Page 5 of Kiln Me Softly

Aiden felt just a sliver of guilt when Juniper dashed out of the classroom as soon as they were dismissed.

He didn’t get it. She wasn’t the first person to screw up throwing.

His first attempt had resembled a wonky version of the Gherkin skyscraper, but the people in his class had laughed – with him, not at him. That was the point, wasn’t it?

He’d spent all day subjected to her anger, and as he threw his apron into his bag and tugged on his jacket, he wondered just what he’d done to deserve all this bullshit.

Fuck this . He bounded after her without saying goodbye to Luc, glad to find her in the lift at the bottom of the corridor.

‘Hold it a minute,’ he demanded, and then rolled his eyes when she pressed the close button. The doors sliced over her dejected form, leaving a dull pang inside him.

Double fuck this. She couldn’t treat him like that in class and then ignore him altogether outside of it.

She would talk to him. He would make sure of it.

He rushed to the stairwell and skipped down the spiral steps two at a time, coming out in the building’s entranceway just in time to see her step outside.

Gritting his teeth, he followed, the warm humidity of late summer leaving a light sheen of sweat on his face as he jogged over, stopping her in her path.

She tutted, making to turn around, but his fingers looped around her wrist to keep her there.

He let go quickly, palms smarting against the contact.

Other than when she’d trodden on his toes, it might have been the first time he’d ever really touched her.

It shouldn’t have mattered, but it did, somehow.

‘Do you want to tell me what’s going on?’ he asked, breathless.

‘Why can’t you just leave me alone?’ Juniper tilted her face stubbornly, but her glare wasn’t quite as fierce anymore.

Her mascara was smudged, eyes watery and dark as ink.

She’d smeared clay on her cheek, and her hair was falling out of its ponytail to curl around her oval face.

He resisted the urge to fix both problems, knowing that even if she’d let him touch her, she was better off left messy.

‘I could ask you the same thing. I don’t get what’s happening here!’

She scoffed. ‘ Nothing is happening here. I just didn’t come all the way to London to share a classroom with the same moron I did in high school, okay?’

‘Well, believe it or not, I didn’t come here just to piss you off.

’ She had the nerve to imply he was arrogant?

Aiden couldn’t help that they’d wound up in the same place at the same time.

God, he hadn’t even thought of Juniper since sixth form.

All right, maybe sometimes, when scrolling through Instagram or looking through old Facebook memories.

With that disarming presence, she was hard to forget.

‘Why did you come here?’ she shot out, her knuckles turning white around the badge-covered strap of her backpack.

He recognised a few logos there – bands he quite enjoyed himself: Sleep Token, Linkin Park, and then an LGBTQ+ flag badge and Van Gogh’s Starry Night , which he thought was a little too obvious for an art student, but everybody had their tastes.

Some of them he remembered seeing on her old school blazer, which had resulted in plenty of detentions. Not that she’d ever cared about those.

He pursed his lips, without an answer. At least, one he could stand to give her. ‘I don’t owe you an explanation, just like you don’t owe me one.’

‘What about Elmington?’ she pried.

The back of his neck began to prickle. The last thing he wanted was to think of his last stint at university and the way it had seemed to tear everything apart. Nine months down the line and his dad still hadn’t spoken to him. He didn’t know if he should be glad about it.

‘Wasn’t for me,’ he replied. It wasn’t a lie, but there was far more to it than that. Things he wasn’t sure he could ever admit to another person, let alone someone who was looking for more reasons to unravel him.

Juniper’s scoff dripped with twice as much venom this time. ‘Right, that world-renowned uni, where most artists in the UK would die for a chance to even be considered, just wasn’t for you . Do you understand how ridiculous that sounds?’

His hands began to shake, and he curled them into his pockets roughly. ‘RACA isn’t that much easier to get into.’

‘Yeah, and unlike you, I’m not going to throw this opportunity away, so just stop with all…

’ She motioned vaguely towards him, and he felt her eyes drag over his body like sharp fingernails.

Felt his gut and something a little further south react in response, because he liked it when she looked at him.

It was far better than when she ignored him altogether.

That just made him feel cold and restless and wanting .

Her attention felt rare, valuable, and he liked being valued – even if it came in the form of scorn.

‘ This ,’ she finished after a beat too long.

‘I would consider it if I knew what all this was.’ He arched his brows. ‘You’ve had a problem with me since you barrelled so gracefully into the classroom.’

‘And you’ve enjoyed it!’

‘I’m not going to deny that.’ He pinched his smile between his fingers.

Maybe it made him terrible, but he liked to see her riled up and red-faced.

It left wrinkles at either side of her nose, and she kept biting her lip in a way that made their heart-shaped plumpness hard to ignore.

It helped that she was much shorter than him, that he had to look down to see it.

What she lacked in height, she made up for in temper.

‘Stop!’ she repeated harshly.

‘Then tell me what the problem is!’ He rubbed his thumb across his brow roughly. ‘Jesus, Juni, I know we weren’t really mates, but I was actually…’

When he trailed off, she demanded, ‘Actually what?’

‘Well, it wasn’t that unpleasant to see a familiar face here.’ He shrugged, dipping his head to hide his embarrassment.

That seemed to make her falter. She took a step back, forehead crinkling a little like her collapsed clay creation. ‘You really have no idea, do you?’ she muttered quietly.

‘That is what I’ve been trying to tell you, yes.’

Somehow, his cluelessness only seemed to anger her more.

Her lip curled, and she ripped her gaze away so he could no longer meet her eyes.

Her ponytail swung with the rest of her, a shaggy mix of copper and gold.

He’d always liked watching her curls when he’d sat behind her in art: untethered to the rest of her, moving even when she didn’t.

They’d snuck his way into some of his coursework paintings in subtle ways: a flicker of red in brown soil, pale gold highlights in the dark.

‘I just don’t like you, okay?’ she said finally.

‘You don’t know me,’ he fixed, and now it was his turn to get annoyed. ‘Jesus, are you still the same person you were at seventeen? Because I’m not.’

Another waver of her resolve. For a moment, he thought he’d gotten through to her, but then her features shuttered again and she was somewhere he couldn’t reach.

‘The things I don’t like about you aren’t things that seem to have changed,’ she decided flatly.

‘Or maybe you’re just bitter that you mucked up your first day and you need someone to blame,’ he suggested.

He knew it was the wrong thing to say immediately. Her chin wobbled, and she recoiled just a little bit further.

‘See?’ she whispered. ‘Still the same twatface.’

She turned on her heel, leaving him to stew in the smell of her: leather and something rich, sweet, like chocolate and cherries. He watched her stomp over the grass, ignoring the path entirely, and wondered why, even at a distance, she could still pull his focus along with her.

That rope holding him hostage finally snapped when she turned at the library and disappeared, and he rubbed the place where he felt it most, his lower ribcage.

Exhausted, he could only shake his head, his jaw so tight that he was surprised it didn’t stay locked there.

He convinced himself to stop thinking about her and headed the other way.

A friendly face at least greeted him when he neared the exhibition gallery. Sat by the steps, Luc winced, making it clear they’d witnessed the whole thing.

‘May I give you some advice?’ they asked as they fell into step, the two of them heading towards the great arched doorway.

When Aiden had mentioned his plans to visit earlier, Luc had invited themself, a fact that Aiden was both uncomfortable and glad about.

Uncomfortable, because he hadn’t had many friends around since dropping out of Elmington, and he’d gotten too used to his own company in recent months.

Glad, because he wanted to change that. He’d liked himself most in high school, when he’d been surrounded by people who paid attention to him.

When he’d been so busy enjoying their company that he hadn’t stopped to think about the future and the things he wasn’t supposed to want.

If he could fit in here, it could be considered proof that he hadn’t made the wrong decision.

‘Please,’ he said, the word echoing as they entered the large gallery.

It was a miniature museum, dozens of sculptures housed within protective glass cases, descriptions and information about the students who had created them beneath.

He waited for that usual ease to come, the one that made him feel at home in places where art was displayed.

Galleries had basically been his second home growing up, his father always dragging him around the country on work trips as an art dealer.

He’d probably been introduced to Monet before the Teletubbies.

It didn’t come this time. Just more of that shuddery coldness, the one he’d felt at Elmington.

The one that told him he wasn’t supposed to be here.

It left a knot in his belly, one he tried hard to ignore as he began to admire the work.

While he was glad to dive into pottery, he wanted to get to know its history better, hopefully prepare for a job his father would approve of on the business side of things.

Luc squatted down to read an inscription about a piece inspired by the London skyline, then finally offered some insight. ‘Just be quiet. Sometimes, it’s very okay to be quiet.’

Aiden paused, brows knitting together. ‘What do you mean? I’m not loud, am I?’

‘Well, how do I say this? You react to her a lot.’

The tips of his ears began to burn. Did he? He was trying to react a normal amount, but she was just… ‘She’s a lot to react to!’

Luc hummed, adjusting their necklace. It was their initial, L , on a golden chain, and Aiden wondered who it had been gifted by, if anyone. ‘I will be honest. Sitting in a room with the two of you is like sitting in a kiln. And when one cracks, the other does. You see?’

‘Not at all.’ That was a lie. He could see past the terrible pottery metaphors to what Luc meant.

All day, he and Juniper had been back and forth, like a tennis match he hadn’t even noticed he’d been playing.

But how was that his fault? She’d started it.

He’d been just fine before she’d scuttled in, all breathless and angry at everything .

Luc sighed. ‘Men.’

‘Oh, come on. She kept attacking me. What was I supposed to do?’

‘Did you two ever have sex?’ Luc questioned bluntly.

Aiden spluttered on thin air. ‘ What ? No!’

‘You act like you did.’

‘No. No, definitely not.’ And he certainly wasn’t going to think about her like that now. Legs wrapped around his waist while she used that mouth for more than just insults. Nope. He was not thinking about what it would be like to see all of her, touch her—

No .

Jesus, what was wrong with him?

It was the pottery, he decided. All that hand motion mixed with her barbed words was basically like foreplay.

Luc was right. He needed to stop engaging. If Juniper wanted to hate him, she could, but he’d tried to make it right and she’d shut him down. From now on, she’d have to start arguing with herself – something he wouldn’t put past her after today.

Besides, he wasn’t here for that . He was here to fall back in love with art, and not just the paintings hung in the National Gallery.

He wanted to make something. Something important, something that would prove both to himself and to his father that he didn’t have to follow the same path to be worth something.

He would forget Juniper altogether.