Chapter 28
Cherry wasn’t much of an artist.
But she was enough of an artist to know, even at twenty-five, that you couldn’t put a bridle on someone else’s creative expression. Art came
out of people and it came out in messy shapes. Like dreams.
Cherry could separate it. (She thought she could.) Artist from art. Tom from that hulking figure with the scornful thoughts.
It really was like she’d read his diary.
Like she’d eavesdropped on his thoughts.
Tom didn’t make Thursday for other people to see it—she believed that. He didn’t promote it. Cherry wasn’t sure why he even posted it . . . But why
did anyone put anything online? Why did Cherry complain about work on Twitter?
Tom didn’t want people to read Thursday, and nobody did read it. Cherry’s sisters would never see it.
What was Cherry supposed to say to him now—“You can’t put me in your comic”?
She knew already, after reading two years of his comic strips, that that would be like asking him not to think of her at all.
Tom was clearly using the comic to process his thoughts. Thursday was his RAM. It was his REM. Cherry couldn’t just crash into his life and tell him to stop. And she couldn’t hold herself
back from his art without holding herself back from Tom himself . . .
Could she?
It would mean talking to Tom about Thursday . . .
It would mean admitting that she’d read it. (Behind his back, against his wishes.) Admitting that she’d seen herself through his eyes . . .
It would mean parading that parody of a fat girl out in front of them, between them, and acknowledging her.
How could Cherry ever face Tom, if he knew that she knew?