Chương 2: Act 1, Chapter 2: My artistic side

Day in the story: 10th September (Wednesday) I wasn't fine the next day. I could move and I even managed to get out of bed without groaning much, but I felt like I'd just finished a marathon. I went through my morning routine before Sophie woke up. I had to—once she was up, the bathroom became a no-go zone for what felt 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. Balanced in that weird way only a dangerous high followed by morning tea could bring.

So I sat at the table, sipping it slowly, and 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 died a quiet death when one remembered that lakes, rivers and oceans exist.

But still I found a little truth in that. 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 that I could survive the kind of pain that shatters my 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 early 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 greeted me. With her golden-blonde hair, angelic face framed by cool silver 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 with knees tucked to my chin as I perched on the window ledge.

"You okay?"

"Studied way too long. I hope it doesn't show?"

"No, not at all," I answered, and her laughter echoed all the way to the kitchen.

"I love your sweet lies." Maturing had done me more than a few favors, so I wasn't bad-looking myself, and yet I still looked at her with envy. 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, at twenty-one and in the third year of my bachelor's degree I had a body that was a well-oiled, athletic machine.

And I'd finally gotten my own pretty face to paint on.

"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." She took a big bite out of a cucumber while looking at the hanging garden in the common room.

"You planning some changes?" I asked, following her gaze to what I was pretty sure were some kind of fuchsia flower tangled among the vines.

"Don't know. It lacks something, right?"

"I have no idea." She had a knack for arranging flower compositions I had no intention of learning, but I sure appreciated it. It made our shared room look much more lively.

"Definitely something with more energy. You mind if I do some replanting later?"

"Just don't ask me for help. Whatever living thing I touch withers and dies," I said with a straight face. She only tilted her head in response and took another bite.

"Can't believe you manage to make it work in this light," I added gesturing at our rather small windows.

"What can I say? I'm an old soul and plants love me." She glanced at the cucumber in her hand and sighed.

"And apparently hungrier than I thought. I'm going to make myself an omelet. You want some?"

"Nah. Bon appétit," 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 lived on the Water Street, about twenty minutes from Long Island University by bus. My immediate neighborhood wasn't much to look at—just rows of old concrete block buildings. But as soon as the bus pulled away from my stop, the view opened up. We passed over a Brooklyn Bridge—long steel one that spanned the river with its ribs and cables arching overhead like the sinews of some great sleeping titan holding the city together.

In the distance lay an artificially made island tethered to the mainland by one smaller bridge. That's where the tech companies had staked their claim. I'd never been there, but it always looked so polished and otherworldly—buildings shaped like individual fingers of a hand reaching for the sky. After the bus rolled off the bridge, we glided past a stretch where the city softened. On the right, there was a quiet Brooklyn Bridge Park with tall trees casting long shadows and joggers weaving between them.

On the left, a small but lively shopping street came into view: a few shops, some restaurants, a scattered mix of beauty salons and dry cleaners. Then we took a turn into the residential streets, where rows of stately houses and manicured lawns gave way to the familiar chaos of student life. This was fraternity and sorority territory: flags, banners and music leaking from half-open windows. Not long after, the main buildings of the university rose into view with their stone and glass facades.

This whole part of the ride grounded me, especially after last night's chaos. I was early, at just the right time 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.

Such were the perks of stealing things with enough zeroes on their price tags to make rich men sweat. Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author. Of course, none of that money ever touched my hands raw. It got washed clean through the skilled fingers of my thieving mentor: Phillip Penrose. Officially, I was 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. Penrose had 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 or something else entirely.

He saw something in me: a passion for art, for one, but more importantly, a knack for sleight of hand that no ten-year-old should've honed so well. It was a gift my mother left me. Memories of her mostly faded now, but I still remember her teaching me card tricks and juggling. As a favor—though I'm not sure to whom—Penrose 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, but also brutally. There were rarely any safety nets during his lessons—falling wrong resulted in bruises or breaks. If I didn't meet his standards, I got lashed. Not metaphorically. Those were the 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—while deep down I felt like I was never meant to be. At all.

Graphic Design was my first class of the day. I slid into my usual spot near the back, not because I didn't care—I did, more than most here—but I liked observing people when they worked. It was calming, how they settled into themselves when they forgot they're being watched. Their focus was honest. Besides that, I could see the whole room this way and 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 liked that. Design to me was always 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 and rhythm.

She mentioned Bauhaus, Swiss style, user journeys and how people click what they're told to click if it is done right. It mirrored a thief's work almost perfectly. 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."

I layered old theater masks, Venetian porcelain ones, Kabuki faces, digital avatars, all slightly translucent and overlapping—like ghosts whispering secrets to one another. 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 Jason, Evan and Tyler. As I walked up, Jason's voice carried over the crowd in his usual exasperated tone.

"Stark," he said, using Peter's last name, "I know you think it'll just happen someday on its own. Like death. But maybe—just maybe—you could actually help things along a little?" Peter looked unimpressed with arms crossed and jaw working on a response he hadn't decided whether to say out loud.

"Hello Alexa," Evan greeted me with a warm smile. 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." He added, looking at me intensely. 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. They had this argument often.

"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. May I join? Or am I one of the girls not invited?"

"Of course you can come, Lex. I was gonna text you today anyway," he replied. Many things could be said 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 countered.

"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. Peter grunted.

"Okay. I'll come."

"Finally!" Jason clapped.

"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." He really loved being overly theatrical.

"Oh, please. 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.

"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.

"I'm working after classes. No fun for me today." Peter's eyes met mine for a second in quiet disapproval.

"I'll be hitting the pool and then Muay Thai," he 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.

Symbolism in Art was held in an older lecture hall. The seats were uncomfortable wooden fold-down chairs that punished the spine for daring to sit. 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 and Böcklin. He talked 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 moved through the world.

Never saying too much and 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 and misunderstood. Like so many people were. The professor asked us to sketch something symbolic of our current state of mind. I almost laughed at that dangerous prompt.

I drew a cracked mask with flowers growing through the fissures. But every petal was a different version of me. 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.