Wonderfall

Ineffable

Lauren's POV

Ineffable (adj.): too great to be expressed in words.

I could no longer feel my hand. I had spent the whole week making copies of the drawing Camila handed me for that purpose if I wished to remain in her course.

As soon as Professor Newton's class ended on Tuesday, I had done his assignment and after spending two hours working on a critical summary of an article regarding one of Piet Mondrian's pieces, I started making the first drawing.

It was almost one in the morning when I finished it. At first, I had thought that my traces had come out straight, exactly like the ones in the drawing that had been delivered to me, but the ultimate result was catastrophic. It didn't even get close to the original. Even though I should recognize that I had done a good job, it wasn't, by far, as exceptional as the one I had in hands, and something inside me told me that if I didn't deliver one hundred flawless drawings to Professor Cabello, I would be penalized for it in a way or another. By that time, I didn't know what else I could expect from her, but I knew better than to expect good things.

On Saturday morning, thirty-eight drawings later, with my right hand throbbing with pain, a bag of ice placed on my wrist, and slight desperation for thinking that I wouldn't be able to finish the drawings in time for the next class, I found myself bent over the drawing board in my room, with my hand wrapped around a cold fabric and tears in my eyes, pondering giving up on everything, next to Normani—she had decided to stay awake and make me company since last Tuesday—who was lying on her bed, solving fifty applied mathematics exercises to hand in until Monday for Professor Solomon's class.

"You should inform the dean about this, Lauren. I know you don't want to, but I still think it would fix something," Normani remarked for the millionth time.

I raised my head and looked at her.

"I'm serious, Laur. I'll go with you. We can call Keana if you want. I'm sure she'll go as well," She said, taking off her glasses and placing them on her bed.

"No, Mani," I answered, without bothering to explain the reason why.

We had had that conversation more than ten times. I wouldn't go and complain about Professor Cabello with the dean. He might solve the question of the drawings and spare me from that, but it would only worsen the fact that she would pick on me even more during classes, and deep down, I knew he wouldn't do anything because she was a professor and she had the freedom to evaluate her students the way she found more fruitful. Maybe I was being too prideful for not wanting to fail...

"Fine, but try to stop for a while. You haven't had a break since Tuesday and you barely sleep," Normani argued, trying to convince me to stop drawing like a maniac.

"If I don't keep going, I won't be able to finish this," I retorted, unwrapping the cold, wet fabric around my hand and drying it up with a towel.

"Why are you so stubborn?" Normani huffed, tossing the pile of exercises from Professor Solomon's class on her bed and walking towards me, stopping exactly behind me. "Wow, that is amazing!" She spoke, glancing at my drawing.

"But not as incredible as this one," I pointed at the original drawing.

Normani rolled her eyes.

"It's incredible in its own way," She refuted.

"It needs to be incredible this way, though," I countered back.

"You're boring, Jauregui," She chuckled, planting a kiss on the top of my head. "I'll make a snack. You need to eat, or else you'll become as skinny as you're pale, and then we'd have a big problem on our hands."