Page 44 of Tilly in Technicolor
“Yeah,” I squeak out. I feel incredibly small, like my chest is caving in on itself, my shame a black hole that I’m disappearing into.
“Do you have anything you’d like to say?”
I shake my head then realize she can’t see it. “Not really.”
Mom’s sigh sounds tired.
“I’ve been keeping up with my writing.” Which is a silly thing to admit, but I’m that desperate to prove to my mom that I can stick tosomething.“Been connecting with a lot of people on Babble through it.”
Mom sucks in a breath through her teeth. “I’m glad you have your hobby, but journaling does not a career make. Not a steady and lucrative one.”
I wish the tears slipping out of the corners of my eyes and trailing down my cheeks could dissolve me. Could ease this feeling of awful, aching failure in my chest.
“You can’t avoid growing up, Tilly,” Mom says, voice softer now. “The sooner you accept that, the better. You need to get a plan. At least tell me you’ll seriously start thinking about it over the next few days and we’ll revisit the topic on our next call.”
“Okay,” I whisper. It’s a lie and we both know it.
“Talk to Mona. She’s a wealth of information. Look at all she’s accomplished. That could be you. If you applied yourself.”
The hurt morphs into an angry monster at the base of my throat, snapping its jaws. Apply myself? All I ever do is try. I try so hard I’m practically turning my brain inside out from it. But the results don’t look like those Mona has delivered and are automatically wrong.
“I have to go,” I say, voice cracking.
“Tilly—”
“Love you. Bye.”
With the world’s most aggressive click, I end the call and chuck my phone to the foot of the bed. I then proceed to have a teeny-tiny tantrum, kicking my legs into the mattress.
Is this how it’s supposed to be? Is every conversation with my mother supposed to make me feel like shit? Am I supposed to spend my life as Mona’s lackluster comparison? Live in the shadow of a person people can point to and say,That. That right there is what your potential could have made. Shame you wasted it.
Pulling a pillow over my head, I bite my teeth into it and let out a hoarse shriek.
“Are you okay?”
I jolt up to sitting like a vampire awakening from a coffin—very cute and attractive, I’m sure—and find Ollie leaning in the doorway looking devastating in his all-black clothes and his annoyingly gorgeous face.
I blink at him for a moment, his question doing a loop-de-loop around my brain.AmI okay? Not really. And it’s relatively mortifying how many times Ollie’s had to ask me that question. Apparently, I’m never okay. I’m a directionless letdown of a daughter who can’t plan for a future and has no motivation outside of pastries, coffee, and validation from internet strangers. Probably not an ideal mental health status.
Years of trial by failure have taught me that people usually ask if you’re okay or how you’re doing with the expectation that you won’t answer them with anything deeper thanI’m good! How are you?Which most of the time is a bald-faced lie, and it’s an exhausting social rule to follow. Yet, it’s what I almost say to Ollie. The false words are on the tip of my tongue, but they turn sour as I take in the earnest way he’s looking at me, his eyes slowly roaming across my face.
“No,” I finally squeak out, shaking my head. “I’m not really okay. But I know I will be.”
Ollie’s eyes narrow as he studies me, then he nods, satisfied by whatever conclusion he comes to. “Of course you will,” he says, straightening his shoulders and fiddling with the cuffs of his shirt. “And it’s also okay that you’re not okay right now.”
My breath catches in my throat as I stare at him. It’s one of those terrifying and special moments where someone says something so simple yet validating that instant tears prick at my eyes. That easy but genuine phrase punching right into my chest and squeezing my heart, threatening to crush anywalls I have up because I suddenly feel hopelessly safe to fall apart.
I don’t know what to say and, for once in my life, I don’t blurt out the first nonsense that comes to mind. I’m starting to become more comfortable with the silences that fall between us.
The lack of stimulation used to make me want to turn my skin inside out, but that was before I realized how much there was to notice in the quiet moments with Oliver. The tiny flare of his nostrils with each inhale. The movement of his barely there Adam’s apple every time he swallows. The way his charcoal-black eyelashes sweep against the tops of his cheeks with every blink.
Our silences let me learn these crucial details. The ones I’ll think about when this summer is over.
“Would you like to work together?” Ollie asks suddenly, and a bit loudly for him.
I tilt my head, mind still hovering between the clouds of my thoughts, shooting him a confused look.
He clears his throat, little splotches of color blooming on his cheekbones. “Obviously, no pressure if you don’t want to. I was just thinking you could write and I’ll edit some photos.”
