Oxygen 7
A week later, I was still buzzing from telling Maduka off. It wasn’t clean or pretty, my voice had cracked, my hands shook as I spoke but it felt good, like I’d finally clawed something back for myself. I kept waiting for the guilt to hit, the itch to check his TikTok, but it didn’t come. For once, I was too busy living which was an extremely strange comfortable discomfort. I’d spent the week dodging my phone, afraid I’d see his name pop up in a notification, and instead filled my nights with quick sketches, smearing charcoal across old notebooks until my fingers turned black. It felt like I was rebuilding something, piece by piece. Read Part Six Here Staniel successfully dragged me out to some campus art fair that afternoon. He said my paintings needed air, not just fading in my dorm bedroom wall. I’d grumbled, but he’d won. So there I was, leaning against a table, watching people mill around my canvases—reds and yellows streaking across them like my moods. A girl with pin...
