Ireland stared at the words. She knew those words. Knew that handwriting in lipstick. Spending the night scrubbing them off her bathroom wall had seared them into her brain. Her personal vandal went to her school.

“What’s wrong?”

She jumped, startled by Kal coming up behind her. “Nothing. Why?”

He pointed at her face. “You’re scowling at the mural as if it personally offended you.”

Direct hit. How was she so transparent? She tried to laugh off whatever remnants of scowl might have existed on her face. “No. It’s just this here.” She pointed at the prose. “Any idea who wrote it?” So I can sock them in the shoulder for vandalizing my home. She hoped she didn’t say that part out loud. Sometimes it was hard to tell what she thought in her head and what she let escape her lips.

She must not have said it out loud because Kal leaned to read over her shoulder. Her eyes fluttered closed at having him so close. He couldn’t see her eyes, right? He couldn’t know that she was drinking in the scent and nearness of him, could he? She snapped her eyes open again, just in case.

“That’s not paint, is it?” he asked, pointing at the bottom of the flower.

“Nope. Lipstick.”

“Huh.”

“Is that against the rules?”

He snorted. “I didn’t think I’d have to make a rule about that, but I dunno. It looks like it belongs there. I say we leave it.” He read the last of the words out loud. “‘Howling at the uncaring moon.’ I like that. Don’t know who wrote it or why they chose a lipstick and paint duo, but it’s high-key awesome.”

Ireland turned her gaze back to the flower, shimmering with the glitter that had been in the lipstick. A bright flower with a dark message. “How does it make you feel?” she asked. It made her feel scared. But she wasn’t sure if that was because she’d come in and found what she’d initially thought was blood on her bathroom wall, where someone had trespassed into her life.

Kal shrugged, still standing close enough that his shoulder brushed hers as he did. “Sad. Whoever wrote this sounds like they’re hurting from something.”

Ireland looked back to the mural, tilting her head as she focused on the words from a different perspective. Sad, not scary. Hurt, not haunting. Except why couldn’t they be all of it? Sad and scary? Hurt and haunting? For the first time, she felt pity for her vandal. They were going through something hard, and she’d let a little thing like lipstick smears get in the way of compassion.

“You’re scowling again,” Kal said.

She glanced at him to find he was staring at her, his gaze heavy, as if he were puzzling her out. She could almost feel him moving her pieces around to try to lock them together to see the whole picture.

“Is it against the rules of the mural if I respond to this?” she asked.

He considered the question, then shrugged again, his shoulder brushing against hers once more in a rustle of cloth that made her involuntarily shiver. “I think a conversation on the wall could be interesting—even artistic—especially if you flow the words down the flower stem so it’s a clear response, and as long as it doesn’t violate any of the other rules.”

She nodded, then went to the table of art supplies to find a small, thin paintbrush. She wanted this person to know that they weren’t alone in whatever they were going through. They had come into her home and cried to her on her wall. And now, here they were again. “I’m listening,” she said out loud.

“What?” Kal asked.

She startled, realizing she’d spoken out loud. “Nothing. Just talking to myself. Again.”

He grinned. “It’s cute that you do that.”

“You don’t think it’s crazy?”

Kal shook his head. “Nah. Sometimes saying the stuff in our heads out loud helps keep us from spinning the words over and over and over until we’re dizzy and sick. It lets the stuff get out, you know? Escape. I think it can be healthy. I do it all the time.”

She nodded, grateful he wasn’t judging her. Kal Ellis had said she was cute—innocuous enough. But did he mean like puppy-dog-tripping-on-ears cute? Or endearingly charming, and I-want-to-kiss-you-again cute? She really liked him. Her heart had taken another step on that path to love. He was gentle and observant and smart and interesting. He was everything a person should be if a person could at all help it. He made her want to be a better person when she was with him. And if he liked her even half as much in return ... well, that would really be something. Jade had asked her if she had a crush on Kal after he’d left on Saturday. The word “crush” felt so juvenile. Ireland was practically a grown-up now. She’d even lived on her own. She was not a child who gave way to juvenile thinking. And she’d had crushes in the past, on boys who were interesting to her in some way or another, boys she’d liked from afar and made up stories about in her head. Ireland wondered if she was the only person who did such a thing or if there were others like her having whole relationships from first glance to breakup in their heads.

Or maybe there wasn’t anybody else doing that sort of thing, and she was just a little different in yet one other way from everybody else.

Either way, what she felt for Kal was so much more than a crush. And yet, at the same time, it felt exactly how a crush should feel. Because she would be well and truly crushed if he ever went away.

Ireland twirled her paintbrush in the green paint and considered how she might respond to her vandal. She finally turned to answer the message on the wall.

“Most people only see the outside. Live your life like they can see the inside. Remember the moon has cycles. Soon it’ll turn its full light to your beauty.” She paused, having run out of space on the stem, wondering if she should end it there. But she decided to go into the grass because she had more to say. “Keep howling until your voice can find a different melody.”