I shifted my body to get more comfortable. “That’s what worked for me. It was like torture, but it nulls your body’s response to the stressful stimulus. My therapist kept telling me that we were ‘making it extinct.’ But I don’t know what’ll work for you — I don’t know Dr. Brinkman or what he’ll have you do.”
“Well, all I know right now is that I feel worse.”
“Try again, and if that doctor doesn’t work for you, we can find you a different one. Regardless of what happens, I’ll be here for you, Luke.”
I could feel a shift in Luke’s facial muscles as he smiled. “Solid.”
“Solid,” I said.
After a while, Luke’s breathing slowed and he fell asleep.
I stayed awake, feeling his warm, heavy weight in my arms, thinking about that factory. There was a guilty feeling that tugged on the edges of my mind, and I couldn’t help but feel like I’d gotten away with something I wasn’t supposed to be doing.
I’d gotten away with not telling Luke about my day.
My last thought before I fell asleep was that I had to keep the details of my job under lock-and-key; otherwise, I’d risk upsetting Luke. He was already going through so much stress… the last thing I wanted to do was to pile the burden of my own fears, my own uneasiness, onto him.
Though, the line between protecting him and feeling close to him was widening. I couldn’t help but feel a shade of my old loneliness settle onto my chest.
Luke
After that night following therapy, I started to feel better. Loads better.
I couldn’t help but feel what Adam told me about the emotional wounds and pus was right. Was I starting to squeeze it out? Was that why I yelled at him?
I took a moment to look around the room at the other fashion design students, wondering if any of them had ever experienced anything similar.
Part of me was jealous that Adam got to spend all day with his new partner, Claire. Even though he said she was a chatterbox, it must have been nice to talk to someone. As a student at Parsons, all of my classmates were my competitors. Making genuine friendships was even harder than usual because I was surrounded by either big-ego artist types or incredibly insecure students who channeled their trauma into their work. Sometimes it was all they talked about — their trauma. Like it had become them, overshadowing their personality like poison ivy climbing up a tree, completely obscuring the bark.
I thought about something Dr. Brinkman said to me at my last appointment: That some people hang on to their trauma, carry it in their heart like a precious jewel. That they wouldn’t know who they would be without it. They sabotaged themselves by letting it rule their lives and were reluctant to shed the layers of the cocoon of fears and face their own identity without it.
That wasn’t going to be me.
“Today is critique,” Professor King announced happily over her shining red frames. “You all know what that means— get ready.”
My heart fluttered with something else that wasn’t fear. Something that was its cousin:
Excitement.
For once, I couldn’t wait to show off what I had put together. In the past, there was nothing I dreaded more than public speaking. And when I read about the description for Parsons and learned that instead of tests, they had these things called ‘critiques,’ I thought I might just die.
Critiques were the backbone of how design school functioned. Every week, students would have to stand up in front of the class alongside their work. The rest of the students would sit in a half-circle around the work. Then, the professor would make every single person criticize their creation.
I’d seen students ripped to shreds.
Crit sounded like an absolute nightmare when I read about it, but I’d learned that it wasn’t so scary in practice. Everyone in the classroom was familiar with each other, and it was good practice in separating your ego from your work.
…also, I couldn’t help but feel that I got to show off a bit.
A young woman with platinum blond hair had to go first.
She dragged the bust with her partially-constructed dress on it to the front of the classroom. There was the sound of chairs scraping the floor as the other students pulled their stools into a half-moon shape around her work.
I could see from where I was sitting that the dress had an interesting-looking design; tiny pleats were zigzagging over it, and what looked like a notebook paper pattern. If I squinted, I could make out some handwriting-looking text on it.
Once we were all settled, the professor pulled out her notepad and a pen and called out, “Description.”
I watched the platinum blonde girl jerk to life as if the professor had shocked her with that word.
“Well, um, I’m Lily, as you all know,” she said with a tremor in her voice. “And this is… the start of my first piece of my collection.”
My eyes slid over to the professor. She pursed her lips, then scribbled something on her notepad.
Lily’s eyes flicked nervously to the professor’s pen.
“I… uh, well, you see…”
She turned bright red.
I tried to send mental vibes to her to soothe her. Being in the hot seat was never fun, especially if you had unfinished work.
…which was how her piece looked.
“Description,” the professor repeated, her pen poised.
Lily took in a deep breath and then said, “This dress was inspired by an image I saw on Instagram.”
“Which image?” Professor King asked, her voice a little gentler now. “We’re here to learn how to harness inspiration, so it would be helpful for us to see it, if possible.”
Lily turned white. “Well… I don’t remember the handle—”
“That’s fine,” the professor said. “Describe it to us.”
Lily cleared her throat, seemingly to steel herself. “It was a picture of a naked woman. She looked perfect to
