Day in the story: 10th September (Wednesday)

I wasn't fine the next day.

Sure, I could move. I even managed to get out of bed without groaning, much. But I felt like I'd just finished a marathon. Not the solitary, triumphant kind. No, this was the kind where a thousand people are packed together like sardines, all stomping over each other to get to the finish line. Why do people sign up for those again?

I went through my morning routine before Sophie woke up. I had to, once she's up, the bathroom becomes a no-go zone for what feels like forever. Peter came back from his morning run just as I was finishing up the toasts. He walked in, gave me a quick once-over to make sure I was still breathing and mentally intact, then headed to his room without a word. Good boy.

I'd packed my things before heading out for last night's "gig," so my bag was already set by the door. Today was stacked with my favorite classes: graphic design, symbolism in art and painting. Despite the bruises and the chaos of the previous night — I felt good. Alive. Balanced in that weird way only a dangerous high followed by morning coffee can bring.

So I sat at the table, sipping my coffee and finishing a slightly overdone toast, watching birds glide across the pale sky through the kitchen window.

It must have rained at some point during the night. The streets and pavements were speckled with puddles, ephemeral mirrors for the sky to gaze at its own reflection. In more melancholic moments, I used to find something poetic in that: how the sky could only truly see itself after it had cried.

Of course, that lovely metaphor dies a quiet death when you remember lakes, rivers and oceans exist. But still, there's some truth to it, isn't there?

I used to cry a lot.

After my parents died in the car crash that orphaned me, I could've filled a river with my tears. But in that time, I learned something no one else could've taught me. I learned about myself. I learned that I could survive the kind of pain that shatters your entire world. And if I could survive that, then I could survive anything.

Today wasn't a day for melancholy, so I pushed those thoughts aside. It was the 10th of September and the sky wore my favorite shade of Maya Blue. The sun danced across my skin in warm, golden rays and a gentle breeze rustled the still-green leaves on the trees. Autumn was nowhere in sight.

"Hi, girl." Sophie emerged from the depths of the bathroom, a woman transformed. With her golden-blonde hair, angelic face framed by cool grey eyes and the tall, graceful figure of a runway model, she should've been insufferable. And yet, despite all those obvious flaws, she was grounded, hard-working and one of the kindest people I knew.

"Hi, Soph," I mumbled, knees tucked to my chin, perched on the window ledge. "You smell wonderful." She really did. I wondered what it was.

"Thank you. It's a new scent, I went shopping yesterday. I can grab you one too if you fancy it that much." If I asked, she'd give me her only bottle without blinking. But I'm not the pushy type.

"No, I don't think it'd have the same effect on me as it does on you."

She laughed.

"You still selling yourself short? You know you're a sight yourself, girl."

She was kind, but she wasn't wrong either. Maturing had done me more than a few favors. I used to be chubbier as a teen, my freckled face bloated with baby fat and I had no idea how to do my hair. Life in the orphanage, learning to steal and being beaten for failed attempts, left me bruised, tired and always a bit ragged around the edges.

But now, in the third year of my bachelor's degree, twenty-one years old and battle-tested, my body's a well-oiled, athletic machine. And I've finally got my own pretty face to paint on.

Still, it was a nice thing to hear, so I indulged whenever I could.

"I'm heading out in about five minutes to catch the bus. Judging by your current state, I'm guessing we'll meet on campus?" I asked.

She smiled. "Yeah. I still need to eat something before I go. I'm not Peter with his intermittent fasting, I'd die without a proper breakfast."

I often wondered if she and Peter would ever become a thing, but neither of them had made a move. I asked Peter about it once. He said she was a good person, but not his type. That had genuinely shocked me. I thought she was everyone's type.

"Bon appétit, then," I said, offering her a smile before turning my gaze back outside to the world I'd soon rejoin, my thoughts already beginning to drift.

**********

I live on the Water St., about twenty minutes from the Long Island University by bus. My immediate neighborhood isn't much to look at, just rows of old concrete block buildings, relics of a more utilitarian era. But as soon as the bus pulls away from my stop, the view opens up. We pass over a Brooklyn Bridge - long steel bridge that spans the river, its ribs and cables arching overhead like the sinews of some great sleeping titan holding the city together. In the distance lies an artificially made island tethered to the mainland by one smaller bridge. That's where the tech companies have staked their claim, their headquarters rising in sleek glass and colorful steel, an enclave of the future in the middle of the river. I've never been there, but it always looks so polished, so untouchable. So other.

After the bus rolls off the bridge, we glide past a stretch where the city softens. On the right, there's a quiet Brooklyn Bridge Park, tall trees casting long shadows, joggers weaving between them like fleeting thoughts. On the left, a small but lively shopping street comes into view: a few shops, some restaurants, a scattered mix of beauty salons and dry cleaners, the sort of place that feels like a comfortable pause in the rhythm of the city. Then we take a turn into the residential streets, where rows of stately houses and manicured lawns give way to the familiar chaos of student life. This is fraternity and sorority territory, flags, banners and music leaking from half-open windows. Not long after, the main buildings of the university rise into view, their stone and glass facades like an open invitation to ambition.

This whole part of the ride grounded me, especially after last night's chaos. I was early, no need to rush, just the perfect window to soak in the quiet beat of a life that most people would call normal. Sometimes I felt like an impostor, like a shadow slipping through a world built for someone else. A thief playing dress-up in borrowed peace. But then again, unlike most of the students attending this university, I had already paid this year's tuition in full and had next year's secured too. The perks of stealing things with enough zeroes on their price tags to make rich men sweat.

Of course, none of that money ever touches my hands raw. It gets washed clean through the skilled fingers of my thieving mentor, Phillipe Penrose. Officially, I'm just his art appraiser, a respectable, cultured title that sounds good on paper and even better on tax records. But today, I'd have to visit him for more than paperwork. The necklace from last night still needed to be converted into liquid funds. I'd planned to give him just the cash to clean, but plans, like cars, sometimes crash spectacularly.

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

Penrose found me when I was still in the orphanage. He'd lost his own child sometime before and became a regular visitor and donor to our home, maybe out of guilt, maybe out of grief, maybe both. He saw something in me: a passion for art, sure, but more importantly, a knack for sleight of hand that no ten-year-old should've honed so well.

As a favor, though I'm not sure to whom, he convinced the headmistress to let him "borrow" me often. He taught me what he knew: the delicate art of stealing and the brutal discipline of gymnastics. If you want to be a proper thief, he'd say, both your hands and your body need to be sharp, swift and unyielding. And so he trained me. Efficiently. Brutally. There were rarely any safety nets during his lessons, fall wrong and you paid in bruises or breaks. If I didn't meet his standards, I got lashed. Not metaphorically. Real ones. "Life is even harsher, Alexandra," he'd say each time I cried.

And still, I kept going. Because he was the only adult who gave a damn about me. However twisted or pathological our relationship may have been, it was something. And something was more than what I had before.

Beyond the money, which gave me a sense of safety in this world, it was the masks I wore that let me blend in. I'd spent so long becoming other people, tailoring personas for whatever job or situation I found myself in, that even here, with my real name and my real face, I still wore a mask. A mask crafted not from latex or makeup, but from confidence and practiced ease. The mask of someone who belongs.

**********

Graphic Design was my first class of the day, tucked into one of the newer buildings on campus, the kind with tall windows that let in too much sun and ceilings that made your footsteps echo like you were always being followed. The smell of printer ink, hot electronics and those whiteboard markers that always stain your fingers, comforting in a weird way. It was the scent of creation, of deadlines, of people trying to shape something out of nothing.

I slid into my usual spot near the back, not because I didn't care, I do, more than most here, but I like watching people when they work. It's calming, how they settle into themselves when they forget they're being watched. Their focus is honest. Besides, I could see the whole room this way, old habits die hard.

My hand still ached from last night, especially around the knuckles. But once I set my fingers on the tablet and booted up the project files, the pain faded into the background like bad music in a cafe.

Today's topic was visual hierarchy, how to guide someone's eye without them realizing they're being led. I like that. Design is manipulation with pretty colors and good intentions. The professor, a soft-spoken woman with inked arms that looked like modern art themselves, moved through the slides talking about balance, contrast, tension, rhythm. She mentioned Bauhaus, Swiss style, user journeys and how people click what they're told to click if you do it right.

Our exercise was to design a fictional campaign poster. Political slogans. Fake apps. Anti-smoking campaigns. That sort of thing. Most students went loud. I didn't.

I called mine "Masks We Wear: A History of Persona in Art." A museum exhibit that didn't exist, but maybe should. I layered old theater masks, Venetian porcelain ones, Kabuki faces, digital avatars, all slightly translucent and overlapping, like ghosts whispering secrets to one another. The background was a deep, heavy teal. Elegant. Quiet. Like a lie told kindly.

It was good. Not perfect, but good. And it felt like me. Or maybe the version of me I was supposed to be here.

**********

I met Peter during the break between classes. He'd just arrived and was already surrounded by his usual crew: Evan – his best buddy, a calm presence with a quick wit. Jason – the rich clown, always gossiping, always charming, his good heart barely hidden beneath layers of sarcasm and flamboyance. And then there was Tyler – the man who seemed to exist in a permanent state of brooding, like a noir detective without a case.

As I walked up, Jason's voice carried over the crowd in his usual exasperated tone.

"Stark," he said, using Peter's last name like a school principal about to hand out detention, "I know you think it'll just happen someday. Like death. But maybe, maybe, you could actually help things along a little?"

Peter looked unimpressed, arms crossed, jaw working on a response he hadn't decided whether to say out loud.

"Hello Alexa," Evan greeted me with a warm smile, always the diplomat of the group. Jason and Tyler followed with nods and quick "Hey"s, although Jason barely paused before looping me into his ongoing rant.

"Lex, please talk some sense into your boy here," he said, throwing up his hands as if the weight of Peter's stubbornness might actually crush him. "Tell him he has to come to the party tomorrow. Otherwise, he's going to turn into a hermit and we'll never be able to hang out with him again. Or worse, he'll age into some tragic, celibate urban myth."

Ah. So it was about the girls.

Peter believed that love, like fate or karma, would find him in its own time. Jason, on the other hand was a one-man romantic speedrun, burning through dating apps and flings like a man late for destiny. They had this argument often. Evan usually tried to mediate, while Tyler provided silent brooding commentary through intense glares and occasional mutters.

"I think you should go," I said, siding with Jason, despite every instinct in me that usually wanted to contradict him just out of principle. "You need to relax a bit. I do too, actually. If I may join? Or am I one of the girls not invited?"

"Of course you can come, Lex. I was gonna text you today anyway," Jason replied, smug as ever. You could say many things about Jason, but he was proud of both his parties and the contact list that populated them.

"Just bring this miserable fucker along, okay?"

"I'm not miserable," Peter said flatly.

"And no fucker either, man! That's what I'm saying!" Jason threw up his hands like he was trying to exorcise Peter's introversion. I facepalmed internally. Evan sighed. Tyler — brooded.

Peter grunted. "Okay. I'll come."

"Finally!" Jason clapped like he'd just won a game show. "Don't you worry, I'll show you how it's done."

"You better let him do it his way," I shot back before I could stop myself. "Because if he does it your way, it'll be not only his first, but also the shortest appearance at a party ever."

Jason gasped like I'd just thrown a glove at his feet in 18th-century Paris. "You wound me, Lex."

"Oh please," I said with a smirk. "You live for the drama."

He sighed with quiet surrender. "You're absolutely right. That is my main goal, despite studying law. Did I tell you guys I study law today?"

"This joke got old in the first year, Jason," Tyler finally chimed in, voice as flat as ever, delivering the verbal equivalent of an eye-roll.

"Just wanted to make sure you all remember. It's of utmost importance to… my parents." Jason chuckled at his own line like it had never aged a day.

"What are you up to later today?" he asked, suddenly looking around the group like he was planning his next social crusade.

"I'm working after classes. No fun for me today," I said, brushing a crumb off my skirt. Peter's eyes met mine for a second, quietly disapproving, like I'd just told him I'd strangled his favorite childhood pet.

"I'll be hitting the pool and then Muay Thai," Peter added. Training was his cathedral, swimming and fighting, the two pillars of his devotion. Even though he studied law like the rest of them, his soul lived in discipline and sweat.

Evan, Jason and Tyler had already made plans to catch a movie later. They stood around chatting about their courses, bouncing between casual complaints and inside jokes. I stayed a while longer, nibbling on a snack, not really adding much, just letting the ordinary, almost mundane warmth of it all settle into my skin like sun after a storm.

**********

Symbolism in Art was held in an older lecture hall, the kind that creaked when you breathed wrong. The seats were uncomfortable, the kind of wooden fold-down chairs that punished your spine for daring to learn. But the room had soul, layers of chalk dust from years past, faded murals on the upper walls and those tall arched windows that always made the light feel holy somehow.

The professor was an old man with more scarves than sense of time, always showing up ten minutes late and pretending it was on purpose. He spoke like he was unraveling a mystery he'd just remembered, always leaning on a cane he never really needed. Today, he began with the Symbolists of the 19th century, Moreau, Redon, Böcklin, talking about how they weren't painting what they saw, but what they felt. Dreams, death, religion, lust, fear. Things with edges too soft for realism.

He said, "Symbolism is what we reach for when we can't say it out loud." I liked that. It reminded me of how I move through the world, never saying too much, always showing just enough.

We analyzed Redon's "The Cyclops", a painting of a one-eyed creature watching a sleeping nymph in a field of color and light. The class talked about voyeurism, the gaze, the monster within. I wondered if the cyclops was meant to be feared, or if it was just lonely. Misunderstood. Like many of us are.

The professor asked us to sketch something symbolic of our current state of mind. I almost laughed. Dangerous prompt. I drew a cracked mask with flowers growing through the fissures. Subtle. Pretty. Palatable. But every petal was a lie I'd told someone this week.

Class ended with a quote scrawled on the board:

"The symbolist does not paint the thing itself, but the effect it produces."

I wondered what kind of effect I left on people. What kind of painting I'd be, if someone tried to capture me.

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