His dad puffs up his chest, and clearly it’s time for the bomb squad to take over.
“Kevin,” I call out, “is this your dad?”
They both turn to greet me. Side by side, Kevin and his dad are variations on a theme. Same eyes, nose, and mouth, but the sharp edges of his father’s features are muted by Kevin’s clear plastic frames and long brown curls.
I go to shake his dad’s hand and my fingers wrap around metal. I lock my eyes on Mr. Walker’s while I absorb the unexpected heft and smoothness of his bionic hand. “Hi. Sabine Reyes.”
“Kurt Walker.”
Before I can get another word out, Kevin jumps in. “Sabine did the double portrait by the window. It sold the first night of the show.”
“Congratulations,” Mr. Walker says. “I expect that’s a coup for an unknown.”
Unknown. That stings, but I force myself to smile. “A big coup,” I reply, telling myself that of course I’m an unknown. I’m a student. There’s zero shame in that.
And it’s obvious that the issue Mr. Walker’s got right now is with Kevin.
“What do your parents think about you attending CALINVA?”
I blink hard, blindsided by the question.
“Dad! Sabine, you don’t have to answer—”
“No, it’s okay,” I tell Kev, and hold up my hand to quiet him. “It was just me and my mom, and I lost her last spring, but she would have been overjoyed I’m here. She sacrificed a lot to give me opportunities to develop my talent.”
Kevin’s smile holds both sadness and respect. You’re awesome, he mouths.
His dad stumbles through an awkward apology that I tell him isn’t necessary, then he makes a show of checking his watch. “You said something about mac and cheese?”
“Yeah,” Kev answers. “The mac and cheese truck’s two blocks over from here.”
“Care to join us, Sabine?”
I glance at Kevin. Just tell me what you want me to do.
“Sabine has class, Dad,” Kevin says.
“Color and Theory,” I add. “Otherwise I’d love to join you.”
Mr. Walker and I say our good-byes, and then Kevin walks me partway across the room before he leans in for a quick kiss. “I’ll come over after work, if I survive.”
“You’ll survive. Your dad loves you, Kev. He just doesn’t understand all this.”
I take a couple of steps toward the lobby, remembering how Mom insisted art was practical, because it challenged you to come up with unconventional solutions. I stop and call back, “Kevin isn’t wasting his time here, Mr. Walker. He learned a lot, working on Unresolved. The programming and mechanical problems he had to solve blew me away, and I bet you’d find them intriguing.”
Both Kev and his dad look slightly stunned by my outburst, but Mr. Walker gives me a thoughtful look and says, “Thank you, Sabine. I’ll take that under advisement.”
As I take a last look at Kevin and his dad, I realize I’m not the only one who has a Krell in their life.
The lobby is still crowded when I leave the gallery, the tension an electric storm crackling around my head. A news van pulls up in front of the building, so I give up on going outside and instead head for the coffee bar, figuring I could use a cup to steel me for Color & Theory. When I get in line, who’s in front of me but Bryian.
“You heard about ArtHype?” he says. Heat’s pouring off of him and red blotches cover his neck and face.
“Yeah. It’s pretty messed up.”
He glares at a group crowded around a table in the back. “Look at those second-years. They’re smiling like they just pulled off a coup.”
I recognize them from the performance-art piece they did a few weeks ago. As I watch, two of the guys high-five over something on their laptops.
“Son of a—” Bryian crumples the napkin he’s holding.
“Bryian. Bryian,” I say a little louder. “I don’t know what you’re thinking, but—”
He throws his backpack down and I grab his wrist. “Bryian, don’t,” I say, but he wrenches free.
He moves through the room like a bull dodging tables to get to the second-years. The ones who see him coming elbow their friends to look up. When Bryian reaches them, his voice is shaking. “You happy about this? You think you’re crusaders, meting out justice? This is not justice. It’s just a fucked-up form of revenge.”
He slams an empty chair against their table, and they half jump out of their seats. “You know nothing, NOTHING about why people choose to kill themselves!”
There are bursts of scattered applause as Bryian spins on his heel and walks back to where I’m standing. He doesn’t say a word to me, just jerks his backpack off the floor and stomps out.
I follow him into the hall, carrying our coffees. “Bryian, wait up.” He stops and I hold out his cup. “Are you…okay?”
His chest heaves as he takes it from me, but I can tell he’s trying to calm down. “Sorry about the scene back there,” he says.
I nod so he knows I get it. “That felt like it was personal.” Bryian and I aren’t close, but I can’t leave him like this. “Did you lose someone?” I ask gently.
His face sags, and he bobs his head up and down, his eyes stripped of their usual arrogance. “My dad. He…” Bryian sighs with his whole body. “He had everything. Success. Respect. Us. We loved him, but it didn’t matter because you can’t love someone out of depression. It’s a disease.” He points back at the coffee bar. “I know Krell can be a bastard sometimes, but blaming him for that guy’s suicide…that’s bullshit.”
Bryian says he needs to clear his head, and I go sit on an empty bench, hunched over coffee that I don’t even want anymore. What’s happening with Krell is so hideously awful it’s almost impossible to take in.
The second-years are still hanging around the café, but they’re a lot quieter than they were before Bryian lost it. I wasn’t here last year so I don’t know what Krell said to the student who died, but I do know how angry and frustrated and scared Krell’s comments made me feel. Still, I never, not once, thought about throwing myself off a building.
Krell said some horrible things to me, and his teaching style really sucked at times, but he wasn’t trying to push me out. He was pushing me to try harder, and I did.
But if that boy was depressed and trying to hide it, Krell might not have had a clue that he was sick and needed help. Krell’s not innocent: I’m sure he added to that kid’s pain, but to call Krell a murderer feels wrong.
There’s a scuffle by the admin office, where a security guard is telling a guy with a huge video cam he has to leave. I burrow into my scarf. Vultures.
Adam’s got to be celebrating. No one could possibly look at Duncan now and guess it’s a fake. And the controversy he’s kicked up? Everyone’s completely focused on that.
Wait. A realization resonates through my chest. What did Adam say when he called that night? Talking about Iona’s dress, he said I was a thief just like him, because I didn’t want what I stole. I kept her dress to get back at her.