Saugatuck Summer (Saugatuck, #1)(84)
A half-empty bottle of vodka sat on the bedside table, and his sketchbook was open on the king-size bed. Several sketches, only three of which looked finished, were scattered across the bedspread. Clearly he hadn’t been sleeping either.
Swallowing, I picked up the nearest one. A dark-skinned, pale-haired child with an angel’s wings—too old to be a cherub, more like a small boy—stood in the middle of a dark forest, looking around in terror. His hand was outstretched, reaching for a shadow disappearing off the edge of the page, the unknown figure walking away from him, leaving him behind.
I drew a shuddering breath and picked up the next one. In this one, that same angel—now a willowy adolescent, his thin, maturing body draped in the ubiquitous short toga with strapped sandals wound around his ankles—stood with his shoulders hunched in the midst of a crowd of jeering figures. He held an ornate harp cradled protectively against his body, trying to shield it from further harm. Its strings were sprung and its frame cracked and bent.
In the last one, an even more mature version of the angel—now a young man—knelt on one knee in another clearing in the woods. He was bruised and bleeding, his toga torn and stained. He held the bloody, tattered remnants of one of his wings, trying futilely to piece it back together.
My breath left me in an explosive gasp, nearly a sob, and I let the sketch fall back onto the bed.
Jace’s arms slipped around my waist and he held me wordlessly, laying his face against the back of my shoulder.
“These aren’t me!” I screamed in a whisper, two tears slipping down my cheeks. “Whatever you see, it’s not me. I’m just a f*ck-up who doesn’t know anything, not even what he’s doing from moment to moment. And I’m scared all the time, and I don’t know how to be anything else, except maybe angry and sad.”
His arms tightened around me. “I don’t need you to be perfect. I don’t need you to never make mistakes. I just need you to let me give you as much of myself as I can, and to trust that I will try as hard as possible never to hurt you intentionally. Can you do that? Can you let me love you?”
Jesus I was scared, so scared, so f*cking scared! But I nodded and turned in his arms, wrapping myself around him. “Yeah. Yeah, I can do that.”
I couldn’t say how long we stood there, breathing each other in, letting the fear bleed away in the rightness of being together. Eventually, his lips found mine, salty and urgent, and I returned the kiss with equal desperation, clinging to him, trying to melt into him. He reached out with one hand and swept all the sketches to the floor. Then he pulled me onto the bed with him, and all the fear and sadness began to fade, flooded out by joy.
No chance to remain in
What was once my life
This has changed me
—Casey Stratton, “Shut You Down”
The next week, I changed the courses I had registered for in the spring. I also had a phone consultation with an adviser and applied to the music program for a Bachelor of Music Education degree.
“I’m going to be a private voice teacher,” I announced proudly to Jace on the phone later that evening. “I’m going to put a heavy emphasis on vocal technique and music theory in my studies, so I can give my students the proper technical training. I’m going to take piano again, too, though I might see if I can find a self-study course for that since I don’t know if I’ll have room in my schedule. But this way, it won’t matter if schools are slashing their music programs; there are plenty of parents always willing to pay for their darlings to have extracurricular lessons. So I’m going to help kids who are like I used to be—the ones with talent who just need dedicated personal training to make something of it.”
“That’s brilliant!” I could hear elation in his voice and beamed, thrilled with myself for coming up with the idea. “And it won’t stop you from finding ways to perform if you still want to.”
“No, it won’t. In fact, studying technique, if I apply it and practice it myself, might actually get me a little of that training I missed out on, so I can step up my game. I might never be a star, but who knows, maybe someday I’ll get more than a walk-on part in a community production.”
“I’ll be in the front row with an armful of roses,” he said warmly.
I stared up at the ceiling, lying on the diagonal across Ling’s bed. “The only thing is, I might have to add another year of study, since I was late declaring my major and I don’t have some of the general credits I need. But with the money from the sale of those paintings, plus any I manage to earn working over the next couple summers, I should be able to afford it, even when my scholarship ends.”
“So you’re going to accept it, then?” If he sounded any more pleased, he was likely to start singing himself.
“Yeah. Yeah I am.”
“Good.”
I hung up the phone feeling extremely satisfied with myself. What sorcery was this? Was I actually beginning to get my shit together?
The weeks that followed sailed by far more smoothly, full of more promise than I was accustomed to. Mo decided to spend her next free weekend in Big Rapids, so I drove down to Chicago after work on Saturday, since I didn’t have to work again until Tuesday. The next weekend, Jace came up to Saugatuck, and the following Wednesday, I texted Mo to find out if she was coming down for the weekend.