Conversations From Afar

32 / french girls

Ellis leads me across the University of King's College (it seems like a very pompous name) courtyard, explaining his living situation.

"So Kings just let's NSCAD students live here?" I ask, kicking through a pile of leaves.

"Well, we pay," he rolls his eyes. We climb the two flights of aesthetically pleasing stairs to his dorm. "It's called a bay, so one person has the room with the door and the other has a connecting room. My roommate's name is Tyler..."

The walls are bare, except for a Beatles poster hanging over the fridge. His roommate is there, in the room connected to the hallway. He lies on a bed with a laptop and two open books that appear to be novels. "Hey man."

"Hey, this is Kat. Kat, my roommate Tyler." I wave in that awkward way people do when thrust into a situation, and he leads me into his room.

There are prints on the walls, as well as his own works, and the desk has been transformed into an art station covered with newspaper. His bed is unmade and there's a laptop near his pillow. It's cozy but much bigger than my room.

"It's nice," I say, sitting on the bed. The duvet puffs up around me and I pat it down as he drops into the rolling desk chair. It's a peaceful kind of quiet.

"Yeah, it's okay." He spins around the chair. "So...have you talked to Cam?"

I sigh, "No real conversations."

"Mm..."

There are a couple photos on the wall, stuck between a blue period-esque print and what looks like a self portrait. The first is a graduation picture, but Ellis isn't in the gown. He stands young, knobby-kneed and smiling beneath the arm of a much taller boy. Then there's one with a group of friends sound a campfire, the fire looking bright and artsy at the centre. He's hugging a girl with hair fierier than the fire. The last, at the bottom, is Ellis and one of the boys from the campfire, sitting on top of the bar of a red swing set and smiling, their legs blurs as they probably (swung) them.

"Did you have a girlfriend in high school?" I ask. He looks happy in the picture, she clutches his arm and laughs, frozen in the moment.

"No, I've never been in relationship." He's shrugs, "I, yeah, I don't know."

"Who's that?" I ask, pointing to the boy on the swing set with muscular soccer-legs and a nice tan.

He does a turn around the chair before answering. "Abel," he replies. He's doesn't offer a history of their friendship, though I would've been interested.

I turn, look in around the room but entirely focused on the heaviness developing in my stomach. The heaviness, unease, dread. The alone-dread. Missing-Cam-heaviness.

"Distract me," I say. Ellis smiles.

"I could paint you," he offers, dragging his feet along the carpet as he comes to a stop.

I flutter my lashes, "Paint me like one of your french girls?"

He laughs.

*****
when your school is so small that within a day, everyone is aware that a teacher's marriage is over....

Lol that was kind of sad?

Do you do art? What's ur medium?