Headed Nowhere Fast.

               Red, irritated lines were starting to form under the plastic straps of her flip flops as Portia drug her feet through the water. The alley’s concaved cement ground was overflowing with rushing rainwater that anchored her shoes and strangled her toes as she waded through it.

                “Marcus!” she shouted through the rain, “I hate you!”

                A rat darted across the street in front of her. Her heart started and she suppressed a scream. “Very much!”

                She’d almost made it to his door, the third one down and laced in chipping graffiti, when it popped open and he poked his head out.

                “Get in here, you’re a half hour late.”

                With one last yank of foam through the draining water she was in. She shivered as Marcus slammed the door and latched the deadbolt.

                “It smells,” she said.

                “It’s fine. And temporary,” he responded, leading her up a couple steps and into the carved out hole he was trying to masquerade as an apartment.

                “Yeah, I know it’s temporary because you need to go home.”

                “This is my home and if you are referring to my previous place of residence, sorry that’s never happening. I am eighteen, I can do what I want and nothing you can say will change my mind. Soda?” he offered her a can of Coke that had been sitting on a crude end table. She waved him off and tugged at the neckline of her tee shirt.

                He plopped down on a disgusting, muddy-colored couch and motioned for her to sit next to him. There was a sixty watt flashlight propped up in the corner, casting everything in a harsh, secret clubhouse kind of lighting.

                “This conversation is not over,” she said, carefully sitting beside him, cautious not to expose too much of her body to the threadbare fabric.

                He held up an envelope.

                The nervous energy started in her heart and fizzled out into her limbs.

                “That’s it?” she asked.

                Marcus nodded.

                She reached for it as a crash of thunder reverberated through the room.

                Smoothing it out on her thigh, she could see ‘Portia Linley’ printed in cold block letters over Marcus’ parents address. The Foltz Art School logo revealed nothing from its spot in the corner.

                Portia slipped a shaking finger under the sealed flap and ripped. Something about the paper made it tear in little spurts and fray unsatisfyingly.

                A single piece of paper and a Foltz brochure were snug inside.

                Portia’s clumsy hands scooped them out and almost tore the single sheet out of its folds, letting the envelope and colorful brochure flutter to the floor.

                The words ‘Dear Ms. Linley, we are sorry to inform you…’ burned into her eyes hotter than that misplaced pinky had on her father’s grill last July. The effect on her insides was almost immediate.

                “I- I…” she couldn’t say it, her throat refused to form the words.

                “Did you-?” asked Marcus.

                The bad lighting and the itchy fabric of the couch and the rainwater rings around her ankles and her armpits and the back of her neck coupled with the feeling of fresh new failure in her veins.

                Some instinctual shame caused her to stand up and turn away from Marcus, swaddled only in the wet comfort of her own twiggy arms.  With only the sliver of light under the door to witness it, she started to cry a little.

                “I’m sorry Portia.”

                She tilted her head back as if trying to keep the tears inside through gravity.

                She shrugged and only turned back halfway. “I guess my parents win after all.”

                “Maybe it’s for the best,” he said.

                She completed the turn feeling raw and pliant in her vulnerable exposure. “What are you saying?”

                He dropped eye contact and ran a hand through his dark hair. “Just what I said.”
                “You don’t think I’m a good artist, do you?” she asked feeling both sick and suspicious at the same time.

                “No. No, I think you’re a good artist,” his hazel eyes scrunched and pleaded.

                “But not good enough to make it.” She slapped her damp hands against her jeans and hooked her thumbs through the beltloops.

                Marcus sighed and looked away, “Portia…”
                Portia scrunched her face and cried a little more.

                “It’s not like that, I just-“

                “Go home Marcus! God, just go home,” she said, jumping down the two steps and fumbling with the deadbolt.

                “Cause if you don’t then both of our lives are headed for shitsville.” She pried the door open, and with a fleeting half-second of hard eye contact, walked out into the storm. The resounding slam shook the walls and tipped over the flashlight, spilling all sixty watts onto the molding corner.