17. The Bucket
The Bucket
SARAFINA
A full semester behind, I finally returned to school, but I was just going through the motions. My grades were passing, barely, but I had zero inspiration to paint. I just couldn’t seem to start, couldn’t seem to even pick up a brush.
If I didn’t figure something out soon, I was going to flunk out of my classes, and there would be no way for me to graduate on time.
I just felt so behind, like I was already supposed to be bouncing back, but I wasn’t. I wasn’t even remotely close. The world was moving on, but I was impossibly stuck.
After Carter’s parents had died, he’d handled it so well, kept it together.
Even as a teenager. Only, it had slowly been dawning on me that he’d been in so much more pain all those years than he’d ever really let on.
Carter had been all alone in that big house of his for all those years.
I wondered how many nights he’d woken up screaming… with no one there to hear him.
Over these last few months, I’d experienced a depth of grief that I didn’t even know was possible, and I couldn’t possibly fathom doubling it.
My phone buzzed, and I reluctantly opened my texts.
Liam
Did you eat today?
Yes
A lie. I lied most days. To my credit, I really was trying.
There had been a few days where I’d forced myself to eat something substantial, but I’d immediately thrown up.
I literally could not stomach anything. My body had an appetite for one thing.
Grief. Heaps and heaps of it. My phone buzzed again.
What did you eat?
Have you been drinking your shakes?
I silenced my phone, not bothering to answer it.
I knew he meant well, but he was pestering me day in and day out, and I just didn’t have the energy.
He wasn’t the only one either. Everyone had come out of the woodwork to badger me.
I supposed I should be grateful that I had anyone at all to check in on me, but truthfully, it was really just wearing me out even more.
Everyone had these expectations of where I was supposed to be in the process of all of this, and letting everyone down—it was just too much to deal with.
Everything and everyone was practically moving at the speed of light, and I doubted I’d ever catch up.
So I sat in my art studio in the dark and just waited.
For what? I had no idea. My eyes flitted to the canvas I’d at least wrapped for Carter.
It was leaning against the wall by the door, but I still hadn’t gotten around to actually mailing it.
He’d already paid me, despite my best efforts, so I knew I really should mail it, but I just couldn’t muster the willpower to actually get it done.
Day in and day out, anger pulsed through me as I stared at the bright, colorful canvases around the studio. I hated them. Resented that I’d ever been so happy when that emotion felt so far away now. I’d been so oblivious to how good my life had been, taking it all for granted.
I was barely making it through my classes, the numerous extensions, and my professor’s patience was running thin.
I’d permanently stepped down as a teacher’s assistant, unable to juggle all my responsibilities.
I still could hardly eat, and I still hadn’t mailed Carter’s painting.
I just needed to get the damn thing out of my sight for my own sanity, at least, but I couldn’t, for reasons I couldn’t exactly explain. It was just too damn hard.
Carter had texted me dozens of times, even sent me an exorbitant amount of money to cover the shipping.
We’d sent the balance back and forth several times, with him increasing it every time he sent it back, before I finally gave up and just stopped responding altogether.
I didn’t have the energy to fight him. So the balance just sat in my account, looming over me like an anvil ready to crush me. Part of me wished it would.
Over the last several weeks, Carter had tried a dozen different tactics to get me to respond to his texts, but I just didn’t have the energy to care.
What would I even say? There was nothing to say.
It was taking everything I had just to get out of bed in the morning, and many mornings I didn’t even accomplish that.
I was stuck. I knew it, but what I didn’t know was what to do about it.
I’d lay in the studio for hours, wearing my painting clothes, waiting for inspiration to strike, but it just wouldn’t. What I really wanted to do was destroy everything.
Last week, I’d finally picked up a paintbrush for the first time and found myself just wanting to stab it straight through the canvas—punch a gaping hole to match the one in my heart.
I checked the time and groaned. I was going to be late. Again. Apparently, this is who I was now, and I couldn’t find it in me to care.
I dragged myself up, wondering if I should just drop out of class, because what was even the point? I didn’t want to be here anyway, but I didn’t want to be at home either .
So I went to class. For some reason, I went. I didn’t bother taking notes, didn’t even bother bringing a notebook with me, and when the lecture was over, my professor pulled me aside before I could escape.
“Sara, can I talk to you?” She asked, concern lighting her expression, and I could tell whatever she was going to say was gonna suck.
I could take it. I would be the master of things that sucked.
At least that was one thing I could be good at.
And then I realized even that wasn’t true.
My professor motioned me over, and dread filled me. “Sara?” She crossed her arms, leaning against the front of her long, worn desk.
“Professor Alden?” I pulled my sweater tighter around me, because I was always cold these days, even in the dead of summer. Today I was freezing.
“I received a phone call this week.” Her eyes searched my face, and I waited as she buried the lead.
It used to make me so anxious knowing someone was about to drop a bomb on me, waiting for the worst-case scenario —waiting for the proverbial other shoe to drop.
But the thing was, I’d already experienced the worst-case scenario because nothing could be worse than the long pause the doctor had taken before he told us my mother hadn’t made it.
It was one of those moments where I knew, before the words had ever left his mouth.
Maybe there was some sort of energetic bond that had been severed the moment my mother had taken her last breath. I didn’t know.
What could Professor Alden say that was worse than that? Nothing. Literally nothing.
So, in a way, I felt invincible now. Nothing could hurt me because there was no room for any more of anything. Pain, happiness, grief—I was full to the brim. No get-out-of-jail card for me.
“I believe you sold your first painting over the holidays?” Professor Alden asked, concern still lacing her expression, as if all my thoughts were on broadcast. I swallowed hard. How did she even know that? “I’d like to help you get that shipped to the buyer.”
I took a deep breath, knowing I couldn’t really say no. “Okay.”
She reached out and touched my arm. “You doing okay?” I only nodded, leaning a hip against her desk.
I felt so fatigued today, needed to sit.
Desperately. “Have you picked up a brush yet?” I’d picked up the brush many times, but I knew what she meant, and I shook my head no . “Why not?” She asked curiously.
I knew she meant well, but I was so over this conversation.
I picked at my nails, trying to figure out how to explain it—my nails, I realized, had never been this clean, this paint-free.
“Nothing interesting enough to paint.” I shrugged indifferently, rather than explaining that I was all dark and twisty, all fucked up inside. Ruined. Probably for good.
She nodded, and I knew she was about to lower the axe. “Sara, I’m going to give you an assignment, and it will account for your entire grade this semester.”
I was slightly surprised by the panic rising in my throat. So much for not caring.
She pointed to a big bucket next to her desk. “Your semester assignment is to use this entire bucket of paint. No exceptions.” I stared at the bucket, totally confused. It was just cheap wall paint from the hardware store. It wasn’t even a good color… I never used black in my pieces.
“I’m not going to be grading you on your technique.” She watched me closely. “You’ll be graded based on the amount of paint left in the bucket.”
“Professor?”
“If you use fifty percent of the paint, you’ll get a fifty percent, if you use seventy-five percent, you’ll get a seventy-five percent.
My only stipulation is that you must use the paint on a canvas.
” She added with a narrowing of her eyes.
“Or many canvases, I don’t care. You just can’t pour it out somewhere. Understood? ”
Dread filled my stomach. It was so much fucking paint. I hadn’t even been able to go through a tiny little tube the past several months, and this, this was impossible—no, that didn’t even cover it. This was insurmountable .
I couldn’t do it. I was going to fail my class.
“Sara?” A lump lodged itself so deep in my throat, I couldn’t even swallow, so I just nodded. “Meet me here an hour before class tomorrow, and I’ll bring a moving truck to transport your painting.”
I gasped as I hefted the bucket up with two hands, realizing how heavy it really was. How the hell was I going to get this down to my studio?
“And Sara—I want you to carry that bucket around until it’s empty. Everywhere you go.”
“What?” My mouth dropped open. “It’s really heavy, Professor Alden.” Did she know how weak I was? That I was on the verge of passing out, like, all the time?
“I know.” She smiled. “That’s the point. You can do this, Sara. Just get the paint onto a canvas. That’s it.” She went back to the papers she was grading as if she hadn’t just handed me a death sentence.