Chapter Thirty-Four
Thirty-Four
Lucy
I wake up on a pile of watercolor pages, my fingers still stained from a late night full of creative release. I don’t know what time it is, let alone the day of the week. What I do know is that I’ve been painting at my previous college pace to try to keep up with my online business. I’ll have to temporarily close my digi-tal shop if the feeling in my finger pads doesn’t return soon.
I’m not complaining; the distraction is welcome. It’s been an emotional couple of weeks cooped up in my apartment. My therapist says I can’t hide from my problems forever; I told her she shouldn’t underestimate a competitive introvert. My thera-pist also says I need to call Jaylen—she might be right about that one.
Jaylen isn’t the only person I’ve been avoiding—I’ve also been dodging Hunter Gunn’s calls lately. She needs me to sign the apprenticeship contract, like yesterday. I keep saying I’m going to do it, but then I pick up a brush and suddenly I’m waking up face down in my paint palette.
I roll out of bed and begin cleaning yesterday’s art mess when my phone vibrates against my nightstand. Expecting to see a message from Hunter Gunn reminding me to fill out my paperwork, I’m surprised to see a message from my dad.
I contemplate FaceTiming my therapist so I don’t have to face the text alone, but she said I have to stop texting her memes and only use the number for real emergencies. Apparently, your favorite queer celebrity couple breaking up amid cheating allegations doesn’t qualify as an emergency. A text from my dad doesn’t seem like an emergency situation either, at least not until I know what he wants to say.
DAD:
I shove my phone in my pocket, ignoring his text. Before I can decide if I want to tell him to fuck off or to drop dead, my phone vibrates again.
DAD:
I have every intention of blocking him and never talking to him again, but that doesn’t feel satisfactory enough. He needs to know he’s hurt me. He needs to hear that I’m done with him.
I’ve been working with my therapist on finding the words I could never say to him. If I’m ever going to heal my old wounds, I need to stop pity-pouring salt into them.
* * *
He’s there waiting for me in the booth at the back of the restaurant by the time I arrive, halfway through a soda and mulling over the menu. I slip into the booth across from him and bury my hands into my jacket pockets.
“You’re late,” my dad says.
“I wasn’t going to come.” I stare him down like a wild animal. Maybe just this once I won’t get mauled.
The server stops by the table, but I tell him we need more time. Picking up on the tension between my dad and me, he quickly moves on to the next booth.
My dad reaches under the table and pulls out a medium-sized canvas. It’s wrapped in a plastic bag, but I still know what it is. It’s the fourth painting from my senior art showcase project—the last piece in my series of four. It’s the one of his old house. I mailed it to him after he ruined my showcase; it was my way of leaving art in the past.
I take it from his hands. Mostly to stash it under the table before anyone else sees it.
“Why did you need to give me this?” I’m on high alert and anticipate a cheap shot at my work or a dig at my mom any moment now. He must have something diabolical planned for me today if he brought this here with him because it’s the most interest he’s ever taken in my art.
“I never got to tell you how beautiful it is, but it belongs in a series. I think you should keep it with the others. If you still have them.” His words shake with a self-doubt my arrogant father seldom struggles with. His voice is clearer than usual, and his eyes brighter. He looks less worn, like someone returning from a vacation.
His kind words should make me feel good about myself, but instead they piss me off. They’re too little, too late. Like a bus that never came—I found another way home.
“I don’t have them anymore.” I slide my legs out from under the booth and go to leave, but he reaches for me.
“Wait,” he says, leaning out of his seat to stop me. “I saw your murals. You’re making a mistake with this tattoo stuff. Don’t give up on painting because of me. I’ve ruined a lot of things in your life, don’t let me ruin this too.” His voice is pleading and fast paced. He must know he doesn’t have much more of my time left.
As a child I was powerless. My mom was too consumed by her own struggles to protect me, leaving me vulnerable. My dad had full range to jerk my emotions around every time he decided to finally show up. I’m done being scared of him. Someone is finally going to stand up for that little girl terrified at the top of the Seattle Great Wheel, and it’s going to be me.
“What do you know about me or my life? You don’t know what’s best for me, and you never did.” Saying the words feels like breaking through the surface of water after a deep dive. I take a long breath.
“You’re right. I invited you here because I wanted to tell you in person that I’m sober now. I got my first chip yesterday—thirty days.” He takes his hand out of his pocket and opens it to reveal a yellow chip the size of a silver dollar coin. “I understand if you hate me. I would hate me too. You don’t have to forgive me, but if you ever want to let me start making it up to you, I’ll be waiting.”
Everything he’s saying would be impressive if I hadn’t heard it all before. This isn’t his first time getting sober. For his sake I hope it’s his last, but this is the impossible toxic cycle in which he lives. And I don’t want any part of it anymore.
“That’s really great for you, but it’s too late for me. You can keep this.” I hand the painting back to him. “I can’t do this anymore. Don’t contact me ever again.” I get up and leave without looking back.
It’s a firm boundary, but I’m glad to have set it. As the distance between my dad and me grows, I feel safer with each step. I can’t live in this purgatory with him anymore, stuck waiting for him to mess up and longing for him to make it up to me. I need to break this cycle before it breaks me.
Finally, light shines on the monster lurking in the shadows and suddenly he doesn’t seem so scary. I have power over our relationship—over my life.
* * *
I decide to walk home in an attempt to clear my head. The weight of everything I have to do before setting off for LA has made me immobile, and I need to move. While my mind races between packing my things and signing the contract and saying goodbye to my friends and family, I see the Seattle Great Wheel in the distance. I continue on, heading in its direction. I’ll watch a full rotation.
When I get there, I line up to buy a ticket. Why not? What’s the worst that can happen to me at this point?
As I sit alone in the glass gondola dangling one hundred and seventy-five feet in the air, I realize it’s not nearly as frightening as I remember. If anything it’s peaceful. The sun reflects off the ocean below—the winter clouds must have left while I was cooped up painting in my apartment this month. The mountains are so sharp today they look digitally imposed. Or maybe I’m the one digitally imposed in the middle of a pristine, postcard-worthy backdrop. I feel like a fish being plucked from the ocean and dropped into a bowl for someone’s kitchen countertop. Was Seattle always this colorful?
I sit back in my seat as the gondola rounds the very top of the Ferris wheel’s rotation. I spot the hotel from that night all those months ago across the street in the distance. I remember looking out the hotel window upon the morning glow; it terrified me to look around. I was on the run. I didn’t want to still myself long enough to see what I was running from, so I convinced myself I was headed toward something instead.
From this perspective, I don’t want to run. I want to paint. I don’t feel scared anymore. I’m inspired.
I want to disappear into the canvas the only way I know how. I have ignored texts from Hannah in my phone asking if she can pass along my information for commissions. I have unread emails from the local MLB team. They want me to paint a similar mural of their players outside their locker room. And I have enough commission inquiries from my online shop to last me through the spring. I want to tell them I’ll do it, all of it.
Then I remember that I owe Hunter Gunn a few signatures on paper and suddenly I can’t picture myself signing them. I’ve been obsessively trying for a tattoo apprenticeship for almost two years; I haven’t stopped to think about why I want it so badly. It’s an incredible opportunity, but what if it isn’t my opportunity?
How long am I going to let my dad hijack my life? Today he finally paid attention to my art, even told me it was beautiful. I’ve waited my whole life to hear him say something like that. And now that he finally has, I know it doesn’t matter what he thinks of my art. It doesn’t matter if he loves it or hates it. Whether he shows up or ghosts me. If he says I should paint instead of tattoo. I needed to be the one who believed in myself and my work.
This is my second chance to make it as an artist, and everything I need is right at my fingertips. I’m the only one who hasn’t been able to see that what I’ve always wanted was right in front of me this whole time.
* * *
As soon as I get off the ride, I call Hunter Gunn back. I tell her I can’t do it. I can’t move. I can’t give up on painting. Having decided to see this through this time means I’m choosing to believe in myself.
It didn’t take finally going to therapy for me to understand that I was self-sabotaging, but it has shown me that I don’t have to live like this anymore. I’m still working on it, but being a work in progress feels a hell of a lot better than being a mess.
I can’t believe I’m a painter again, and I can’t believe I’m making more money doing it than I ever would have working at that job opportunity I blew after college.
I think of Jaylen, and his recent article where he bravely bared his heart. I want to call him immediately and tell him what I did today: standing up to my dad and going after what I want in life. I want to thank him for the inspiration—for the push. I want to take him out to Trolls Bridge for two-for-seven-dollar beers and I don’t want to wait until two in the morning to kiss him this time. He probably doesn’t want to talk to me anymore—he never responded to my text. I ran from him like I ran from painting when things got scary, but I have nothing left to lose, and I know what I want now. I have to try.