Felix Ever After(72)
Don’t call me ever again.
God, how did things get so fucked?
My dad knocks on my door, and he peeks his head in as he creaks it open. “You okay, kid?” he says.
I’d told him I wasn’t feeling well so that he’d let me come home early—the idea of sitting anywhere near Declan felt impossible—but now it’s six in the evening and I haven’t eaten anything all day except for a bowl of soup my dad brought me around noon.
I mumble something, even I don’t know exactly what.
He flips on the bulb. I feel like a vampire, blinded by the light. I groan and throw my sheets up over my head. Captain must get tangled, because she squirms for a split second before leaping down to the floor.
“What’s going on?” he asks.
“Nothing.”
“For a sick kid, I’m not hearing a whole lot of sneezing.”
I give a fake cough. He laughs. From beneath the bedsheets, I can hear him crossing over and feel the edge of the bed sink as he takes a seat. He puts a hand on my back and rubs.
“Did something happen?”
I sigh and uncover my head. “Ezra and I are fighting.”
Realization spreads across his face. “Ah. Okay.”
“And,” I say, but pause—how do I even begin to explain any of this mess? “The person I like is pissed at me, too.”
“So the person you like isn’t Ezra?”
A few days ago, I would’ve yelled at my dad for continuing to suggest I have a crush on Ezra, but now? “Well,” I say slowly, “it’s not like I don’t like Ezra.”
He gives me a smug I knew it look. I roll my eyes and grab my pillow, putting it over my face. “Everything’s wrong,” I say, muffling my voice. “Neither of them will speak to me now. I really messed up.”
I feel a gentle tug on the pillow, and my dad pulls it off, placing it to the side. “Well,” he says. “I know it might feel like nothing’s right at the moment, but things have a way of working themselves out.”
I hesitate. “Is that what you thought when Mom left?”
The question takes him by surprise. He inhales a sharp breath. “To be honest, I wasn’t thinking much of anything when she left. I was pretty numb. Just trying to keep it together for you.”
I frown at him. “Really?” I mean, I knew things were messed up, but I didn’t realize he’d struggled that much. When he doesn’t say anything else, I tell him I sent an email to her.
His eyebrows pull together. “Okay. Do you want to talk about why you did that?”
“I mean—she’s my mom,” I say. “It’s normal to want to reach out to her and talk to her. Right?”
He’s nodding, slowly, but I’m not so sure he agrees. “After Lorraine left, I called her at least once a day, begging her to come back. She said she’d fallen out of love with me and needed some space away. I couldn’t understand how she could so easily dismiss everything that we had. It hurt—more than anything else I’ve ever experienced, I’ll tell you that much. I loved her. Still do. Probably always will. But it took me a little longer to figure out that just because I love her, doesn’t mean it’s a good kind of love. It can be easier, sometimes, to choose to love someone you know won’t return your feelings. At least you know how that will end. It’s easier to accept hurt and pain, sometimes, than love and acceptance. It’s the real, loving relationships that can be the scariest.”
Is he trying to tell me that it’s wrong for me to love my mom? I can’t help that I love her, and that I want her to love me, too. I nod anyway, staring at my hands as I play with the bedsheet. He runs a hand over my curls. “Maybe this is just a good chance to focus on other things,” my dad tells me. “Nothing wrong with focusing on yourself every once in a while.”
That’s what I tell myself as I walk into St. Cat’s the next morning (I tried to skip another day, but my dad wasn’t having it). When I see Ezra talking to Leah, and he refuses to look my way? Focus on myself. When Declan sits beside me in class, but acts as if I don’t exist? Focus on myself. That’s what I tell myself when I get an Instagram notification, too. I’m not surprised to see that it’s another message from grandequeen69. I automatically hit the notification to read the message—but I pause. Why do I keep reading these messages, knowing that grandequeen69 is only going to hurt me? I remember what my dad had said—that it’s easier to accept hurt and pain, sometimes, than love and acceptance. I delete the app from my phone. No more notifications. No more grandequeen69. Focus on my fucking self.
I work on my acrylics self-portrait project. I hadn’t taken Jill seriously, but now I’m beginning to wonder if I should apply to the end-of-summer art gallery after all. It’s something to pour myself into, and—I don’t know, the idea of reclaiming the lobby, the very space that hurt me, feels better than I thought it would. I’m grateful to have something to concentrate on, and maybe it’s the raging trash fire that’s currently my life, but I find it easier than ever to sink into the colors, to think about nothing as I let my hand and my brush move across the canvas. I do more work than I have in days, flying from one self-portrait to the next, using each and every one of the canvases I’d prepped.
When I’m finished, I step back to take the portraits in. There I am, on fire, underwater, skin like the swirling universe, flying through the sky, lying in the grass, sitting in the dark while a blur of colors rushes around me, smirking with a crown of flowers on my head . . . It’s not hard to realize that this, these self-portraits, are what I have to submit to Brown for my portfolio. I wasn’t sure if I was going to apply, and I still question why I’ve wanted to go to Brown so badly—but it doesn’t hurt to send an application and see what happens, right? Maybe I don’t need to apply just to prove to myself and others that I can get in. Maybe I can apply just because it offers amazing opportunities. There’re the other schools I’m applying to, too, and I can also look into gap year options. At some point I’ll have to choose what I want to do—but until then, it’s all right to keep my options open.