When the Heart Falls(26)

"Hey, is that the test?" Winter sits beside me, straining to see. "How'd you do?"

I shove it into my backpack. "Good. You excited about the museum?" I already know the answer, but I love seeing how her face lights up when she gets passionate about something.

"Yes. Oh my God, I can't believe one guy created everything here. It's incredible. And I'm excited to study the details of his artwork up close and personal, to actually stand next to The Thinker, or walk up to The Gates of Hell, you know?"

I nod. I do know. It's how I feel about touring Notre Dame. And, I realize in that moment, how I feel when I'm with Winter.

The rest of the class catches up to us, Rodney giving us a wide berth as he glares at me from afar. I casually pick up a stick from the ground and smile at him. Face drained of color, he looks away.

I've felt unusually protective of Winter since that night at the club, and I can't seem to shake this growing attraction, even as our friendship deepens, or maybe because of it.

While I appreciate great art, and Rodin certainly qualifies, I don't share Winter's passion for it, but when we get to The Thinker I stop and study him. "I wonder what he's thinking about? Is he facing an internal dilemma? Trying to figure out which road in his life to take?" I think of Stevie, of the constant struggle that is his life now, and the choices I have to make because of him. I hope he's eating well. He loses his appetite sometimes when I'm not there.

Winter strikes The Thinker pose, and I snap a picture of her. "He's probably thinking about food," she says.

"Food?"

"Sure, isn't that what all guys think about? Food and sex? Maybe he's trying to decide which to have first, and it's left him paralyzed with indecision. Do I get sex? Or do I get food? Ah, the weight of it all."

I laugh at the ridiculousness of her analysis, and she laughs with me. It feels good to be silly with her, to let the weight of it all go for just a minute and have fun with a friend.

Winter pulls me along to another sculpture. The Kiss. Two bodies intertwined in a passionate embrace. I think of that night Winter pulled me to bed next to her, how she called me "My Cade" as she wrapped her body against me. But that wasn't really her, that was just the drugs. She and I are just friends. That's all we can be.

"I love this sculpture," she says. "Back home there's a small version of this on my desk next to the computer. It's for inspiration, for my writing. The passion, the love, it's intoxicating."

My mood sours when I think about what love turns into. "Too bad love like that doesn't last."

"I think it does," she says. "When the right people find each other."

Were my parents just not meant to be? They'd been like this once, but that died… when our family died. "I don't like it."

"The sculpture?" She raises an eyebrow at me.

"Yes. That's passion, not love. Passion fades. And once it does, you're left taking care of someone you can barely stand, suffering through hard times, putting up with each other, trying to make each other happy when you're not even happy yourself. A sculpture of real love wouldn't look this enticing. It would include pain and cruelty."

"You should see Brancusi's The Kiss." She slides her hand down the back of the statue. "It's just two people, two blocks of stone really, just holding each other, their lips pressed together. They don't look like passion, but they have it."

I think about my parents again, about how stale their love has become. "How can you tell?"

"When two people devote their lives to each other, I don't care what it looks like, that's passion."

For the first time I wonder if my parents could still love each other, even after all of this.

We move on to The Gates of Hell in the garden, and I'm blown away by the level of detail and design in Rodin's work. The sculpture stands twenty feet high and thirteen feet wide and has miniature versions of his other work carved into it, with figures ranging from six inches to three feet in size. Independently, each of his pieces are amazing, but incorporated into this imposing gate they tell a grander story of human thought and suffering.

The weather has turned from sunshine to a slow drizzle. The other students take cover inside, but Winter and I stand in the rain admiring the sculpture.

There's almost too much to take in all at once. At the top, The Thinker is carved into the massive gate, forever stuck pondering his choices. That does sound like its own kind of hell—one I'm often stuck in myself.

But the images that strike me most powerfully are the tortured souls, carved into inhuman positions, destined to spend eternity suffering for their sins. "Are you Christian, Winter?"

She turns to face me, the rain misting her hair as it clings to her face. "I don't go to church or anything, but I was baptized as a baby. It's more like my heritage than my faith, I guess."

"You think hell exists?"

She shrugs. "Maybe for those who truly deserve it, though it seems to me people do a good enough job making their own hell on Earth."

"What about homosexuals? Do they deserve it?" I didn't expect to bring this up with her, now or ever, but it feels so natural to talk to Winter about everything.

Her response is instant as her eyes blaze with passion. "Of course not."