Page 19 of If You Never Come Back
I hold up the sketch, the scenery that inspired my drawing directly behind it, and take a photo on my phone so I can post it on my Instagram account later tonight. Since February, I’ve doubled the visits to my website. I’ve been commissioned to paint a handful of portraits, and last month I was hired to illustrate a children’s book. That will be a long-term project with multiple rounds of revisions and could lead to more illustration work. Plus, my digital designs and watercolor landscapes have been selling steadily on my website, too.
My stomach still takes a tumble whenever I see glowing comments on my site or my work trending on social media. It really does feel like my career as an artist is taking off, and I’m more inspired than ever.
The most exciting part? Wes’s portraits are bestsellers. After he gushed about them, he suggested I sell them. When I listed them, every single one of them sold—except for the charcoal one, my favorite, and one of the watercolors, which I want to keep for myself.
He packs my sketch pad in his backpack, handling it carefully as if it’s his most prized possession. I have to look away, I’m so taken aback. No guy has ever shown this level of thoughtfulness for my work before. We hike a quarter-mile up the trail to another waterfall. I sketch some more, he takes more photos, and we head back to the car.
On the drive home, my phone rings.
“Hang on, it’s my mom.”
When I answer, she immediately dives into an unclear and rambling question about her computer.
“Anakko, I tried to skip your brother, but it won’t turn on.”
Technology and my mother are long-time foes. Ever since I was a little kid, she’s always had an impossible time working anything with a battery or an electrical cord.
“You mean Skype, Mom.”
She sighs. “Yes, Skype. That’s what I said. Okay, so I keep trying to skip your brother, but I just keep recording videos of myself. I don’t know what I’m doing wrong.”
I bite my lip to keep from laughing. “You’re in the wrong program. Click on that blue icon with the white ‘S’ in the middle.”
“Icon?” She’s definitely frowning, her face an inch from her giant computer screen.
“Mom, just look at the computer screen. Then look at the left half toward the bottom. See the big ‘S’ I was talking about?”
Silence follows, then she hums. “It’s not there.”
I swallow back a groan. I love her to the moon and back, but talking her through a technology-related task requires a heroic level of patience I don’t possess.
“You’ll have to do a search for it then.”
“A what?”
I groan and laugh at once. Wes peers over, his face scrunched in a concerned frown. He mouths, “need help?”
I shake my head. “Mom, I showed you how to do that when I stopped by the house the other week. Don’t you remember?”
She mutters something about not remembering, and I take another breath, prepared to spend the rest of the half-hour ride explaining to my technology-illiterate mother how to do a basic search on her computer.
Before I can speak, Wes rests his hand on my knee. “Want me to give it a try?”
I let out an exasperated sigh, then shake my head. “It’s fine.”
His frown turns incredulous, then he presses the speakerphone button. “Mrs. Alexander?”
Immediately she stops chattering. “Who was that?”
“This is Wes Paulsen, your daughter’s…”
When he trails off, I panic. Yes, we’re living together. Yes, we’ve declared our feelings for each other. Yes, we openly call each other boyfriend and girlfriend. But we’ve never once talked about what to say about each other to our families.
“Anak, is this your boyfriend?”
Heat flashes up my chest to my neck, all the way to my cheeks. Somehow I’m sweating in the thirty-degree temperature.
I let out a couple of “ums” and “uhs” before Wes chuckles and says, “I am indeed your daughter’s boyfriend. I’m Wes, it’s nice to meet you.”
