So Damn Beautiful (A New Adult Romance) (34 page)

I thought about Quentin’s
Masterpiece
Hoax
, his most famous project. “So he didn’t start with Vincent
van Gogh,” I said dourly. “He started with Chase Adams.”

Chase nodded. “And that’s what people call
brilliance.” He laughed. “So, as you can see, me and Quentin Pierce
are not simpatico.”

There was one thing I didn’t understand. “Why
did you agree to do my project, Chase?” I said softly.

He shifted uncomfortably. “I admit it was for
selfish reasons, Annie. I thought,
Now, finally, I have this
dickhead where I’ve always wanted him
. I may not be able to
convince people that Quentin is a fucking monster, but at the very
least, I can make him look stupid. Really stupid. And from where
I’m standing now, that kind of statement actually has a modicum of
clout.”

“So, let me get this straight. You decided to
fuck me over in the process of fucking Quentin over?”

He shook his head. “I might’ve started out on
that foot, but I don’t care about that anymore. I care about
you
—and I know you wouldn’t be here if you didn’t care about
me, Annie.”

Something in me broke at that point. I was
overwhelmed by emotion over Chase’s confession. It suddenly all
began to make so much sense: Chase’s self-destructive and darker
tendencies, his penchant for railing against the powers that be,
and his smoldering hatred of gallery artists were all consequences
of the unfortunate turn of events with Quentin. I had been so blind
to all of it, in my eagerness to impress Quentin and graduate to
the next level of my career.

I held my arms out to Chase. Wordlessly, he
enveloped me in his embrace. I couldn’t help but cling to him,
wanting to take in his scent and taste and very essence. “Make love
to me,” I whispered.

“Here?” he said, his fingers digging past my
sweater and into my thin cotton T-shirt.

“Yes,” I thundered, totally unconcerned about
who might stumble upon us at that moment.

He didn’t hesitate. He tore off my clothes in
that heedless, frantic way that sent my pulse racing and made my
knees feel like mush. The rough surface of the rooftop dug into my
ribs as he pushed me down onto the ground. In moments, our clothes
were off. I needed to feel him, and I needed to feel him now. This
time around, everything was drawn out to an excruciating crescendo.
As I guided him into me, our bodies felt like primal drums,
reverberating with the secret meters and downbeats of the night.
Unlike the other times, tonight felt slow, constant and gentle in
its heat, more like the dancing pulse of a candle flame than a
blowtorch that threatened to destroy everything around us with its
impetuous passion.

The entire time, his deep-green eyes steadily
held my gaze, and there were moments when the power of it made me
wonder if he was me and I was him—the sensations that played upon
me seemed to be less “mine” than “ours.” They didn’t belong to me,
only to the merged perfection of our bodies. He flooded my face, my
neck, my breasts, with tender kisses. Tears, saliva, our bodies—all
of it mingled together as he whispered sweet words to me. “Annie .
. . my angel . . . my beautiful angel.” There was nothing in any
known language that I could utter to tell him what he meant to me,
or what was happening to us. “Lovemaking” seemed too sentimental
and mundane a term for it. I don’t know how long we were there,
clinging to each other, lost in the wild and wordless sea of each
other’s eyes, but when we came, we came together. It was like an
expulsion of lava. The heat was intense, cauterizing, healing.

We lay there, huddled together, shivering,
right in the middle of what had been Chase’s pièce de résistance.
And despite the fact that everything was, at least on the surface,
in a state of turmoil, I knew on some level this was exactly where
I needed to be.

“Annie,” Chase finally said. “About Elsie . .
.”

“Shut up, Chase,” I ordered.

That made Chase chuckle.

“I don’t want us to fight ever again,” I
said.

“The sparks that fly between us have to do
with the fighting—at least partially, I think.”

I laughed despite myself. “You’re crazy,
Chase.”

“Just the way you like me.”

I sighed. “So, now that you destroyed the
piece you were going to have in the show, does that mean you aren’t
going to do it at all?”

He grinned. “That wasn’t my piece for the
show, babe. That was my gift to you.”

I propped myself up on an elbow and looked at
him. “Some gift!”

He looked apologetic. “I’m sorry, I know I
need anger management or some shit like that. But the truth is, I
could make you a hundred thousand murals and they wouldn’t be able
to sum up the way I feel for you. I mean it, Annie. I wasn’t just
talking out of my ass when I said I loved you.”

I traced the outline of his profile softly,
and new tears began to well up in my eyes. “I know, Chase. And I .
. .” My voice broke. It had taken me such a long time to admit it
to him, to admit it to myself, but the truth was, I’d always known.
I’d known from the moment I’d set eyes on him. “I love you, too.”
The desultory passion I’d felt in his presence, which could switch
so dramatically from ecstasy to rage, had been deeper than I’d
initially believed. And now I could see, in retrospect, that the
intensity I’d felt months ago hadn’t been the result of my being
flummoxed in the presence of a hot guy—it had stemmed from an
immediate recognition, one that went beyond reason or doubt. Chase
Adams was my soul mate.

Chase clasped my hand and clutched it to his
chest. “That’s a good thing . . . right?” he asked, a note of
concern in his voice.

I smiled through my tears. “It’s a beautiful
thing, Chase. And I’m sorry it took me so long to say it. It’s just
. . . I was scared.”

His green eyes burned like fire beneath the
night sky. “You don’t have to be scared, Annie. You know I would
never do anything to hurt you.”

I nodded. “Yes, but I’m still worried about
you. If things are going to work out between us, they can’t go on
the same way. I would never want to tame you, make you into someone
you’re not, but . . .” I laughed. “Goddamn, I’m not sure I can
handle this level of intensity day in and day out.”

He grabbed my hand and kissed it. “Nobody’s
given me as much as you have, Annie. I’m sorry for fucking up. And
seriously, I promise I’ll be better in the future. I promise I’ll
be worthy of you.”

I shook my head, feeling the tears beading my
eyelashes. “I don’t need you to be worthy of me. I just need you to
be happy and safe.” We melted back into each other’s warmth.
Several moments of cozy silence passed, but there was one thing
that was bugging me.

“So . . . if that wasn’t the piece you made
for the show, does that mean there’s something else out there? A
Chase Adams original especially for Quentin Pierce?”

He nodded. “That, my dear Goldilocks, is
still a secret.”

I frowned. “Does that mean you still want to
do it? You have every right to
not
want to, after everything
Quentin put you through.”

“No, babe. I put myself in that position
intentionally.” He looked at me piercingly. “But if
you
want
me not to do the show, I get it. I still have a bone to pick with
Quentin, but it won’t be at the expense of making you look
bad.”

“Honestly, I’m not even sure I care about
having credibility in this, especially if the Quentin Pierces of
the world are the norm,” I admitted. “Things have changed for me,
Chase. I’m not the naive girl you met a few weeks ago. I know all
that glitters isn’t gold.”

He tugged my hair slightly and bit my neck.
“Except for you, Goldilocks, except for you.”

It
was the following week, and I was back in Professor Claremont’s
class. Kendra still wasn’t talking to me, even though I’d attempted
to clear the air between us after making up with Chase. I was tired
of not having my best friend to talk to, to share the weirdness and
grandeur of the last forty-eight hours with. But when I’d reached
out to her that morning, when she’d come back into our dorm room to
pick up a few clothes after having been gone the entire week of
Thanksgiving, she’d practically ignored me.

“Kendra, I . . . ,” I’d started awkwardly.
Her back was turned to me as she raided her closet, presumably for
warm clothes, as the weather had cooled down considerably in the
last two days she’d been at Yannis’s. “Can we get breakfast
together today?”

“Nope,” she’d responded curtly. “Early
classes.”

“Then maybe lunch or dinner? This is
ridiculous. We can’t keep avoiding each other.”

“Who’s avoiding?” she’d said indifferently.
“I’m busy and I have a lot more to think about than your boy drama,
Annie. Get over yourself.” Then she’d flounced out of the room.

I tried to make eye contact with her in
class, but, as usual, she was glued to Yannis’s side. I noticed
that he tried to catch my eye now and then. His expression was a
mixture of confusion and apology, as if he’d heard Kendra’s side of
the story but was sure there was probably more to it. I smiled and
nodded appreciatively at him, although I didn’t think his
endorsement was going to be enough to push past Kendra’s
stubbornness.

Elsie walked into the room shortly after I
did. My breath caught in my throat when I saw her, preening and
smug as ever. She wasn’t wearing any makeup, but her pale skin was
rosy and luminescent. As I looked at her, I imagined she was a
vampire, sucking her beauty and fortune from other people’s
lifeblood. I didn’t exactly hate Elsie, even though most girls in
my position would have pulled out all the stops to make her pay for
what she’d done. Chase and I had already forgiven each other for
our trespasses, but Elsie’s brazenness, her gall, her willingness
to sink to the lowest level to hurt me—these were all things that,
in my eyes, reduced her effortless beauty to the worst kind of
ugliness imaginable.

Professor Claremont’s lecture today was about
the most famous graffiti artist in the world, Banksy. Apparently,
even the non–art buffs in the class knew who he was. In fact, since
the beginning of the month, Banksy had decided to make New York
City his own personal playground, producing one jaw-dropping feat
of imagination daily. Professor Claremont made the students ooh,
aah, chuckle, and offer their own biting commentary as she flitted
through image after image: a slaughterhouse delivery truck brimming
with stuffed animals, a fiberglass figure of Ronald McDonald, and a
“mobile garden” stuffed with a tongue-in-cheek representation of
urban green space.

“Banksy is accustomed to creating chaos
wherever he goes and sparking conversation that speculates on just
what kind of social commentary he’s making,” Professor Claremont
proclaimed. “Journalists, art lovers, and residents have been doing
their own scavenger hunts, attempting to seek out new pieces and
find out just who Banksy is. But some critics have argued that
Banksy’s method of urban barnstorming is exploitative and
reckless.

“For example, a few years ago, Banksy went on
a stenciling tour of New Orleans right after it had been demolished
by Hurricane Katrina. His pieces included images of looters, people
fighting to be rescued, and hooded KKK members hanging from nooses.
Many argued that this was simply his way of pointing at the
hypocrisy of modern Americans when it came to helping those in
need, and that he was remarking on the harrowing state of race
relations today. But others felt it was just another
attention-grabbing spectacle, a way to dazzle people who were
hungry for some theater in the midst of one of the most horrendous
disasters of our time. So I’d like to get some of your takes on
this. Is Banksy a genius, or is he just regurgitating collective
anxiety in overly bombastic ways?”

Professor Claremont’s passionate screed
hushed almost everyone into silence. But, much to everyone’s
surprise, my hand immediately shot up.

“Annie?” she said, surprised but pleased at
the same time. “What do you have to say?”

“Well, I don’t really think Banksy is doing
anything new in the world of graffiti art,” I said. “I mean, yeah,
he’s great and all, but the controversy around his work is
overblown. Think about it. Ever since the Harlem Renaissance,
graffiti has been a propaganda tool used to communicate radical
political ideas. Banksy is just an exponent of that. He’s using his
work to rebel against authority and mass media. This isn’t an art
form that’s ever been about subtlety or politeness. He makes big
statements because he’s working in a medium that was devised
specifically for that purpose.”

Everyone had turned to stare at me. Finally,
Kendra and I made eye contact, and her expression was inquisitive
and startled. I’m sure nobody was expecting me to speak so
articulately on something as unorthodox as graffiti, but what did
they know? I was getting my education after-hours.

“These are all great points, Annie, but I’m
curious as to what you think about the commodification of political
art,” Professor Claremont said. “After all, if graffiti has a
primarily political agenda and is about self-expression unmoored
from moneymaking, is Banksy betraying his art form’s origins?”

I paused. “I don’t think so. I mean, it’s
about self-expression and big statements, but what a lot of people
don’t know is that graffiti is also about rigorous technique. I
mean, it has to be rigorous to stand the test of time. Most
graffiti artists are making work in places that aren’t necessarily
amenable to the tools that people use in more traditional media.
Banksy supposedly formulated his stenciling technique while running
away from the cops. It’s a pretty remarkable story.” I felt more
excited as I found myself talking, almost as excited as I had been
when Chase had first explained to me who Banksy was. “He was making
bubble letters on a subway train, and then the police came and his
entire crew abandoned him. So he hid under a garbage truck, in a
puddle of oil. As he was waiting for the police to disperse, he was
thinking of ways to make his process faster, so that throwing up a
piece wouldn’t be painstakingly long—so that he could just do it
and flee the scene. That was when he saw stenciled letters sprayed
on the truck’s bottom, and that was the birth of his new style.”
Everyone was in a state of rapt attention as I talked. “That
ensured that he could make work faster, work that everyone could
see and enjoy—which has been an impetus for most artists since the
time of drawing on cave walls.