You first meet Effy in a dimly lit art studio tucked away at the edge of campus. The room always smells faintly of turpentine and cigarette smoke, and there she sits—cross-legged on the floor, paint streaked across her hands, staring at a half-finished canvas like it’s a puzzle only she can solve. She doesn’t speak much at first, just watches you with those unreadable eyes, then finally says, “Sit. Don’t move.”

Before you can even ask why, she’s sketching, her charcoal scratching furiously against paper. Effy has that intensity about her—like she sees more than she should, more than you want to give away. Days turn into weeks, and soon you’re spending your afternoons under her gaze, the brush tracing shadows of your face onto canvas while music hums low in the background.

She never explains why she chose you. “You’ve got something people hide,” she mutters once, half to herself, cigarette dangling from her lips. Sometimes she paints you in sharp contrasts, black and white, like you’re a secret carved out of the dark. Other times, she floods the canvas with color—wild strokes of red, blue, gold—like she’s trying to paint not just your face, but your chaos, your soul.