Be Dazzled Page 18

  And because this is Evie Odom and I don’t trust her not to scream, I finally speak up.

  “Stop, please,” I beg. “It’s not stupid. I’m good at it, and I take it seriously, and thousands of people—”

  “Seriously?” Evie raps a knuckle against my build book. “All I’ve ever wanted was for you to take your art seriously, Raphael. This isn’t serious. This is trash. To think what you could create and don’t. It’s a waste.”

  I have heard Evie’s speech about art a million times. Those million times plus this one finally condense into a rich and dark resentment that spills out of me.

  “How come my art isn’t serious unless I do it like you want me to? How come I can’t just make stuff for myself? How come art doesn’t matter to you unless it fits your narrow criteria for what you’d put in a show? Maybe that’s not what I want. Maybe that’s not what I do. Maybe what I make is not up to you, and maybe you don’t get to control it.”

  Evie’s face sours into a pinched, frozen thing as I ramble. We’re both shouting now. A small crowd of onlookers has formed on either side of the Craft Club entryway.

  “It’s not control. It’s direction, Raphael. The house, the studio, your schooling—your whole world is made from what I’ve earned helping artists become the best versions of themselves. You create costumes, I create careers. And I am good at it, and I won’t apologize for being good to you. Asking you to take yourself seriously enough to create real art is not the abuse you’re making it out to be. It’s just called being your mother.”

  Abuse. I’ve often wondered about my relationship with my mother, and the word abuse sometimes floats into my mind. It doesn’t seem to fit my experience quite right, but I haven’t let the word go, either.

  Evie sniffs. She looks around, and the various people watching all look away from her flinty stare. If she’s self-conscious, she doesn’t show it. She just sighs and hands me my notebook.

  “Here. Go. I need to get back to my meeting. We’ll talk about this later.”

  I know we won’t. We don’t talk about the things we hate in our house. I take back my notes, or I try. Evie holds on for a moment too long, like she’s testing me.

  “No more studio,” she says lightly. “That space is for artists. You can use it once you get over this plagiaristic bullshit.”

  Evie leaves me to sort out my reaction in front of a crowd she created. For once, I can’t form a plan or even devise a next step. I consider just toppling over, which is pretty much how I feel, but then a hand takes mine, and Luca is leading me back into Craft Club. We stop in a random aisle, and he hugs me.

  It takes a second for my emotions to find their way through my shock. I feel, first and foremost, fury. But I also feel humiliation. I don’t know how much of that Luca heard, but I have to assume it was a lot by the way he rubs my back and doesn’t say a word.

  “So,” I mutter into his chest, “that’s Evie.”

  “She’s…” Luca trails off. “She’s a lot, isn’t she.”

  “Oh yeah.”

  “May was right. She’s a scary lady.”

  “Oh, the scariest.”

  From behind us, someone clears their throat. For a moment, I’m afraid it’s Evie again, but it’s a clubber. They hold out a shopping bag, and in it I see the fabrics I picked out, all cut and folded.

  “Here, Raffy. Compliments of the Club,” the clubber says. They smile sympathetically, and I gather they saw what happened. I take the bag, managing a breathless thank you. Their charity stings. In a good way, but in an overwhelming way. All at once, the tears I’ve been holding back spring from me, and I hide my face in my hands. The clubber vanishes, and it’s just Luca and me again.

  Evie brought so much down upon me just now—scoldings and accusations and drama—but atop all of that is the cavalier meanness she throws around. It’s so sharp when she wants it to be. I’m crying because of her, but also because of this kind act from these craft store employees, who are so much more supportive of me than my own mom. And I don’t even know their names.

  Luca doesn’t let me go until the worst is over. Then he grabs something from the shelf.

  “Hey, hey, look,” Luca says. “Sea Foam Dream, number six.”

  He’s holding a bag of tiny faceted rhinestones. I realize we’re in the bedazzling aisle. For some reason, this anchors me. I swipe my tears away with the heels of my hands.

  “I just want to make stuff,” I say. I sound miserable.

  Luca kisses my head again and again. “You’re good at making stuff. The best.”

  “Evie says we can’t use the studio.”

  “I’m not worried,” he murmurs. “We’ll figure it out. We’ll fix this. You know that, right?”

  I look at him. I don’t know that, but he seems to.

  I nod, standing up a bit straighter in his embrace.

  “We’ll fix it,” I say back.

  Twenty-One

  Now

  Luca and I stand before our table. We don’t touch, but the air between us buzzes. Literally. Cameras mounted on drones sweep over us as the crew takes establishing shots of the competitors. I’m told to keep my eyes forward and a look of determination on my face, but I sneak glances at the coordinators. They are pointing at Luca, frowning. They’re staring at his arms and too-small jersey, but we’ve already started, and now it’s too late to reshoot our entrance. They’ll have to let him compete as is. And Luca, as is, is eye-catching.

  I stop the smile right before it reaches my lips, pursing them in a self-satisfied pout instead. The nerves I was feeling before are still here, still threading through me in neon coils, but I’m floating in a fantasy now. Off beyond the reality of my usual sorrow. I think I’ve finally snapped. I think I’ve finally reached a point of no return.

  The camera drone flutters away, and the crews move on to filming Irma Worthy giving an introduction to the rules as she slowly walks through the aisles of supplies. While they do that, coordinators come over to turn on and test our microphones. One of them gives Luca a dirty look, pointedly placing his discarded shirt on our table.

  Luca winks at them. Then he catches my eye and shrugs.

  I shrug back.

  We take turns shrugging.

  “Cut it out,” a clubber whispers.

  Irma must have finished her intro, because the camera crew sweeps toward us at our individual tables. A clubber named Ginger has us stand side by side, and then she launches into questions.

  “Can you talk about your decision to change teams? Was this always the plan?” Ginger thrusts a puffy microphone into our faces.

  I have no idea what to do, or even really how a mouth works anymore, but Luca is ready to go.

  “Inaya and Christina are a powerful duo, but Raffy and I have worked together before, and we’re excited to create something incredible today. You won’t be disappointed.”

  After a pause, Ginger asks, “What is the nature of your relationship history?”

  “We’ve worked together before on cosplays,” Luca says with a smile.

  “And what is the nature of your relationship now? Not just collaborators, are we?”

  “We are…” Luca trails off, looking at me. He laughs. It’s his nervous laugh.

  “We are going to win,” I answer.

  “Well, okay, then!” Ginger says. “I can already sense the heat from these two! Let’s go see what some of the other teams are up to.”

  She moves on, and Luca gives me a thankful nudge.

  “Good save,” he whispers, reaching over me to grab a tablet.

  “What are we even doing here?” I ask him.

  “I came here so you could compete, so we could beat Inaya.”

  “Why, though? Until Friday, I thought you guys were a thing.”

  “What? Like, together?”

  “Well, maybe n
ot together together. But you have all those videos and posts, and you hang out a lot now.”

  “Those are photos, Raff. Of characters. That’s not real. That’s cosplay. Inaya and I have only ever kept it professional. I was just her model. She never even let me make stuff.”

  I feel my old anger flare to life. “So why did you stick around?”

  Luca taps on the tablet, waiting for a nearby camera to pan away.

  “We made a good team. I let her dress me up, and she let me tag along to cons and stuff. My parents like her a lot. If I’m going to do this geeky shit, she’s the person they want me doing it with.”

  “They like that she’s a girl, you mean?”

  Luca nods. This sucks to hear out loud. I’ve always known this, but now I know for certain. It makes me feel worse.

  “So if you guys make such a good team, why did she ditch you?”

  Luca’s smile is sad as he stares across the workroom to where Christina and Inaya are already launching into sketches.

  “Christina is the best of the best. And Inaya is serious about being better than even the best. She’s ambitious, just like you. And I’m just…”

  He looks at me, then looks away quickly, like he wants to let his sentence die.

  “What?” I prompt.

  “Dead weight.”

  Luca does look at me now. It feels like he’s apologizing to me, not for our past, but for being who he is. My heart clenches, and I find myself racing to defend him from himself.

  “You’re not dead weight. You’re…”

  “Pretty? That’s what Inaya always says. She said it was good for her metrics every time my pretty face showed up.”

  “You’re charismatic,” I correct. “You’ve got something no one can craft. People are drawn to you. It’s impressive and important. Don’t let yourself feel down about it.”

  Luca glances around, then bumps me with his shoulder. Like he used to.

  “Sorry, couldn’t help it,” he mumbles, playing it off. A camera drifts closer, and we have to stop talking. Really talking, I mean.

  “Shall we start?” Luca says easily.

  I scan the room. The other teams are conferencing, too, except Inaya and Christina. They’re running for the stacks of supplies, grabbing fistfuls of fabric from the bolts on the wall. They’ve clearly got a plan. The other teams are also probably way more prepared than us. All Luca and I have is a blank page and a whole lot to talk about.

  “You up for modeling whatever we make?” I ask.

  “Yeah, but what do we make?” Luca asks me. “What can we make?”

  I’ve been asking myself that question since we teamed up. I wish I had known he was going to be here. If I’d had even an hour to plan, I could have put together a build. I could have assigned him jobs. But now, every second I spend thinking and planning is a second we don’t have for construction. This game is for players who have been planning since last night. It’s not for two boys who have barely spoken to each other in four months.

  We can’t make any mistakes. We can’t experiment. We can’t guess. Can’t even wonder. We have to know what we’re making. We have to make it better than anything else we’ve ever done. And we only have twelve hours. Less, since I’ve been sitting here and hyperventilating.

  I push my emotions out of my mental work area. It’s time to start.

  “We need something simple we can embellish,” I say. It’s barely a plan, but I think it’s the right philosophy. “Something conceptual, maybe. If we create something that no one is expecting, we can get points for creativity to make up for what we can’t do with construction.”

  Luca is nodding, but in the way that boys nod when they’re not listening at all. He’s got a stylus in his hand, drawing on the tablet as I ramble about options. Ginger circles in on us after some cue from a cameraman.

  “The other teams have already begun supplying their builds. What’s the holdup, boys?”

  “We’ve just got a ton of ideas,” I tell her. I can’t stop looking into the cameras, even though they told us to keep our eyes on Ginger.

  “A lot of ideas? Looks like you’ve got a sketch there—have you decided on what you’ll be building today?”

  I look at Luca, who is clutching the tablet to his chest. With a devious smile, he flips his drawing around, showing the camera a figure adorned with sweeping wings.

  “We’re doing a combined Phobos and Deimos look from Pantheon Oblivia. The bird gods, merged into their final form.”

  Twenty-Two

  Then

  Six months ago

  I am, as they say in the old tongue, fucking stressing the fuck out.

  I don’t know, maybe I’m being dramatic. I haven’t really relaxed since Evie yelled at me outside Craft Club. She’s away again, but Luca and I are keeping out of the studio, just in case. We’ve moved everything up into my room. It’s much worse than the studio, but my door locks, and at least when I pass out mid-work, I’m only a few feet from my bed. Not that I’m really using it. Blitz Con is only three weeks away, and we are so behind. I refuse to spend precious minutes on sleep.

  But I do fantasize about sleeping, usually with Luca. Not sex. Literally sleeping. Nestled together in a warm bed, in a cozy cabin somewhere wintry and unnamed, with a fresh day’s light cast sideways through closed blinds. A deep sleep. A great sleep.

  Anyway, I’m a mess.

  “But you’re my mess,” Luca says, massaging my hands.

  “Sorry, I didn’t realize I was saying that out loud.”

  My hands are stiff with fatigue, like overworked clay left out to dry by accident. We’re sitting on my floor, Demon Slayer playing on my laptop as we work. I’ve been hand-embroidering a pattern onto Deimos’s cowl. Luca is…I’m not sure what Luca is doing. Probably I gave him a task, and instead of doing it, he’s watching Demon Slayer and finding small excuses to put his skin against mine. Which I like. But I would also like to be done with this build so I can sleep.

  “Give me your other hand,” he says, and I do.

  A familiar compulsion captures my attention. When I get this frayed, I have to make lists.

  “Okay, so what’s left? The wings need to be reshaped and then probably touched up with the airbrush; your armor is mostly set, but we should do a fitting; and then this godforsaken cape I’m working on. I think I’m going to do a muslin first just to make sure I get the shoulders right. But don’t worry, you don’t have to measure anything. I can set it up on my dress form.”

  “What’s your dress form? I’m afraid to ask.”

  “No, don’t worry, it’s not, like, a form I take in which I’m suddenly in a dress. It’s that limbless, headless mannequin you keep slow dancing with. It’s just a torso on a pole.”

  “You’re so much more than a torso on a pole to me, Raffy.”

  “Shut up. Okay, so once we have the muslin done, we can see where we need to dart—”

  “The Muslim?”

  “Muslin. With an n.”

  “But Muslim has an m.”

  “Luca, please, I’m trying to think.”

  I feel his smile as his lips graze my knuckles. I raise my other hand so he can press his cheek into my cupped palms. My back is sore from hunching over my work, and it pops and crackles as I stretch.

  “The sewing shouldn’t take long because the garments themselves are pretty simple, but the tailoring needs to be perfect, or else they’ll bunch weird beneath the armor.”

  “When do we do the armor?”

  “I was thinking you could start that while I sew.”

  I feel Luca shift, unsure.

  “Like, do the armor by myself?” he asks.

  “Not all of it. Just get it started. I can show you what to prepare.”

  He groans. “But I’ve already cut out so much stuuuuuuff.”

 
“Okay. Fine. You sew.”

  “I can’t sew. You won’t show me how to.”

  “I don’t have time to show you how.”

  Luca slumps to the floor next to me, and he’s a little angry when he says, “We don’t have time.”

  I look at him, and he’s a bit blurry in my tired stare.

  “Luca. That’s my point. That’s why I sew and you cut. I don’t get what the problem is.”

  “The problem is…” Luca starts, but then he stops. I feel a prickle of heat in my throat. Anger? Fear? What did he almost just say?

  Luca’s own throat seems to have sealed shut as he decides not to say whatever he is thinking. I can almost see him swallowing it down. And I know I should pry open his mouth and whisper it out of him, ask for it nicely so that it doesn’t plant itself inside of him and grow into resentment. The stuff that breaks people up.

  But I don’t have time for whispering. For talking or for fighting. I don’t even have time for sleep. Now more than ever, I’m aware of the vastness of what I’m trying to accomplish and of how hard it is to accomplish much with Luca as my partner. Though I’ve been clinging to the idea of us succeeding together, in moments like these, I feel like I will succeed in spite of Luca. He’s resisting a process he himself began, and it’s putting me in an impossible situation. It would be twice as much work to do all of this alone, but it would still almost be easier.

  It doesn’t help that he complains. Like, a lot. The creative labor is one thing, but that’s not what’s breaking me. If I crack, if I buckle, it’ll be because of the emotional labor of carrying two people.

  And who will pick up my pieces if I break? Who will put me back together? Will he resent that task, too? This is why I work alone. This is why I should work alone.

  I turn away from this spiral.