CHANTELLE HADN'T SEEN THE SUN IN THE PAST TWO DAYS. It wasn't anything new, really, as it was a common occurrence whenever she was far behind schedule on deadlines she had been aware of nearly half a month in advance, but while she generally liked having things finished early on, there were the times when she had to lock herself in her room and refuse sleep and any other sustenance besides coffee to make a deadline. She always did, in the end, even with only two minutes to spare.

She woke to the curtains in her room being viciously torn open, sunlight pouring in and dancing across her eyelids, branding red into her eyes. She whined, tossing around so her face was buried in her pillow, shaking her head.

She felt a pair of hands push her shoulder and she batted them away, shaking her head. The hands persisted, however, and she frowned, turning her head—thankfully away from the sun—to find her roommate looking down at her with a bemused expression, a coffee mug in hand.

Chantelle raised her flat palm, the tips of her fingers pressed against her chin before moving forward. "Thank you."

Amanda made a face as if to brush aside her thanks, making small circles with both her hands and moving them in small side-to-side motions. "No problem."

Chantelle yawned, blowing over her coffee, glancing up to see Amanda explain to her that it was already cooled down, which had her heart soaring. After taking a long sip, she moved to check the time, grinning when she saw that she had slept in well into the afternoon; at least she got some sleep.

She looked up to Amanda who giggled, moving to sit across from her at the foot of her bed, tilting her head. Chantelle smiled back, feeling the same warm, fuzzy feeling she always did whenever she saw her roommate.

The two had met when Chantelle first moved back to New York, staying with her parents temporarily until she found a roommate. She had gone to volunteer at the same center she still did to raise awareness and support youths with disabilities and had bumped into Amanda, who was, and still is, one of the main heads keeping the organization running. The two had become fast friends, Amanda taking a great interest in Chantelle's work, and Chantelle ecstatic to find someone who didn't comment on her hearing aids with pity or shock.

Speaking of hearing aids, she glanced towards her nightstand, relaxing when she saw they were still in place. Though, considering all she had was Amanda, who had been Profoundly Deaf since birth, she didn't need to rush to put them in.

"Did you meet your deadline?" Amanda asked, catching her attention, and Chantelle nodded, sighing with relief, collapsing back onto her covers.

"With ten minutes to spare," she replied, shaking her head as she looked towards her large working desk that held her graphics tablet and large monitor which were shut off for the time being, but would no doubt be turned back on by the end of the day.

"You should relax, go on a walk," Amanda suggested, motioning towards Chantelle's closet which hadn't been opened since a week before her deadline.

"Or we could sit and watch TV," she countered, and Amanda giggled, rolling her eyes, and Chantelle's smile only grew; she loved her roommate, she truly did, and after all the stress of just a few hours before, it was nice to have her there.

"I have to go back to work soon, but when I get home we can," the smaller girl signed, sighing as she looked towards the clock on Chantelle's nightstand, "Any plans while I'm away?"

She hummed, popping her knuckles before replying. "Check e-mails, make sure everything is complete. I might stream, I promised a stream as soon as I made my deadlines and I miss drawing fanart."

"Don't overwork yourself," Amanda reminded, giving her a worried look, and Chantelle waved her off with a reassuring smile.

"This is fun work, don't worry, but if I'm too tired I won't," she promised, reaching out and grabbing her coffee mug and taking a long sip, sighing heavily as she set it aside.

Amanda smiled and reached out to pat her cheek before climbing off her bed, headed back to her room to get ready for the day. Chantelle sighed and slumped back onto her bed, staring up at the ceiling.

This tended to happen after she completed a large pile of work. Whether she had been stressed or not, whether she had even tried or not, she was always burned out afterwards. She usually had large plans once one hurdle had been passed, but she always forgot to take into consideration her inability to keep pushing forward when her body and brain demanded a break, giving her the signal in the form of absolute fatigue.

She huffed as she grabbed her phone, turning it back on and going onto the social media she had turned off during her week of complete lock-down, smiling at the flood of well wishes and encouragement in response to her announcements, scrolling through her feed to look at the updates and posts of people she followed, whether they be friends or other artists she liked.

Finally, reaching the top of her feed, she found a small thread of people asking if she was going to live stream again, whether it be fan art or more work art, they seemed to like both in equal standing.

That was something that Chantelle had trouble finding a balance with. While she never liked being asked to do anything, as most people treated her more like a machine to pump out art than a person with a life and other genuine interests, the sweet messages of people simply coming in to say that they appreciated her work and how open she was to people who supported her truly made her smile.

She glanced over to her desk, shrugging to herself. She had missed a good few episodes of the webseries she liked because of this, it could just be a fun reaction and doodle stream, nothing major and nothing to lose too much sleep over.

With a nod to herself, she typed out a tweet, announcing her return from her self-imposed exile and detailing the nature of the celebratory stream she was going to be having, tossing her phone aside as she stood to go take a shower, happy to finally peel off the sweatpants and sweatshirt she had been living in for the past few days.

Amanda left her room at the same time Chantelle was heading to the bathroom, smiling at her and moving to squeeze her arm, a silent goodbye before the two parted ways until later that night.

"Are you okay?" the smaller woman asked, pausing right before she disappeared towards the front door, tilting her head.

Chantelle nodded, giving her a small smile. "I'm okay."

She was telling the truth for the most part. She was okay.

º º º

Chantelle took a sip of her beer as she continued to doodle, shaking her head as she read the chat. She had been streaming for about an hour and a half at that point, deciding that she was going to need to be pretty drunk to handle the large workload she had thrown at herself.

"You know," she hummed, continuing to sketch out the mermaid alternate universe she had set up for the characters of the web series she had just finished catching up on, "I had promised my roommate that I wouldn't stress myself out with this stream. But now I'm stressed and gave myself too much work, all because of that stupid last episode."

She laughed at the stream of comments of people typing Amanda's name, some begging for the elusive roommate to make an appearance again, others asking who Amanda was, some people just shouting her name over and over again.

"Amanda's out on a date tonight, but I'll see if she can drop in next stream," she replied, tilting her head as she continued to sketch.

She tended to have different art styles depending on what she worked on, which was a critique she often received from reviewers and potential employers. She also received criticism for crossing over to both fine arts and design, which were two conflicting majors back at her art school in Canada. She had been told to just choose one, but instead double majored, jumping back and forth, winding up starting out as a gallery artist, but now found herself as a storyboard artist.

It had been quite some time since she had done gallery art. She had found articles of people speculating her retreat from the fine arts side of the scope she had built for herself, laughing at how it seemed as though she had died with the way people had mourned her.

In reality, someone had died. It just hadn't been her.

"Oh, I got an email," she said, snapping out of her trance with the flash of her phone's flashlight, an indicator used by Amanda that was quickly picked up by her.

She set her pen aside, raising her eyebrow as she pulled up her email on her monitor. She only had notifications set for emails received on her work account, which meant this was most likely important.

Subject: Art Enables Gala - Proposition

She wavered at the subject line, reading it over and over. Gala. Gala meant gallery work, and gallery work meant opening a can of worms she wasn't ready to touch upon, not yet. Not again. But the first half kept her from closing out of the window entirely. Art Enables. That had an interesting sound to it.

Opening the email, she found herself met with a fair sized wall of text, separated into three smaller sized paragraphs. Humming, she read it to herself, forgetting that she had a camera turned towards her as she read.

Ms. Sethi,

My name is Eliza Anderwood, I'm the head chair and organizer for the Art Enables Gala, a newly constructed benefit fundraiser meant to raise awareness of stigma against disabled individuals in today's society. I am contacting you in way of a proposition, if not a commission regarding your work.

The Gala is meant to promote awareness and understanding and, as a result, we in the committee have decided it best to have the pieces created for the exhibit to be done by disabled artists themselves as a way to gain true testament and understanding, giving a voice to a community often silenced.

While I am aware of your abrupt leave from the gallery world, I reached out to you in hopes that you would consider working with us. Truthfully, there are only so many disabled artists here in New York, and we refuse to compromise our integrity to simply gain more pieces, if at all possible.

Thank you for your time and I hope to hear back from you, regardless of your decision.

All the best,
Eliza Anderwood

Chantelle pursed her lips together as she folded her hands above her desk, elbows propped up against the wood, mind racing.

"Well, this is a goddamn bitch of an unsatisfactory situation," she mumbled to herself, sighing as she leaned back in her seat, rubbing her eyes.

She moved to check the chat, finding a stream of questions and concerns from the watchers still on, as well as a small number of, "Did you just quote Brokeback Mountain?" questions. She gave a short huff, shaking her head as she looked back to the email which was staring back at her.

"Sorry, you guys," she said, turning back to the camera, "I'm gonna have to cut this stream short. I've got a new job prospect and this is gonna need me to be completely sober. Thanks for joining me, see you later."

She cut out the stream before she could even read the farewell comments, saving and closing out of every other window, leaving nothing except the email filling her entire monitor, still waiting for a response.

It had been five years since she had quit gallery work altogether, years since she had accepted any request to return and do pieces for whatever gala or gallery opening someone was having. This email wasn't unlike all the others she had received in the years she had been gone.

But she couldn't decline the offer, not right away. In all her years, she had never been approached to take part in something that genuinely hit home with her. Maybe it was the mention of refusing to use able-bodied artists even if it meant having fewer pieces, maybe it was the concept of raising awareness of stigma that was rampant in ways people hardly paid attention to. Maybe it was simply the fact she was too drunk to think clearly.

Whatever the reason, she found herself typing a quick reply, sending before she could stop herself and wonder just what she was agreeing to.

Ms. Anderwood,

I'm intrigued by your offer and while I'm not accepting or declining, I am more than willing to listen. You can contact me through email or we can meet to discuss further.

Chantelle Sethi

AUTHOR'S NOTE

( 06.19.18 )

Meet Chantelle! I contemplated already having the catalyst piece in the first chapter, but then I figured that it worked best, and there isn't much in way of plot to begin with. This chapter was mostly character development and establishing who she is and what she does, with a little bit of new stuff sprinkled in with exposition.

Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed!