Page 40 of Break Your Fall

I’m not ready.

“Camille.”

She pauses after I say her name, looks up at me from the floor, and the way her eyes meet mine shows how much she hears it in my voice that this hasn’t been earned back yet.

“It’s a start, right?” she says as her now empty hands slide over the rips in her jeans as she stands. I give a small nod.

“By the way,” she starts on her way out, positioned toward the outside door. “Your mom hasn’t ruined you. You’re doing better than she ever has.”

A lift and a pang settles in my chest. “Even after everything I’ve done. . .”

“Even after that,” she affirms with a half-smile, then leaves me to pick up my own mess alone.

That’s howthishas to be done—alone.

I drop my canvas sheets and sketch papers on my second nightstand, telling myself that my art is not useless. I have to stop letting people get to me. It’s as simple and as complicated as that. My art is about me. It’smine. It’s never bailed on me, always there when I need it. I have to nurture my gifts, hold on to them like they hold on to me.

Hold on to the people who hold on to me. To the people who are good to me. Who don’t apologize for the same things over and over, who have changed the behavior they’re sorry for. The people I love who love me back. The ones who fight. The ones who make me feel important.

The picture is already in my hands—Julian, me, and Tommy, taken the same day as the one with me and Camille. We’re all Happy; Julian somewhat Sleepy, see: high. Banks’s hand can be seen from the bottom right as he raced to get in the picture, but Camille snapped the shot before he could.

My eyes travel our faces before resting on Tommy’s. His face is close to mine, our pinkened cheeks almost touching. My thumb grazes the corner of his smile now.

The ones who quench the hollow.

I don’t feel hollow when I’m with Tommy. And that’s all it takes. Just being with him.

You’re my favorite, too.

My smile blooms, then slowly fades as I set the picture upright, moving on to the rest.

I pick up my room—my haven, telling myself it’s not ruined. There’s more good here than bad. It only feels bad, a straggling sadness, because the good is gone. It’s that feeling when someone comes and fills your space for a while, then goes, leaving behind a ghostly figure, echoes of voices, flashes of faces, no longer tangible, just inside your head.

This room made me.

This house made me.

Thislifemade me.

I am alive. I am a creation, and I owe it to myself to be in full color.

So, once I’ve gathered as much as I can for the night, I sit in front of another blank canvas and I paint that night. The stars. The first time I’ve felt kinship with the dark. I play my song and I cry—soft, silent tears, letting them all in as they’re smeared, stroked, stained to permanence.

12

Dirty Laundry

Thomas

New Radicals plays from my phone as I jam out in the laundry room to “Mother We Just Can’t Get Enough”, doing the most mundane of household chores. I’d rather wash dishes or vacuum the floor. Enter: music, accompanied by my impeccable singing and dancing skills, as well as my parents’ loud voices from the kitchen. They’ve been airing their dirty laundry since I started cleaning mine, and we’ve been in an intense competition for who can make the most noise.

I turn up the volume another notch to blast them out.

Though, my enthusiastic musical performance isn’t all about drowning out my parents who have decided to argue more openly now that they know I’ve heard them all along. It’s not about what’s still wrong; it’s about what’s right again.

Reyna’s not pushing me away.

I’m still her favorite.

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