Starfish

by Akemi Dawn Bowman

  Elouise wiggles in the chair to our left like she’s doing a victory dance. She raises her glass in the air. “Good job, Kiko.”

  “Thanks.” I grin. I’ve never seen her so happy, and certainly never toward me.

  Brandon growls and covers his face in his hands. “I can’t believe this.” He pulls his hands away, laughing loudly like he’s forgotten any rules about volume. “I should have known Kiko would be good at board games. Do you remember that time at Charleston Grove when—” His face falls immediately. His jaw clamps shut.

  Elouise stands up and leaves the room.

  Brandon waits about two and a half seconds before he gets up and follows her to another room in the house.

  “What just happened?” I’m watching Jamie carefully because he looks startled. I feel like I’ve seen into a door I wasn’t supposed to. I know where Charleston Grove is—I’d been there a few times as a kid. They have live music and festivals, and lots of families take picnics there. But I have no idea why it would upset Elouise so much.

  Jamie rubs his neck like he has an itch. Muted shouting starts from his parents’ bedroom.

  “Do you want to go for ice cream?” Jamie asks almost desperately.

  We get into his car, but he doesn’t drive to get ice cream—he drives to the neighborhood park. When I look over at him, his blue eyes darkened by the lack of lights, he looks stoic and frightened.

  “Are you okay?” I ask. It feels weird, like we’ve traded places. I’m usually the one who looks scared. I’m usually the one who looks like the world is about to split in half.

  “I don’t want to lie to you. I don’t. But what’s going on with my parents—it’s not my story to tell.” His voice cracks in the dark. When he turns his head, I know he’s looking at me, even though his expression is lost in the shadows.

  “Is it about me?” I ask softly. When he doesn’t move, I add, “If your mom hates me, I’d rather know. I don’t want to stay in her house if I’m making your parents fight.”

  “It’s not about you, okay?” Jamie’s voice is loud—borderline shouting even.

  It doesn’t feel good to be yelled at by anyone, but especially not Jamie. I turn away from him, but I can see his body relax in the corner of my eye. He’s caught himself.

  He reaches for my hand but finds my knee instead. “I’m sorry.” I feel his finger move in small circles. Okay, maybe he meant to find my knee. “Look, I know it’s not fair, but can we not talk about this anymore? I don’t know how much time we’ve got left, and I’d rather talk about superheroes, or Hiroshi, or Brightwood, or . . .” His fingers stop moving, but they don’t leave my knee.

  “Or what?” The noise comes from me, but it doesn’t sound like it. My voice is all high-pitched and raspy and far, far away.

  “Or we don’t have to say anything,” he says, his voice smoky. “Can we just . . . sit for a while?”

  I look down at my hands. I wish I knew how to help, but how can I when he won’t tell me what’s bothering him?

  I’ve always felt like I desperately needed to say my feelings out loud—to form the words and get them out of me, because they’ve always felt like dark clouds in my head that contaminate everything around them. But maybe Jamie feels better keeping his words in. Maybe it’s how he keeps his own clouds from growing.

  When I look back up his eyes are soft and his lips are parted, and then I understand. He doesn’t need to share his feelings—he needs the company. Because sometimes when the world doesn’t make sense, it just feels better if there’s someone around to make it a little less lonely.

  Jamie is always trying to be what I need. Right now I want to be what he needs.

  “Okay,” I say, settling into the chair.

  He nods back, and it feels like enough for now.

  We listen to the radio for twenty minutes, and then we drive back to his house and find his parents in separate rooms pretending as if nothing happened.

  • • •

  I draw two warriors with swords made of starlight, pointing their weapons at each other and drawing lines in the sand.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  On the first day with Hiroshi, Jamie sits in the café while I sketch in the studio. On the second day, Jamie wanders around the shopping center while I paint shards of broken cerulean glass onto the stretched canvas. On the third day, Jamie drops me off and goes back home while I paint a woman with milky-white skin and even whiter hair. On the fourth day, I take my own car and I drive myself.

  It feels like a big step, doing things on my own. It’s scary, but it makes me feel stronger, somehow. I feel like my feet are heavier than I realized and if the wind blows I won’t be knocked over. Except it’s not my feet that feel strong; it’s my heart.

  Hiroshi stands behind me, his hands clasped behind his back and his neck dipped low. “Mmm. Don’t be afraid to make mistakes. When you’re too careful with color, you’re holding back. Don’t hold back. Say what you want to say.”

  With a palette balanced in my left hand, I press the tip of my brush into the gray splotch of acrylic paint. When I sweep the color along the hem of the woman’s torn dress, I know I’m being too careful. I can’t help it—I’m not as wild with a brush as Hiroshi is. He seems to splat paint all over the canvas and somehow it becomes exactly what he wants. It’s like someone scattering puzzle pieces all over a table and putting them together two-by-two all over the place.

  I start from the corners and work my way in. It’s the only way I can be prepared for the bigger picture.

  Hiroshi grunts. “No. This isn’t what you want to say.”

  “I’m trying.” I stuff my bottom lip into my mouth and slouch in the stool.

  “It’s not your technique; it’s your subject.” He picks up my sketchbook and flips through to some of my older drawings. The girl with wings. The girl blending into the trees. “These are pieces of your soul, Kiko. Not this.” He waves his hand at my work in progress. “This is merely practice.”

  I set the palette down on the table, rolling the brush between my fingers. “I don’t understand.”

  He makes his hands into fists and holds them close to his chest. “I want you to tell me a story. Tell me anger. Tell me sorrow. Tell me happiness. Just tell me something that matters to you.”

  My eyes drop to the floor. I can taste salt on my tongue—I bet my tears somehow sucked back into my eyeballs and made their way down my throat. The last thing I want to do is start crying in front of Hiroshi because he told me I’m basically wasting my time with this painting. Maybe he’s expecting too much. Maybe I’m not good enough to paint the way he does.

  Pressing my eyelids together, I breathe slowly and think about how I feel when I sketch. My heart quickens as I sort through my memories, and I try to find the trigger I pull when I think about drawing. I can’t help it—I think about Mom.

  She stands in front of me with a half smile and exhausted eyes. She’s so tired of me; it feels physically painful to be caught in her line of sight. Her blond hair rests on her shoulders in perfect waves, and her arms are crossed together like she’s wearing her armor. My mother—always ready for battle. And then there’s me, standing across from her, desperate for her approval, suffocating with the weight of the past and ridden with anxiety that reminds me I’m just not good enough.

  I look up at Hiroshi. He’s still waiting on a story.

  I swallow. “When I was little, I drew this picture for my mom. A girl in a boat, fishing for stars. It was probably terrible, but I had just learned how to shade with colored pencils, so I thought it was really good. I put it in an envelope and left it on her desk. She kept piling things on it—mail, shopping lists, magazines—and I kept checking on it, to see if she had opened it yet. She hadn’t, but I didn’t want to ask about it because she always made me feel like I was being too needy. One day I went to look for it but it was gone, along with the stack of papers my mom had been collecting. So I finally asked if she had seen it. She said it must have got
ten thrown out with the trash.” I clear my throat and fake a tight smile. “I believed it was an accident for a long time, but a few years after that I tried to show her something else I drew—I can’t remember what—and she made this really weird face and said to me, ‘It’s a lot better than that one you drew of the boat and that girl fishing.’ That’s when I realized she had lied to me. She had opened the envelope. She just didn’t want to admit it, and I still don’t know why.”

  My eyes are watering and my throat is dry, but I’m using up every bit of strength I have not to let my emotions take control.

  Hiroshi raises his fists above his head and releases his fingers like they are fireworks exploding into the room. “There it is! Your story. Your soul. Now paint it.” He goes back to his canvas on the other side of the room.

  I take a minute to calm down, and then I set the brush on the palette, move the unfinished painting to the floor, and open up a blank page in my sketchbook.

  I draw for hours. I’m so consumed by the deliberate pencil marks that I don’t notice my phone is ringing until Hiroshi taps me on the shoulder and makes me jump.

  It’s Jamie, wanting to know when I’m coming home because he wants to go see a movie with me. I tell him I’m leaving as soon as I’ve finished the sketch.

  “It’s important,” I say.

  “Okay,” he says.

  • • •

  I draw a woman wearing an elaborate dress, twirling like she’s made of light and sun. And then I draw a shriveled girl trapped within her shadow. She doesn’t want the light—she just wants her mom.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  We watch a movie about superheroes, which is normally exactly the kind of movie that Jamie and I would gush over for hours together. But I’m acutely aware that I’m the only one gushing. And the only one talking about their day. And the only one saying more than four words at a time.

  Jamie didn’t eat any popcorn, either.

  “I’m sorry I was gone most of the day,” I say when we’re walking along the street right outside the theater. “I didn’t think I was going to be so long, but I had to start over with my painting.”

  “Oh, it’s fine.” His hands are stuffed in his pockets like he’s hiding something he doesn’t want me to read.

  “Were you not hungry?” I ask.

  “Huh?” He looks at me for only a split second.

  I shrug. “You didn’t eat any popcorn. Usually that’s my thing—to think so hard I forget to eat.” I doubt my smile is infectious to anyone at all, but I try one anyway because I want Jamie to cheer up.

  “Oh. No. I was just watching the movie.”

  My feet stomp together. “Seriously? Jamie, what’s wrong? And don’t tell me it’s nothing—I have an honorary degree in trying to keep my feelings a secret.”

  This cracks his temporary shield a little bit. The corner of his mouth turns up. “Is that so?”

  I bounce my chin up and down and scrunch my nose. “Yup.”

  Jamie raises his shoulders but keeps his hands pressed in his pockets. “God, I really don’t want to complain to you about it, because I know your home life sucks.” He glances at me apologetically. “No offense.”

  “None taken.”

  “I just mean that I know things aren’t easy for you. Not that you ever tell me why, or what happened.” He pauses. He’s talking about Uncle Max. “But I can tell, you know?”

  I nod. “So what’s on your mind?”

  “I think I may be making things with my parents worse. I mean, it’s obvious to everyone but them that they should just get divorced. But for whatever stubborn reason, they’re trying to make it work.” His brow furrows. “No, that’s such crap. ‘Make it work.’ What does that even mean? They’re not actually trying to make anything work; they’re just staying in the same house together making each other more and more miserable. Making me miserable.” He shakes his head.

  “Maybe they’re staying together because being a family is important to them?” I offer.

  “If family were so important they wouldn’t be fighting in the first place.” He catches himself. “I shouldn’t be talking about this. It’s their problem, really.”

  I shrug. “You’re allowed to vent about how it makes you feel.”

  “I guess. Anyway, I’m sorry. It’s just been a long day.” He starts to walk again, so I imitate his pace.

  “What did you mean when you said you think it’s your fault?”

  He pushes his tongue into the side of his mouth and pulls a hand out to fidget with his neck. “It’s nothing.” And then he laughs into the humid air. “It’s funny. You came here to get a break from your family, and now I kind of want a break from mine.”

  When we get to the car, he turns toward me and takes both my hands in his. My skin tingles.

  “Kiko, I don’t want you to go back to Nebraska.” The blue in his eyes looks like a pottery glaze. “Stay with me. Stay in California. You don’t have to move back in with your mom and your uncle.”

  I blink, my chest rising and falling because I’m struggling to breathe normally. “I’ve only just applied to Brightwood. I might not even get in.”

  “But I mean, even if you don’t get in, stay here anyway.” He presses my hands together between his. “I know you said you want to just be friends. And I am your friend, and I’ll always be your friend if that’s still what you want, but . . . I care about you, Kiko. I just want to be close to you. I feel like we wasted so much time already.”

  There’s air between us, and something else, too. Something heavy and important—something I don’t understand.

  He wants me to stay in California. My heart wants to explode like red confetti all over the sidewalk. I want to say “yes” to the dream.

  But something stops me. There’s something crawling through my mind like a black insect, causing me to doubt. Because I’m not ready for red confetti and happy endings—I wish I was, but I’m not. I can barely drive to new places alone, or talk to strangers, or walk into art galleries without someone practically holding my hand.

  If I can’t figure out how to live on my own—how to do things on my own—how am I supposed to live at all? I don’t want a crutch. I don’t want someone who feels like they have to take care of me. Someday in the future, my dependency would suffocate him. It might even end up suffocating me, too.

  “If I did that, I’d be dependent on you. I need to figure out where my life is going. I need something that is mine. Otherwise . . .” Otherwise I’ll never fully break away from what my life has always been. I’ll always be attached to it, like a branch that’s growing farther and farther away but it doesn’t matter because its roots are a part of the tree’s roots. I need to be my own tree.

  I don’t want to go back to Nebraska, but the truth is, I have no idea what I’m going to do. I don’t know what I can do; I don’t know what I’m capable of accomplishing all on my own. I don’t know if I’m strong enough to start a new life away from what are equal parts toxic and familiar.

  I need to be strong enough to move away on my own, to pull Mom’s hooks out of my heart, to forget about Uncle Max. I need to be strong enough to carry all the guilt of what happened to my family because of me.

  That’s a lot of strength. I don’t know if I can carry so much weight, but I know I have to try. If I don’t, someday it will destroy me.

  Jamie’s eyes are so pure and honest. “I want to take care of you. I want to make sure you’re okay.”

  If words could be a dagger to the soul, these would be the ones.

  My forehead crumples, and I hold his hands back firmly because I need him to listen. “Thank you for wanting to look out for me. But I don’t want you to take care of me.” I close my eyes and imagine the words I want to say. It surprises me when I actually say them. “I want to take care of myself.”

  I’m not trying to push Jamie away. In fact, there isn’t even a small part of me that’s happy when he lets go of my hands. But I feel like I’ve spent m
ost of my life wishing for someone else’s approval, or relying on their reassurance that I’m living my life the right way. And somewhere along the way, I forgot to care what I thought about myself.

  I feel trapped beneath all the things that make me think less of myself. If my life were a video game, I would have hit the reset button a long time ago.

  Art school is my reset button. And I need to push it by myself. Otherwise I’ll end up in the same cycle as I was before.

  But I don’t know how to explain all of this to Jamie.

  He presses the palm of his hand against his eye like he’s exhausted, but something tells me he’s trying to wipe away his emotions.

  “It was a stupid thing for me to say,” he says with a short laugh. “I don’t know what I’m even talking about. I’m just tired, I think. I’m sorry.” He pulls his lips in and releases them again. “I shouldn’t have said anything. It was a dumb idea.”

  My brain feels frantic, but there’s nothing clever or humorous or even disarming that I can think of to say. Every thought I have seems like it would only make Jamie feel worse. Every thought except one.

  I like you too, Jamie. I want to be with you too.

  But I can’t tell him that. Because I am barely holding my head above water. If I think for a second it will be easier to rely on Jamie than myself, I’ll stuff my head back under the waves and never come up for air again.

  Until he breaks up with me. Or changes his mind. Or meets someone else.

  It’s too much pressure. I can’t ruin us with me. I just can’t.

  We don’t listen to any music on the drive home. We’re too busy listening to our own thoughts.

  • • •

  I draw a boy with a flashlight searching for hope in the dark.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  Mom texts to ask how I’m doing, what I’ve been doing. And I don’t know why I do it, but I send Mom a picture of some of my sketches. I guess there’s a weird part of my inner child that just can’t seem to let go of the idea of a mother who cares.