Untitled

the  inner  garden  finds  him  here—tucked  away  in  some  shaded,  shady  corner  with  his  back  to  the  world,  taking  a  hit  of  his  stupid  burnt  vape  with  every  other  scroll  on  his  phone.  it's  furtive.  it's  mysterious.  it's  also  really,  really  obvious.  between  his  fourth  and  fifth  sip  of  deliciously  artificial  nicotine  dressed  up  enticingly  as  strawberry  guava,  kasim  becomes  painfully  aware  of  a  presence  lurking  a  bit  too  close.  down  goes  the  vape  on  the  ground.  he  stamps  on  it  (  no  idea  why  )  and  turns  around  with  the  brightest,  guiltiest  smile  he  can  muster.  "  well,  aren't  you  a  sight  for  sore  eyes,  "  kasim  muses.  "  were  you  looking  for  handsome  ol'  me  ?  "

it had hit ella just how unfocused she'd been this term - there was no doubt she'd have to redo it but she didn't want to fall any further behind. she knew she had to stop obsessing over the things that she couldn't change but the sophomore found it so difficult. of course, her aunt had reprimanded her for nearly throwing her life away - again- and it taken the woman several days to get through to her but it had finally happened. still, she wasn't able to stop all her vices. lighting a cigarette, she looked towards the other. "i'll admit, kasim, i have looked better." there were dark circles under her eyes as more than a hint of regret lingered within her. her eyes narrow as she clocks the cracked vape on the floor. "do you want a real one? or are you too chicken shit?" okay, she sort of had her priorities lined up now but remained in a strange youthful space.

he didn’t say i know you’re unraveling. he just said, “you gonna keep showing up like this, or you want me to fake your death so you can start over in italy?” and then, without waiting for a reply, he nudged a coffee cup toward her with the back of his hand, already going lukewarm but still half full. “drink. hydrate. pretend it’s penance.” he grinned, but there was no bite to it — just teasing, warm and crooked. the kind of grin he threw when he wanted to make her laugh before she could cry. “you can make it work, though. like.. post-breakdown model-off-duty energy. very i survived a week in berlin and only cried twice. it’s working.” a pause, and then, softer — genuine, maybe: “show up if you want. don’t if you can’t. the glitter on your face is still more effort than ninety percent of this school.”

tears were still welling up. "italy sounds good right now, actually, yeah..." she doubt her father would even care and her thoughts were now getting into dangerous territory. "i tried to get this fucking glitter and eyeliner off but i swear, they're like, tattooed to me-" she'd changed the subject without leaving the previous in my head. "not even cleansing oil's working and-" was she crying? no, no, no- this was so embarrassing! though, she had embarrassed herself enough last night by getting too emotional. she hadn't known where it had come from but she was left with shame and the feeling that something was gravely wrong with her. "i can't... not like this..." she shook her head. ella knew that people had a perception of her and the broken person that was currently in front of the other went against everything she'd tried to convey. of course, she could fall into the 'mean girl' tropes but at the end of the day, she'd never been any good at it because it only made her worse. "so... um.. how do i get that post whatever energy?"

“  sorry  ,  i  cannot  talk  .  i'm  in  the  middle  of  a  big  break  .  okay  ,  see  ?  if  you  just  take  these  texts  from  the  late  1890s  and  you  correlate  them  with  this  painting  from  1920  ,  someone  might  say  that  the  writer  time  -  travelled  .  however  ,  ”  and  their  smug  ,  satisfied  look  broke  through  their  otherwise  studious  facade  ,  because  a  roping  -  in  of  information  needing  to  be  divulged  was  much  more  important  than  the  lunch  spread  out  before  them  ,  “  it's  just  the  patterns  of  ethos  .  and  that's  what  i'm  writing  this  thesis  about  .  ”  they  nodded  once  .  if  only  the  actual  paper  was  that  easy  —  or  interesting  .  for  some  reason  ,  when  all  of  the  words  were  put  on  the  page  ,  it  became  boring  to  them  .  they  stared  with  eager  eyes  ,  awaiting  the  feedback  .

a big break? ella nodded but she felt they were talking about different things. "yeah, sure, sure, sure but i don't think people were texting in those times." it wasn't that she wasn't intelligent, just that ella had misinterpreted in her panic and gone to correct something that didn't even need her correction. "ethos, yeah, yeah..." what was the university ethos, again? if it was 'try your best', she'd lose it but also be failing it at the same time. ella looked at them with wide and confused eyes. "right, so we're both on a big break, right? a precipice... can they kick me off a uni course? like, i saw the emails from my tutor this morning and i just-" she shook her head. "they have points, i've not really been to mant workshops this term but it's been hard and blah, blah, sob story i know but i don't want to leave here with nothing." it was clear she was emotional. "so... does your epiphany offer any guidance or am i just fucked?"

what  one  did  and  didn't  deserve  was  a  harsh  conclusion  to  come  to,  but  still,  perhaps  it  wasn't  a  complete  exaggeration.  it  was  unfair  to  assume,  but  he  just  had  an  inkling  that  the  action  probably  wasn't  completely  uncalled  for.  even  for  the  sake  of  argument,  standing  up  for  yourself  went  a  long  way.  bash  would  rather  lose  a  fight  and  go  down  kicking  than  never  speak  up  at  all.  most  people,  he  realized,  had  more  bark  than  bite.  and  he'd  be  damned  to  be  lumped  up  with  one  of  them.  〝                                i'm  not  saying  you  deserved  it,              〞bash  corrected,  tone  evening.  it  wasn't  doused  with  softness,  but  it  was  spoken  with  an  amount  of  certainty.  〝                                 i'm  just  saying  i  know  how  i  am  when  i've  been  on  edge  and  i  would  say  when  someone  swings  at  me,  i  don't  think  it  came  out  of  nowhere.              〞he  stated,  shoulders  raising  slightly  before  falling.  〝                                but  we're  two  different  people.  perhaps  i  deserve  it  more,              〞

for whatever reason she could justify on the day, ella had got so much worse in every aspect. "you think something's wrong with me, right?" he didn't want to see her, her father but he was the only thing she felt she had left. her aunt had been immensely kind to her but it just hadn't felt the same and she had been ready to see him - he'd not even shown up even though she knew that he was in the south of england doing business. "you really think there's something wrong with me, yeah? that's how it is." as her projection continued, tears were building up in her eyes and she couldn't stop it from happening. she felt like she'd fucked up what little chance she had - but she was from a rich, rich family - he didn't care about her. "and for god's sake! you don't deserve it, bash, okay?! you don't ever fucking deserve for people to be that way to you." ella was only delivering what she herself wanted to hear.

to  actually  buy  and  luckily  he’s  found  the  book  stew  staff  to  be  very  lenient  about  him  picking  through  them  before  making  any  decisions.  he’s  the  type  to  come  into  public  to  be  alone,  his  posture  carefully  designed  to  read  uninviting,  so  he’s  surprised  when  a  coffee  cup  was  set  down  in  front  of  him  (  by  the  smell  of  it,  maybe  not  coffee  at  all  ).  his  eyes  shift  up  from  the  text  but  his  stature  doesn’t  become  any  more  welcoming,  “  yeah,  a  few,  ”  was  it  not  evident  from  the  pile  on  the  table  ?  he  isn’t  sure  why  she’s  even  asked,  made  herself  welcome  to  his  space.  she  tells  him  about  the  practical  joke  that  almost  was  and  maybe  he’d  find  it  funny  if  book  stew  wasn’t  more  or  less  sacred  to  him.  his  face  simply  stayed  even  as  she  continued.  “  uh,  dostoevsky,  ”  angles  the  book  in  his  hands  slightly  so  she  can  see  the  cover,  “  for  a  russian  lit  seminar.  ”  he  isn’t  really  sure  why  she’s  asking  “  sorry,  did  you  need  something  ?  ”  his  tone  is  lacking  politeness,  but  at  least  he  said  the  word  sorry.   

ella was quick to see that she'd made a mistake trying to strike up conversation, that she was an annoyance when she just needed something to distract herself from whatever was going on in her head - getting some form of rejection didn't sit well with her at all. "russian lit?" there's almost a pained expression on her face - did people really study that? a few moments passed without her saying anything but she then laughed. "russian lit... do people actually take that? get slapped a big book in their face and get told to 'read' it or something, but translated, i'm guessing." she really didn't know what her entire point was as the words came out of her mouth. "so, tell me. do people who take russian literature-" her expressive eyerbows raised as she leaned in. "-do they have many friends?" mean girl - she could talk! ella could barely count them on one hand but would always try to push it on to others, why? "you seem really fucking intelligent, i get it, and if you actually read it in russian, even more impressive BUT-" her eyes widened again as she took her coffee cup and opened it to take a drink. "-sounds like a bit of a loser life, honestly."

when she leaned in to peek at the painting, he tilted it toward her obligingly, brows lifting. “ready-mix pink, yeah. crime against humanity. but maybe that’s the point. maybe it’s all about selling out these days — slap a premade color on a canvas, call it commentary.” he paused. “or maybe the artist was just lazy.” adrien leaned back, letting his head tip against the wall behind them with a dramatic sigh. “either way, i give it a three out of ten. bonus point for unintentional comedy.” after a second, he cut her a sidelong look and added, quieter, “skip class. who cares. world’s still spinning and your hands’ll stop shaking. just don’t disappear. you don’t have to be good at everything all the time.”

"maybe, yeah. guess i've just got to wait an extra six hours and i'll start sweating it out, then." he had a point - how could she actually go to workshop like this? what made it worse is that she hadn't come in, like, two weeks and not turning up at all would raise less alarm bells than turning up in this state. ella was good at fashion design but did she just like fashion? she had ideas but sometimes she felt like creative direction and stylish was more her thing - she wasn't sure. ella was twenty four, she was in her second year and she was having another crisis, crises with various points of her life and this was seemingly one of them.

"daddy daughter dates - what are you talking about?" the use of the phrase made ella's skin crawl. "you really have no fucking idea, do you?" what did corvina mean, that she was trying to get out of it? ella hadn't seen the man she called father in so long but the other seemed to feel some sort of harassment? suddenly, ella was distracted with catching a server's eye. "oh, please can we get a bottle of the melbec, please?" she had a habit of replicating the please to make sure everyone heard it. "my father's a big fan and as he's booked here, i trust it's just exquisite." she pulled a smile to the server that took it down and returned the smile before heading towards the bar section. "what did you mean though?" ella's brow furrowed. "that you've tried to avoid this?"

“i'm  telling  you,  nobody  appreciates  a  good  bad  movie  these  days.”  an  oxymoron?  well  yes,  but  they  know  what  they  mean.  not  their  fault  if  you  can't  keep  up.  they're  sitting  on  the  bed  flipping  through  their  binder  of  dvds  (  yes,  like  this  is  2006,  she  likes  physical  media,  leave  her  be  )  and  pulling  out  a  selection  of  movies  and  broadway  bootlegs  burned  onto  disks  for  the  other  to  choose  from.  “i  blame  everyone  wanting  to  be  some  big  blockbuster.  all  the  best  so  bad  they're  good  movies  are  weird  little  midbudget  flicks.”  still  hasn't  looked  up,  or  given  them  much  space  to  get  a  word  in  edgewise.  “the  best  movies  are  the  ones  you  pull  out  of  the  big  bin  at  walmart.  or  pre-high  school  musical  obscure  dcoms.”

"no, i get what you mean, you know?" ella, as vague as ever. "it's like... the invention of letterboxd gave the average people to be critics along with the film buffs. i mean, i love film, love it-" she took a breath. "- but every time i'm at film festivals, especially in london, i feel so inadequate because i can't reference a line from a cult classic a specific community watched that's from, like, the nineteen seventies, or something!" ella shook her head with her frustrations of letting out somewhat of a growl. "now, everyone expects everything to be masterpieces but if i had a good time watching a good movie that's supposed to be bad for affect, i'm the unintelligent one? no! i think the critics miss the point-" she widened her eyes as she continued her rant. "the majority of the time, honestly." she finally looked back at the other, her cheeks flushing from her impromptu rant. "sorry if i covered you in one of those points..."

just  when  bash  was  convinced  he  wouldn't  get  a  single  genuine  laugh  out  at  his  time  at  palladian,  ellinore  just  went  and  proved  him  wrong.  and  only  a  few  weeks  in,  honestly  he  was  impressed.  corvina.  surely,  it  had  to  be  someone  else.  which  was  odd  consider  corvina  wasn't  the  most  common  name,  but  it  wasn't  as  if  it  would  be  impossible.  just  unlikely.  impossible  would  be  ella's  story  being  true.  it  wasn't  as  if  he  saw  himself  that  close  to  vina,  but  she  was,  well,  vina.  〝                                   sorry  –  sorry,  not  funny.  i  just  pictured  someone  i  knew,                〞bash  had  to  wipe  the  corners  of  his  eyes,  wasn't  as  if  real  tears  fell,  but  god,  he'd  probably  get  another  chuckle  out  about  this  later  too.  〝                                    right  –  right,  so  uncalled  for,                〞he  stated  and  a  hundred  precent,  couldn't  be  one  to  judge.  bash  had  been  on  either  side  of  the  end  of  a  fist.  most  reasons  were  probably  petty,  but  a  handful  could  be  justifiable.  probably.  〝                                    sometimes  swinging  at  someone  is  the  only  way  to  get  certain  people  to  shut  the  fuck  up.  did  you  hit  back,  at  least?                〞

the way ella was staring at him would have had an onlooker assuming something very bad had been said between the two of them. "what?" she couldn't believe that the question was even being asked. "of course i didn't hit them back, bash! what do you take me for? i certainly wasn't raised like that." this was not the time to be acting high and mighty but she would to try preserve what little image she had left. ellinore was a difficult one - exhibited all the signs of a potential 'mean girl' - and yet would crumble at any sort of confrontation and take things straight to heart. "besides, my head was in a toilet and that was a nightmare, but, no. i wasn't going to hit her back and i certainly wasn't about to hit corvina to get her off me. if she wants to be like that, well then, fine! but that's not me." she shook her head, again, an overreaction on her part but she couldn't help it. "do you think i deserved it?" deep down, ella already knew the answer to her question but she didn't want it to be true. "you know what? just forget i said anything."

he squints at the painting in front of him — “untitled” in all caps, emotionally vague — and then gestures lazily toward it, that trademark adrien beaumont smirk already forming. “they call this ‘untitled.’ i call it ‘emotional damage in oil paint.’ what’s your critique, art student number seven?” he tilts his head without looking over, lifting the edge of his sunglasses just enough to lock eyes with whoever’s unlucky or curious enough to be standing nearby. “be honest. is it the painting that’s making me dizzy, or the fact that i may or may not still be drunk?” he doesn’t wait for an answer. instead, he lets the sunglasses fall back into place and mutters, mostly to himself now: “looks like heartbreak and tax evasion had a baby.”

wiping her eyes, she walked over to the other. "i don't think i've been this hungover in a long time. like, how much did i actually drink?" today hadn't even felt like a real day and she was far from present. "i might still be drunk too, like, my hands are shaking. yeah, definitely not going to class like this." ella had made it so easy to set herself up for failure and this was no exception. slowly sitting down next to the other, she nosily looked over his shoulder to have a look at the painting. "did they actually use ready mixed colours? because that pink is far too pink to have been made from five colours... aren't true painters meant to make the colour?"

despite  being  rather  stoic  by  nature,  the  look  that  mapped  out  on  bash's  features  was  nothing  less  than  pure  amusement.  ellinore  was  speaking  of  this  as  if  it  were  the  first  time  it  had  happened  –  but  if  the  two  shared  anything  in  common,  it  was  having  a  short  fuse.  bash  had  lost  count  of  the  amount  of  times  that  altercations  had  made  a  turn  for  physicality.  he'd  accept  the  blame  for  most  of  those  escalations  as  well.  he  was  nothing  short  of  holding  back  a  laugh  at  her  exasperation,  but  he  managed  to  hold  it  together.  eyebrows  merely  rose  at  her  explanation,  even  have  a  gasp.  〝               they  hit  you?  no…  what  on  earth  would  possess  them  to  do  such  a  thing?      〞despite  the  full-named  warning  earlier  on,  the  smug  look,  indeed,  did  not  wipe  from  his  features.  still,  he  tipped  his  head  back  and  ingested  the  liquor  with  ease.  if  anything,  more  radiant  post  show.  〝               and  who  exactly  did  you  manage  to  piss  off  so  much  to  get  into  a  fight  in  broad  daylight?      〞it  wasn't  as  if  he  didn't  believe  the  story  –  no,  he  could  absolutely  picture  a  courtyard  scandal.  he  just  assumed  that,  y'know,  ellinore  had  more  guilt  to  wear  than  she  was  showing. 

looking at bash's face, ella's brow furrowed. why wasn't he more outraged for her? "i don't care what i said about them. it shouldn't warrant getting physical and that physical too. i was off school for like, a week." it had been the first time something like that had ever happened to her. she couldn't remember what year of school it had been, everything got blurred at that time but she knew it was too old to be behaving like that. since coming to university, she had dropped the 'mean girl' tactics but now that something was upsetting her, she seemed to have fallen right back into it. "her name's corvina. she physically grabbed me in the courtyard and threatened me. i wouldn't have even spoke to her if she hadn't been burning lasers into the back of my head with my eyes. like, she was staring at me, bash. i could feel it, tried to ignore it but you know when you just can't ignore it? may have called her a cretin at some point and implied that she was dragged up or something-" she couldn't remember exactly what had come out of her mouth when her emotions had taken over. "still, it's not an excuse. i'm twenty four. no one should be getting physical with me here."

her breathing was shallow as she licked her lips and shuffled in her seat. seeing someone approach, it was like her heart skipped a beat but as she looked up, her blood started to boil. "nope." she shook her head. "why are you here, corvina? don't know if you noticed but i'm kind of waiting for someone." why had she just sat down with her without even asking first? he wouldn't have tried to get them both together with him, surely? ella started to shake her head as she crossed her arms and moved further away from the other. "there must have been a mix up. please can you go to the hostess and ask for your own table?"