Page 2 of Kiln Me Softly

To at least try to convince her new professor that she wasn’t a completely insolent loudmouth about to cause him a year’s worth of problems, Juniper stayed behind after the class finished up and hoped she didn’t appear too much like she had her tail between her legs.

She stood by her statement, after all. He had been an arsehole to her, and she wasn’t in the habit of letting people walk all over her.

Still, she didn’t want the person who would be grading her work to hate her, either.

She’d done that all through school, teachers mistaking her blunt nature and difficulty concentrating for disrespect and an unwillingness to learn.

Just once, it would have been nice not to have those big rainclouds following her.

She remained in her seat while the others prepared to leave. Beside her, Aiden’s waft of spiced, woodsy cologne was a welcome change from the Lynx deodorant of high school’s past, but that was about the only thing she welcomed.

He glanced at her, eyes narrowing. His lashes were unfairly long; she’d forgotten that.

Then again, everything about him was unfair.

Smooth olive skin, high cheekbones. Why was he here?

He’d never bothered with anything but painting before, would walk around school with acrylic staining his hands and white shirt.

She’d been the sculptor, the one to venture out of the box, only to be told that, while ‘ambitious’, the darker undertones of her artwork just didn’t quite ‘land’.

Now, his fingernails were bitten down and stained by ink, though she hadn’t seen him jot a single word.

She allowed herself another glower, just as a treat, and then turned back to the front of the classroom.

On the walls around the whiteboard, tools hung.

She’d like to use one of the pointy ones on him if he got too close to her again.

‘Are you really not going to talk to me, Juni?’ When her scowl deepened, he added, ‘ Per ?’ Puzzlement laced his voice. That was new. Usually, his confidence masked any of that. He had fooled the entire school into thinking he was the most knowledgeable, self-assured boy to exist.

‘Nope,’ was her curt reply.

He rubbed his jaw, then seemed to remember who he was. Unfazed once more, he shucked on his black denim jacket and said, ‘‘Kay. If that’s what you want.’

‘It is.’

‘Good.’

‘ Very good,’ she bit out. Why was he still talking to her at all?

She wanted to shoo him away as the classroom emptied, but thankfully, he seemed to get the message.

Un thankfully, he slung on a shiny brown satchel that made him look more like a professor than the actual professor.

Juniper couldn’t help but take it as an insult, a show of his money, like he wanted to be sure to shove it in everyone’s face.

Then again, most of the students here were well-dressed, with branded clothes and bags, some even designer. Like always, she was the outlier.

She was sure it wouldn’t be long until Aiden started pointing it out.

For now, he just muttered, ‘Yep. Still a nutter,’ then disappeared into the corridor.

Christopher – he had told them to call him Chris, but Juniper didn’t really feel like she deserved to, yet – had his back turned as he shut his laptop and packed up his work.

On shaky legs, Juniper stood and cleared her throat.

‘No,’ he said, pushing his round glasses up his nose.

She huffed in exasperation. ‘You don’t even know what I’m going to say!’

‘And I don’t particularly wish to.’

She deflated, realising that any hope of making things right was clearly a delusion. Did he treat all his students like this, or was she just that talented at making enemies out of authority figures?

She began to play with one of her dragon-shaped earrings nervously. As her first foray into sculpting, they looked more like worms, but she’d worn them today as a symbol of how far she’d come since discovering her love of clay. A good luck charm.

Fat lot of difference they’d made.

Since Christopher wasn’t giving her the time of day, her defences began to rise like a hard slab of metal in her chest. ‘Look, I get it. I made a bad first impression.’ Which was a common habit of hers, but she didn’t mention that.

‘But so did you, really. You were quite rude, and very unwelcoming to a new student like myself!’

‘Contrary to popular belief, Jupiter—’

‘Juniper.’

He ignored her correction, finally whirling around on his brown brogues. ‘—I’m not here to be pleasant. I don’t actually care about what happens outside this classroom. My problem is your disruptiveness within it. Whatever strange thing is going on with you and Alex—’

‘Aiden.’

‘—is to be left in the corridor. I’m sure you’re used to being a quirky little Zoomer,’ Juniper wrinkled her nose. What did that even mean? ‘But in these walls, you’re a student, and you’re here to listen and learn.’ He stepped forward. ‘My advice to you, Jupiter, is to shush a bit.’

Juniper’s face burned. How many times could this man humiliate her in one day?

Before she could respond, his mouth curled into a smile and he cupped one of his ears with his hand in a show of listening. ‘That’s what I like to hear. Quiet.’ Then, he took his laptop bag and sauntered out of the classroom, not before calling over his shoulder: ‘See you in throwing class!’

Juniper skulked out of the Whiteread Building, half-tempted to call her mum just to hear a friendly voice, but she already knew what she’d say: that she should come home, that she needed a stable job, not something that would only leave her bankrupt and disheartened in the long run.

Neither of her parents understood her love of art.

Mum packaged orders in a textile factory and Dad was a truck driver.

Juniper got it. They were steady jobs, they made ends meet, they were careers most people of their generation had been encouraged to chase, and with Juniper’s recent ADHD diagnosis, they were certain a consistent nine-to-five job would benefit her.

Of course, it usually did the opposite. Working fulltime over her gap years had left her in a burnout she was still recovering from.

Juniper didn’t need monotonous eight-hour shifts. She needed passion. Otherwise, what was the point?

The point was that she’d never been humiliated like this, not even when a customer complained their burger was cold.

Not because they’d been any kinder than Christopher, but because she didn’t actually care about burgers.

Her mistakes didn’t matter by the end of the day.

But art was such a big part of who she was, a reflection of her, and that reflection was currently cracked.

She slumped onto the first bench she found, wondering what the hell she was supposed to do now.

Her next class wasn’t until after lunch, and she didn’t feel particularly inclined to go to it.

Already, at least two people in the room were just waiting for her to mess up.

But what was the alternative? Her dorm room was a tiny, dark little cupboard in the corner of the building, with only a hamster she wasn’t technically allowed to have and a few pigeons on her sill for company.

She’d been naive to think that this could be a new beginning. It seemed that, no matter where she went, her shortcomings would always cling to her like a second skin. The harder she tried to shed them, the tighter they held on.

As she pulled out her phone to calm herself down, a voice startled her from above. ‘You look like you need a friend.’

Juniper looked up and found a girl stood over her.

Well, a woman. She supposed they were all adults now, a fact Juniper was still coming to terms with, and this one might have been a few years older than her.

She recognised her from the workshop just now, though she’d been sitting on the other side of the room.

With short, glossy black hair and an endearing overbite that poked through when she smiled, she was difficult to miss.

But that wasn’t the first time Juniper had seen her.

They’d skirted around each other’s boxes on moving-in day last weekend, exchanging timid smiles and muttered complaints of how narrow the corridors were.

If memory served, she’d been passing in and out of the room opposite Juniper’s.

Juniper had intended to introduce herself once the chaos died down, but as soon as the boxes had hit her carpet, she’d dashed off for a couple of job interviews.

When she’d gotten back, the common room had been filled with chatter she could only linger on the edge of, clearly having missed the most important bonding experiences, so she’d gone upstairs and kept to herself, eager for the comfort of pyjamas and quiet.

She shifted her bag off the bench, leaving room for her neighbour to sit, which she did in a flurry of beads and fringe.

Her cardigan appeared handmade, a patchwork of earth-toned granny squares composing the body and sleeves, which immediately made her ten thousand percent cooler than Juniper and therefore, once again, out of place in her comfortable dark clothes.

She winced at the girl’s question. ‘Is my misery that obvious?’

The classmate pinched her fingers together, a dimple appearing on her left cheek. ‘A smidge.’ Then, she nudged Juniper as though they were already playful pals. ‘I’m Tilly, by the way. I think I’m staying in the room across from you in Chaplin House?’

She spoke with a warm, Irish lilt, one that could easily trigger Juniper’s pansexual panic if she focused on it too much. She loved accents, and Tilly was unfairly pretty in the unique sort of way that some people – silly people – might overlook.

‘I thought I recognised you.’ Juniper forced a smile, though her stomach was tight both from the terrible start to her day and the fact that she was absolutely awful at socialising with new people. Any moment now, she’d say the wrong thing and Tilly would think she was weird, not worth knowing.

‘And you are…?’

Oh, yeah. This was the part where Juniper was supposed to say her name. ‘Juniper! Or Juni. My friends call me Juni.’

Tilly raised her brows. ‘Oh, I love that wee name! Your parents clearly knew you were going to be an artist.’

‘Weirdly not. They would much rather me be… well, anything else.’ Juni laughed, nervously playing with the sleeve of her jacket.

‘Oh, no.’ Tilly’s features darkened, her brown eyes wide. ‘You’ve had the “art doesn’t make money” talk, too.’

‘Yup.’ Juniper popped the P, relaxing a little. Okay, she could do this. Tilly was nice, and clearly she got it. ‘You too?’

A nod as Tilly crossed one flared jean-clad leg over the other, revealing a pair of fancy black platform boots that seemed to have been hand-painted with stars and crescent moons.

‘I think they could have dealt with my struggling artist dreams if it didn’t mean moving so far away from home. I assume you’re from the north?’

‘Manchester. And you, Ireland?’

‘Aye, Dublin. Needed a change. I love my mam, but she’s… a lot.’ Tilly let out a serene sigh, as though they were soaking up sun on a beach rather than sitting on a cold, wooden bench in the middle of London.

Envy struck Juniper. She’d never been able to do that: just enjoy something. Everything came with struggle, whether it was too much noise and people or just her tendency to mess up.

‘By the way,’ Tilly continued, amusement dancing in her voice, ‘how brutal is our new tutor? I am not looking forward to this afternoon.’

‘Yeah.’ Juniper squirmed. ‘I accidentally might have called him an arsehole before I’d even gotten into the classroom, so we’re not off to a good start.’

A choked laugh fell from Tilly. ‘Bet he deserved it!’

‘Oh, he absolutely did.’ Juniper found herself snickering, too, suddenly very, very grateful that Tilly had come over.

She’d envisioned spending the entire year alone, a bit like in high school after her best friend-slash-girlfriend had moved to Blackburn.

She didn’t mind being alone, was used to it, even, but the September sun felt a tad warmer with someone in her corner.

Tilly sat up straight, leaning closer so that Juniper could smell coffee on her breath and peachy perfume on her clothes. ‘Hey, by the way, did you hear that weird noise last night? I couldn’t sleep for hours!’

‘Oh? I don’t think so. What was it?’ Juniper tilted her head, though her pulse started pounding in her ears. She might have an inkling …

‘Sort of like a rattling whir. I don’t know.’

Yes, Juniper had, in fact, heard a rattling whir, but to admit to it would mean revealing her very dark secret: that in order to combat her loneliness, and to save her pet from certain starvation at home, she had smuggled her beloved hamster, Cerberus, into halls despite the rule printed in bold in her contract that specified no pets were allowed in student accommodation.

She would have to take his hamster wheel out of his cage immediately.

‘How bizarre,’ she brushed off quickly, scratching the back of her neck as she searched for a way to change the subject. ‘Hey, would you fancy a coffee or something? I need a boost.’

Tilly brightened once more, quick to hop up off the bench. ‘Let’s do it!’

See ? Juniper thought. She wasn’t so bad at this being-a-person business after all.

Hamsters, mean professors, and old classmates aside.