Sinking

gallery

"Today's the day!" I woke up to shouting from none other than my boyfriend, his hands finding my arms and shaking me awake. I opened my eyes and saw his wide smile, which made me feel better despite my tired attitude.

"I thought you were going to let me sleep in," I groaned, shifting to my side in order to lift myself with one arm. "What time is it?"

"It's eleven, so technically I did let you sleep in," Phil laughed, "Do you know the plan for today?"

I shook my head, moving to let my legs swing off the bed as I scrolled through my phone notifications. "I just know that Troye's driving us."

Phil sat down next to me. "The plan is that me and you are gonna go eat lunch somewhere in town with the extra money from the shift I had yesterday at around noon. And at one, Troye's gonna show up in Chris' van, which already has your paintings in it, with everyone else and we're gonna drive, and hopefully get there around three so that gives us time to take your paintings to the gallery room before four."

I nodded distractedly, stressfully, as now I realized there were only five hours until I revealed my paintings to my friends, my competitors, and my judges. Today was the day my future was decided.

Even if I was nervous, I was quite proud of the final work I'd come up with. I'd scrapped one of the three I had done last week, and successfully finished five paintings in the span of six days. It hadn't been hard, considering school had been out for spring break and work hours went by quickly, especially when I spent most of them sleeping after long nights of covering white with color. Both PJ and Phil never minded; they were kind enough to let me doze behind the counter while they did what I was supposed to be doing. I nearly felt bad, but with the stress I was under for the scholarship, it didn't seem all that big of a deal.

Phil flopped onto the mattress as I stood, grabbing my pair of faded black jeans which had been violently thrown to the side and forgotten during our activities the night before, and I pulled them on with haste. I had less than an hour to attempt and make myself presentable, considering the fact I would be standing in front of a large group of people, and my looks might cause first impressions to be thrown before any of them actually saw my work.

I walked into the bathroom, leaving my boyfriend to do whatever, and plugged in my hair straightener before pulling on the outfit I had prepared the day before, which was a white shirt under a black jacket. Fancier than my everyday attire, but not overdoing it; hopefully I had gotten my range on the clothing fanciness scale exactly where I had tried.

I was finished around five minutes before Phil and I had planned to leave, and I walked into the bedroom to find him dressed in a nice black button-down shirt. He turned to me with joy and excitement written all over his face; he knew how much this meant to me, and he was thrilled to see the thing I loved doing so much becoming a serious commitment.

"You ready?" He questioned, and I patted my jeans to ensure I had everything I needed, such as keys, my wallet, the folded up paper for the description of my art, and a pen in case there were things to sign. I stuffed my phone in my back pocket, returning my gaze to Phil's afterwards and giving him a smile, one quite convincing. So convincing I wondered if it had even been a fake one at all. I actually didn't think it was, this time; even if I was tense and worried, the fact that I had this boy here to be by my side while I went to discover what life would give me gave me hope and security.

"Yeah," I breathed out, taking his hand in mine as we headed down the stairs, a frown finding my face because of how the halls and rooms were still empty of the presences of my mom and brother, and neither of them even knew of the gallery at the University. When my mom did come home, she only really gave attention to Adrian if he was here. It wasn't like I craved their words or company; it just got a bit irking.