Alizarin Crimson Read online

  Alizarin Crimson

  Erica Millard

  ALIZARIN CRIMSON Copyright © Erica Parson Millard All rights reserved.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Author photographs by Val Hennes and Nolan Parson Editing by Effie Rose | www.effierose.com

  Cover Art © Meril Chan | www.merilliza.com

  Jacket design by Novelstone Ink All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Dedication

  For my father, who gave me a love of art and reading.

  And my mother, who told me I could do anything.

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Note from the Author

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  1

  I put my heart and soul into my work, and lost half my mind in the process.

  —Vincent van Gogh

  The skull stared straight at me, with only shadows where its eyes should be. Sharp planes of white bone surrounded those voids. A hairline fracture traced down each of its cheeks. The pale surface glowed against the darkness of the room, white against black, luminescent.

  Its jaw popped open with a snap and startled me so I fell backwards out of my chair, landing with a crash amongst the tall drawing desks. I tried not to be embarrassed. Only the skeleton saw me.

  I lay there in the shadows, the chair on top of me with my limbs caught every which way.

  The door flew open, and the florescent overhead lights turned on. I squinted against the sudden brilliance.

  A male voice asked, “Is someone in here?”

  So much for only the skeleton seeing.

  “No,” I moaned.

  My view was distorted from lying on the ground, but a boy I’d never seen before appeared and lifted the chair off me.

  “Are you hurt?” His accent was musical—English maybe?

  “Just leave me here to wallow in my humiliation,” I said.

  He helped me to my feet. “I make it a rule to never let anyone wallow alone.” Yes, definitely English.

  I glanced at the skeleton hanging on the hook, illuminated by two pull-down lights. Its open mouth gave the impression of cackling laughter. It’s not that funny, George.

  “I’ll remember that next time.” Now that I was upright, I was able to get a good look at him. He was tall, way taller than my five-seven, with deep golden-brown skin and unruly black, curly hair. His pale blue-gray eyes variegated to gold near the center.

  I judged from the outline of his arm through his shirt that he was definitely used to lifting heavy stuff.

  Which I noticed from a purely artistic point of view, of course.

  His black Converse All-Stars had multiple tears, but not as many as his jeans.

  Cindy had mentioned some hot new guy in ripped Levi’s. She wasn’t kidding.

  He picked up my two-by three-foot drawing clipboard, the skull smudged where it had slid against my sleeve when I fell. I glanced at my other bone drawings: human hands, leg bones, and that haunting skull.

  “Did you draw these?” he asked.

  I nodded. Not only did this guy walk in with me trapped under a chair, but he had to find me drawing a skeleton. Smooth.

  He picked up a drawing of the bones in the hand, each one labeled. “They’re amazing. Creepy, but amazing.”

  I put a piece of charcoal into its place in my box. “You have to know what is going on under the surface of the skin to get the right structure. And don’t listen to him, George.” I winked at the skeleton. “You’re not that creepy.”

  “You named the skeleton George?”

  I leaned in, dead serious, and whispered, “I thought about naming him Harry, but I didn’t want to make him feel bad for, you know . . . not having any hair.”

  The boy matched my serious tone. “The last thing you want to do is make a skeleton feel bad. There’s nothing worse than a skeleton with low self-esteem.” He glanced through the rest of my drawings and stopped on the last, George with a cigarette dangling from his teeth. “Nice.” A smile played on the boy’s lips.

  “It’s a little homage to Vincent van Gogh,” I said. “He’s my favorite artist.”

  We stood in silence for a long moment, when the door opened, cracking through the quiet, and voices drifted in from the hall outside.

  The boy jumped and laid down the drawing. “Oh, Professor Elliot asked me to grab a chair for a model?” He made the statement sound like a question.

  I pointed at a metal side-door. “They’re stored in there. A word to the wise? Don’t pick the giant one that’s shaped like a hand. Professor Elliot hates that one.”

  “Good to know.” The guy disappeared behind the door.

  Josh walked in. Ugh. I tried to ignore him.

  “Just the girl I wanted to see,” Josh said.

  I hurried to pack up my stuff.

  “Did you change your mind about Friday?” Josh asked.

  “I am here to paint, Josh, not to hang out.”

  “Come on, just make an exception, just this once.” Josh grabbed my hand, and he leaned in way too close.

  I jerked my hand back and swiveled so the chair back was between us. “Lots of girls are more than willing to go out with you. But I said no, and I meant no.” I was here to paint, not get distracted by guys, and Josh seriously set off my jerk radar.

  “I didn’t think you really meant it,” Josh said. “Come on, I could take you to a nice restaurant, nicer than anything you have in Montana, and my parents are out of town. I can show you the view of New York from my apartment.”

  “Josh, I’m not interested in the ‘view’ from your apartment. Stop asking me.” I was done being polite to him.

  “But—” Josh began.

  Behind me a chair thudded to the ground. “I think she wants to be left alone,” said the new boy, the playful tone from before was gone. He folded his arms across his chest. His height and build would intimidate most people.

  “I don’t think I asked you,” Josh said, but he took a step back.

  “Yes, but you did ask me, and I said no.” I didn’t know if I should be annoyed or glad the boy felt the need to defend me, but Josh wasn’t taking no for an answer.

  “I suggest you walk away,” the boy said. His tone made it clear it was not a suggestion.

  Josh looked from the boy and back at me. “We’ll chat later,” he said, and I wasn’t sure if he was talking to the boy or me. He didn’t look back before slamming the door behind him.

  “He’s delightful,” the bo
y said.

  “Jerks are best left ignored.” I shook my head and finished packing up my stuff. I expected him to leave, but he didn’t.

  “So, you don’t date?” the boy asked.

  I threw my backpack on. “Nope.”

  He picked up the chair. “Can I ask why?”

  Usually I just gave a ridiculous, made-up reason, like I had snakes for feet or was actually a ghost, but this boy felt different, and the truth spilled out. “I won a scholarship to come here for the summer through a competition from the Museum of Modern Art. They pay for my tuition here at Turner Academy, and I’m not going to waste a minute of it before I go back home for the school year.” I’d wanted to come to this school for years, but it was outrageously expensive.

  “So, you’re going to spend every moment of the summer working on art, right?”

  “Yep.” His accent—or something else—drew me to him.

  Another smile toyed on his lips. “So, would you go out with . . .” he tapped his lip in thought.

  Blah, this guy wasn’t going to ask me out after hearing my conversation with Josh, was he? Unlike Josh, I wasn’t sure I’d absolutely turn him down.

  “A paintbrush?”

  I burst out laughing. “I might consider going out with a paintbrush.”

  “I’m Liam, by the way.” He held out his hand to shake.

  “I’m Aya.”

  He flinched back, so his finger barely brushed mine before he was gone. “Aya?”

  I frowned. “Yeah?”

  But then he seemed to catch himself. “Uh, oh . . . I mean, I’ve just never heard that name before.”

  Weird. I stepped around the row of desks to put George away. I glanced at the clock. “I’m going to be late. It was nice to meet you, Liam,” I said. “See you around.”

  “You too, Aya.”

  When I glanced back from the doorway, he was still holding the chair, staring after me.

  I headed to Professor Davina’s classroom. I wasn’t technically enrolled in her class, but I snuck in every Monday and Wednesday during my free period. Since this was summer art school, the classes were set up more like college than high school, with three-hour blocks for studio work. Professor Davina always had the most amazing models for her head drawing class, and she never said anything when I came in and made myself at home.

  Today we used a piece of middle-toned gray paper, with white charcoal to put in the highlights and black to put in the shading. It was a different way to look at light and shadow when we didn’t have a blank white surface to begin with. Class passed too fast, like it always did, and soon it was time for lunch.

  “Are you coming to lunch, Aya?” Cindy asked.

  “Sure.” I packed up my supplies and undid the old button-down shirt I always wore over my clothes so they wouldn’t get ruined while I worked. Oil paint and charcoal were death on fabric.

  Over my white T-shirt, I looped the gauzy, green infinity scarf around my neck. My mom had bought it for me because it was the exact color of my eyes, and she gave it to me the day I left Montana to come to New York. It was light enough for me to wear every day, despite the summer heat. My usual out-of-control red curls were braided into a loose crown today, and I jabbed a paintbrush in for safekeeping.

  “I told the new guy he could come to lunch with us,” Cindy said. “He should be in 3D.”

  I tried to act nonchalant. “New guy?” I didn’t want to seem too interested.

  “Yeah . . . wait, you haven’t seen him?” Cindy rolled her eyes. “Aya, you need to get your head out of the paint tube and look around sometimes.”

  “My head is exactly where I like it,” I said with a smile. “Why is he just starting now?”

  “He was traveling in Europe or something.”

  Oh, he had to be one of those guys. I loved going to school here, but sometimes the other students at this school had distorted views of reality. They thought it was perfectly normal to blow forty bucks on lunch when that was how much I had to spend for the whole week.

  “He works with metal,” Cindy continued, “and he is so hot.”

  I saw that much.

  We dropped our stuff at our lockers. I loved how everything at this school was designed for artists. Even the lockers were in a separate room, not lining the halls, and could actually fit my huge clipboard, no problem. I grabbed my messenger bag with my sketchbook, and we made our way down to Three-D.

  And there he was. For a few moments, I couldn’t look away from his warm smile. Had it really only been a few hours since I met him?

  “You ready to go to lunch, Liam?” Cindy asked.

  “Sure, let me put some stuff away.”

  I was here to paint, not anything else. Focus, Aya.

  Ryan—a guy from my watercolor class—introduced Liam to our huge group. I tried not to notice how Liam’s gaze lingered on me. I just nodded once in response and dug my sketchbook out of my bag. I was here to focus on my art.

  The sky outside was gray and threatened rain, covering the world in a soft light. Leaving the school was always an assault, with the New York traffic and pungent smells after the calm and quiet inside. Yet, I didn’t mind creating art from the chaos. Both calm and chaos brought life.

  A few moments later, Liam was at my side. “So, what do you study, Aya?”

  “Oil painting.”

  A few other girls hovered close by for a chance to talk to him, looking remarkably like piranhas, but he didn’t seem to notice them.

  “I have oil painting this afternoon,” Liam said.

  “You’re probably in my class.” I shouldn’t have been excited about that, but I couldn’t help it.

  “You might have to help me out.” He pulled a face. “I’ve never painted before.”

  “What? You’re at art school, and you’ve never painted before?”

  “Hey, I work with metal. I barely even sketch out my designs.”

  “Don’t worry,” I said. “If you put your easel next to mine, I can use a spoon to flick paint onto your canvas whenever the professor isn’t looking.” I shut one eye and pretended to shoot paint at him.

  He laughed. “It would probably be an improvement over anything I do.”

  “I doubt that.” I kicked a pebble off the sidewalk.

  “No, really.”

  “You might want to find some goggles, so I don’t hit you in the eye,” I said.

  “Or I could wear one of those huge, black garbage bags over my head.”

  I tapped a finger to my lip. “How would you see? You’d have to poke two eyeholes in the bag and wear goggles over the top. It would make an awesome impression for your first day.”

  “Are we talking swimming goggles or chemistry goggles here?”

  “I can’t be held responsible for any injuries caused by flying paint. It can sometimes have a mind of its own, so I think we should stick to chem goggles.”

  “So, humiliation, raccoon eyes, and having to be stuck in a sweaty, hopefully not used and disgusting, garbage bag is the price for your help?”

  “Spoon-flicked paint? Yep.”

  He squinted at me as he tried not to smile. “Worth it.”

  “You’re very confident in your painting abilities, I see.”

  “If by confident you mean terrified I’ll make a fool of myself, then yes, I’m very confident.”

  Wow, cute and funny. I was smiling—Liam had made me smile. This boy was already too dangerous.

  “Don’t be too hard on yourself.” I bumped my shoulder against his. “Everyone has to start somewhere.” Before I could stop myself, I asked, “So tell me about your accent.”

  “People always want to know about that. Well, I grew up in the U.K., in London. We moved here to New York a few years ago.”

  “Do you miss home?” I asked.

  He shrugged. “I mostly miss my grandparents in Ireland.”

  “Do you get to see them often?”

  “Not really. My father likes us to stick to ourselves, and he is always
busy with his business, so we don’t travel back very often.”

  “That’s too bad.” The urban scene stole my attention, and I grabbed the sketchbook out of my bag. My friends were used to my one-minute street sketching by now, and they usually kept walking. The sidewalk in front of me had a fantastic tree reflected in the building right next to it. It would have been a good time for the other girls to pounce on Liam, but he stopped to watch.

  “Oh, you don’t have to wait for me.” I waved him along. Yes, go away!

  He looked from my sketchbook to the scene and back again. I tried not to let the attention make me nervous.

  Two other girls stopped too, but it was awkward to wait all in a group so they turned and were swept into the river of pedestrians. The flood of humans flowed around Liam and me, like we were the only real people in a world where time and lives disappeared into a hazy, fast-forward motion.

  “Why did you decide to sketch that?” he asked.

  I kept drawing. “The windows on the building make such perfect perspective lines, and it is an interesting juxtaposition: the totally organic shape and nature of the tree next to the all glass and metal of the high-rise. The tree is so much smaller and humbler, but something about the building knows no matter how much taller, it will never be alive, never live and grow and die. So, it can only reflect the image of the tree and hope.” There was suddenly heat in my cheeks. Had I said all that out loud? What was this boy doing to me?

  “Hope what?” Liam asked.

  I shrugged. “Uh, I don’t know. Whatever buildings hope for.” I couldn’t help but make each of my drawings or sketches or paintings tell a story. They were a part of who I was.