How to Be Brave(46)

Sorry, Mom. I failed you.

*

This is also what it was like:

She had curled up on the couch,

three blankets over her near-naked body,

the TV blaring, with Ellen or Dr. Oz or Alex Trebek.

It didn’t matter. It was noise on the screen,

and she wasn’t listening.

She had destroyed them all.


She worked for months on them,

her canvases. She’d sketched and planned

and worked and worked, but then,

it wasn’t right. None of it.


So she blacked them out and came home.

I’m done, she said. There’s nothing left.

And: They’ll forget me when I’m gone.

And: I’m almost gone.


She was fever and chills, sweat and tremor.

I could blame it on what we didn’t know:

the sepsis in her veins, the infection as insidious as fear.


But it only made her speak what was true.

I’m the broken one, she said. Everyone knows it.

I’m their mirror, a reminder of their own deep sorrows, how far down they’re buried in their old, hurt souls.

There’s nothing left for my art to prove.


I begged my father.

There’s nothing I can do, he said.

I was the one who called her doctor,

told him she was sick again,

that she wasn’t making sense.

But it was different this time.


The urge to destroy is also a creative urge.

It was different this time

because she knew exactly what was coming.

She knew it was the last time,

for her.





Part Two





12

I trudge through the snow with my art case by my side. I’m weighed down on all sides, textbooks pulling me backward, squeezed by the many layers of winter clothes—two sweaters, a down coat, scarf, hat, and gloves, all black. (I’ve given up on fashion.) Two inches of snow and a windchill of twenty-five. In April. First day of spring was two weeks ago. Oh, Chicago, you sadistic city. When I was a kid, my dad only read the d’Aulaires myths to me at bedtime. I think it was the only way he could think of to try to make me Greek. My favorite was about Hades, lord of the underworld, who captured Persephone while her mother, Demeter, cried above. I liked the idea of the pomegranate seeds, how the cold, hard winters were caused by Demeter’s angst during Persephone’s time in hell. The freezing wind slaps my face. It seems as though Demeter is especially pissed this year.

I push myself forward into what is nearly a blizzard. Of all the places my dad could have chosen to move to, he chose Chicago? He had sun and water and mountains and olive trees, and he chose this? A city full of congestion and potholes and snow that turns to giant piles of slush? I know he left for a better life. My mom liked to remind me of that—of the sacrifices he made so that I wouldn’t live in poverty like he did. But so many Greeks went to Australia and Florida. Not my dad. He had to come where winter rules most of the year.

I walk up to this building, Webster High School, which is my Own Personal Hell. It’s like I’m Persephone; I’m the one stuck here with no way out. Today is going to be like every other, where I spend my days ducking in and out of classes, talking to no one, my hood tied tight around my jaw. Evelyn transferred to Choices mid-January after she was caught selling pot. We text occasionally, but we never actually speak. I miss her, but she’s also part of a time in my life that I wish I could forget.

Liss and Daniel returned from their trip tanned, blissed out on Belize, and chummier than ever. They won’t make eye contact with me, yet I could hardly get through the entire month of January without hearing about their trip: from strangers in the hallway (“Oh my God, the rain forest! Could you imagine?”), from our crappy little school newspaper (“Central America Biology Expedition: Exclusive Interview of Environmental Heroics!” Hyperbole much?), and even from Marquez (“So, Mr. Antell, did you stay out of trouble? No smuggling illicit substances in prehistoric vases, I hope.”). Liss and Daniel are always together, and usually, Avery and Chloe and their respective boyfriends are not far behind.

The other thing is that Avery and Chloe are on this new mission to, and I quote, “be nice to everyone. To end the madness of high school gossip.” That was in the paper, too. I guess Liss has bought into this PR stunt. She’s with them all the time. And despite the fact that they’ll smile and wave at me, I refuse to believe it. And Liss refuses to talk to me.

I’m alone, but that’s nothing new. It was like that before Liss entered my life. I should have known it would be like that again.

It’s also been months since I turned in my project Monday morning, 8:03 A.M. on the dot, per Marquez’s instructions that were relayed from my dad to me. But he never said anything about what I did, just put a checkmark in the book and handed it back to me a week later. He probably just figures he was wrong about me. He’s probably sorry he ever sat me down on a bench in forty-degree weather.

It’s fine.

My sole purpose in life is now this: Get Through Senior Year. One more month. That’s it. Walk through the door, go to class #1 (Twentieth-Century World History), sit down, do my work, leave, rinse, repeat (times twenty-nine more days).

The only thing I have—the only thing I like—is my art. I draw every day, and I occasionally paint on the weekends.