How to Be Brave

by E. Katherine Kottaras

  * * *

  Dad bought me some cold press illustration boards and a new set of gouache paints, which was what I had asked for. Considering I missed a good fifteen hours of Marquez’s class this semester, I have a lot of catching up to do. Five paintings and a seven-page reflection paper. And now I have to finish it all in a week.

  It moves slowly, this act of creation. I try to make it meditative, like Lee Mullican described. I try to just make the canvas appear, but I’m rusty. I put oil on the canvas, but there’s nothing there. I have nothing to say. I don’t know how to make the metaphysical real.

  Maybe I should call up Evelyn and enjoy one more round with the brownies. That would get the juices flowing. That would get this project done.

  Ugh. I know that’s a very bad idea, for multiple reasons.

  Reason #1: Ever since the party, I’ve been blowing Evelyn off. She’s texted at least six times that she wants to get together, but I’ve been lying and telling her I’m sick. Which is kind of true. Technically speaking, I’m afflicted with something bad, like a severely allergic reaction to drugs and other human beings.

  Reason #2: Evelyn’s sweet and all, but I can only take so much of her. She’s so far on the edge of not caring about anything—school, college, family, state and federal laws—that she wears me out. Without Liss around to balance her out, I don’t know how much of her I can take.

  And then there’s Reason #3: I made a promise to myself not to get high anymore.

  Shit. Now, why’d I go and do that?

  I check my phone. Evelyn hasn’t texted since the day before Christmas Eve.

  This was our last conversation:

  Her: hey what’s up?

  Me: Nothing. Sick. You? (I refuse to misspell my texts.)

  Her: nm. get 2gether?

  Me: Sorry. Can’t. Achoo.

  Her: ok. feel bettr. merry xmas.

  Me: You too.

  And that was it. I haven’t seen her in two weeks. Anyway, it would be just a bit awkward to text her out of the blue and say, I want brownies. I want to get high.

  So I sketch and I paint and sketch and paint, but after a full day’s work, I have nothing—a few ideas and one messed-up canvas—hopefully I can paint over it tomorrow. And hopefully I can fill up the other four with something respectable.

  I pull out the list. #6. Learn how to draw, like Mom.

  I need to do this. It’s as much for me as it is for her.

  I made a promise.

  * * *

  I pack up all of Mom’s Lee Mullican papers and carry them to the basement, and then I head back to my room. I have no other place to work. Mom had a studio she worked out of, but we closed it up when she died.

  I shove my bed out from the center of the room against the wall. I push aside my desk, pile up my dirty clothes that cover the floor, and stuff them into my closet.

  I put on my favorites: Lorde and Jack White and First Aid Kit, and yes, even some Taylor Swift, and, of course, Nina Simone. I blast the music, and I force it out.

  I force myself to do this.

  First, I draw faces on my paper. My face. Her face. His face.

  I glance at photos, but mostly I work from memory.

  I copy them onto a canvas. I sketch the lines of our faces, mix the colors with my knife. Cadmium red and yellow ochre with a dab of titanium white turns into my mother’s hair, which is also my hair. Ivory black mixed with burnt sienna and a bit of the yellow becomes my father’s hair.

  Terra rose and cobalt blue for our skin.

  Viridian for our eyes.

  I etch lines like Mullican’s crop circles onto our cheeks. Our eyes fade into our skin. Our jaws fade into the ether. We form a triptych. A blurred map of a lost land.

  I refuse the real. I embrace the abstract.

  I eat bowls of cereal and toast with peanut butter and cold bacon-and-egg sandwiches brought home by my dad, who ignores my locked door.

  I sleep in two-hour spurts and then I wake up and paint again.

  I am outer world and inner world.

  I am energy.

  I am vision.

  I am Lee Mullican.

  I am Diana Melas.

  I am Georgia Askeridis.

  * * *

  On the sixth day, I go to bed at eight A.M. after a full night of painting my last canvas, and I sleep for sixteen hours straight. I wake up to the sounds of firecrackers and horns.

  Oh right, New Year’s Eve. I squint in the dark at the clock. Midnight. I guess I missed the countdown. Maybe Dad knocked on my door, maybe not. It doesn’t matter. All I know is that the worst year of my life is over. Hallelujah.

  I turn on the light, but the rods and cones in my eyeballs protest. I’m groggy and starving and surrounded by a mess. Even though I put down old towels, I dripped paint all over the carpet. I should have used a tarp. Dad’s probably going to kill me when he sees this.

  Nothing I can do about that now.

  I feel like I spent the last six days dreaming, but when I look, the paintings are really there. I don’t know if they’re good. I don’t care, really. I see them, and they’re mine. They’re the first real productive thing I’ve done in months. Or maybe ever.

  I reach to my nightstand and check my phone for the first time in a week.

  Three messages, all from Evelyn.

  Her, four days ago: u better?

  Her, two days ago: hello? call me. im worried about u.

  Her, yesterday: did u see insta? u ok, georgia? call me if you need to talk.

  Instagram? Why the hell would I be on Instagram? Like I could give a shit.

  I don’t want to go on Instagram. I don’t want to know what other people are doing. And I certainly don’t want to think about the fact that, come Monday, only a few short days away, I have to actually face Liss and Daniel and Evelyn and Gregg and Marquez in the living flesh. I don’t want to go back to reality.

  But I can’t help it. Her fucking text has piqued my curiosity. Now I need to know.

  I open Instagram and scroll down.

  There it is, three photos down. I know exactly why Evelyn texted me.

  There’s a beach, a sunset, bare feet. Skinnydipping! Second time in three weeks. #life #love #friends.

  And she’s tagged four people: Daniel Antell, Felicia Carter Kevin Lee, Rosie Cabrillo.

  She did #5—again, and without me—and even worse, with Daniel. And that probably means she also did #15, with Daniel. I bet she kissed him. I bet they’re together now. I mean, she tagged him first in the damn post.

  It’s really not okay.

  So much for new beginnings.

  So much for positive thoughts.

  I reach into my bag and pull out the list.

  Do Everything? Be Brave?

  Fuck it all.

  I rip up the list into a dozen tiny pieces, and then I throw it in the trash.

  I turn off all the lights and dig my head under the pillow. I scream into the mattress in a lame attempt to drown out the blasts of celebration that reverberate through the city.

  Sorry, Mom. I failed you.

  * * *

  This is also what it was like:

  She had curled up on the couch,

  three blankets over her near-naked body,

  the TV blaring, with Ellen or Dr. Oz or Alex Trebek.

  It didn’t matter. It was noise on the screen,

  and she wasn’t listening.

  She had destroyed them all.

  She worked for months on them,

  her canvases. She’d sketched and planned

  and worked and worked, but then,

  it wasn’t right. None of it.

  So she blacked them out and came home.

  I’m done, she said. There’s nothing left.

  And: They’ll forget me when I’m gone.

  And: I’m almost gone.

  She was fever and chills, sweat and tremor.

  I could blame it on what we didn’t know:

  the sepsis in her
veins, the infection as insidious as fear.

  But it only made her speak what was true.

  I’m the broken one, she said. Everyone knows it.

  I’m their mirror, a reminder of their own deep sorrows,

  how far down they’re buried in their old, hurt souls.

  There’s nothing left for my art to prove.

  I begged my father.

  There’s nothing I can do, he said.

  I was the one who called her doctor,

  told him she was sick again,

  that she wasn’t making sense.

  But it was different this time.

  The urge to destroy is also a creative urge.

  It was different this time

  because she knew exactly what was coming.

  She knew it was the last time,

  for her.

  Part Two

  12

  I trudge through the snow with my art case by my side. I’m weighed down on all sides, textbooks pulling me backward, squeezed by the many layers of winter clothes—two sweaters, a down coat, scarf, hat, and gloves, all black. (I’ve given up on fashion.) Two inches of snow and a windchill of twenty-five. In April. First day of spring was two weeks ago. Oh, Chicago, you sadistic city. When I was a kid, my dad only read the d’Aulaires myths to me at bedtime. I think it was the only way he could think of to try to make me Greek. My favorite was about Hades, lord of the underworld, who captured Persephone while her mother, Demeter, cried above. I liked the idea of the pomegranate seeds, how the cold, hard winters were caused by Demeter’s angst during Persephone’s time in hell. The freezing wind slaps my face. It seems as though Demeter is especially pissed this year.

  I push myself forward into what is nearly a blizzard. Of all the places my dad could have chosen to move to, he chose Chicago? He had sun and water and mountains and olive trees, and he chose this? A city full of congestion and potholes and snow that turns to giant piles of slush? I know he left for a better life. My mom liked to remind me of that—of the sacrifices he made so that I wouldn’t live in poverty like he did. But so many Greeks went to Australia and Florida. Not my dad. He had to come where winter rules most of the year.

  I walk up to this building, Webster High School, which is my Own Personal Hell. It’s like I’m Persephone; I’m the one stuck here with no way out. Today is going to be like every other, where I spend my days ducking in and out of classes, talking to no one, my hood tied tight around my jaw. Evelyn transferred to Choices mid-January after she was caught selling pot. We text occasionally, but we never actually speak. I miss her, but she’s also part of a time in my life that I wish I could forget.

  Liss and Daniel returned from their trip tanned, blissed out on Belize, and chummier than ever. They won’t make eye contact with me, yet I could hardly get through the entire month of January without hearing about their trip: from strangers in the hallway (“Oh my God, the rain forest! Could you imagine?”), from our crappy little school newspaper (“Central America Biology Expedition: Exclusive Interview of Environmental Heroics!” Hyperbole much?), and even from Marquez (“So, Mr. Antell, did you stay out of trouble? No smuggling illicit substances in prehistoric vases, I hope.”). Liss and Daniel are always together, and usually, Avery and Chloe and their respective boyfriends are not far behind.

  The other thing is that Avery and Chloe are on this new mission to, and I quote, “be nice to everyone. To end the madness of high school gossip.” That was in the paper, too. I guess Liss has bought into this PR stunt. She’s with them all the time. And despite the fact that they’ll smile and wave at me, I refuse to believe it. And Liss refuses to talk to me.

  I’m alone, but that’s nothing new. It was like that before Liss entered my life. I should have known it would be like that again.

  It’s also been months since I turned in my project Monday morning, 8:03 A.M. on the dot, per Marquez’s instructions that were relayed from my dad to me. But he never said anything about what I did, just put a checkmark in the book and handed it back to me a week later. He probably just figures he was wrong about me. He’s probably sorry he ever sat me down on a bench in forty-degree weather.

  It’s fine.

  My sole purpose in life is now this: Get Through Senior Year. One more month. That’s it. Walk through the door, go to class #1 (Twentieth-Century World History), sit down, do my work, leave, rinse, repeat (times twenty-nine more days).

  The only thing I have—the only thing I like—is my art. I draw every day, and I occasionally paint on the weekends.

  It’s not for the grade.

  It’s not part of the overarching Get Through Senior Year project.

  I actually enjoy my time alone in my room, immersed in my own projects, learning new techniques off YouTube. It’s the only time I enjoy being alone.

  I was wait-listed by the University of Illinois Urbana–Champaign, but I’m getting comfortable with the thought of staying at home, working at the restaurant, and going to city college. I’ve been spending a lot of time with my dad. Well, at least in the same room as my dad. We don’t talk much. Not that there’s much to say. I spend afternoons at the front of the restaurant, studying my chem homework (I think I can, I think I can), sketching, and working the register while my dad preps and cleans and cooks. I know he likes having me there, and I know he can use the help.

  In return, he gives me enough money to pay for my classes at the Soul Power Yoga studio, of all places. Ironically, it’s the one thing from the list I’ve kept with. I’ve become somewhat addicted to the place, going to tribal yoga and the other basic yoga classes. It’s about the only time, other than when I’m painting, that my brain is not replaying that night with Gregg. It’s about the only time I can breathe.

  I push open the door. The outside air suffocates me with its chill, but the air inside these hallways is worse. I’ve stopped using my locker since the location smack-dab between Daniel and Liss is the worst kind of asphyxiation imaginable. I head straight to history. I take a seat in the front row, pull out my notebook, and start copying the agenda from the board.

  I’m a good girl now.

  Just like my father wanted.

  * * *

  Daniel’s standing at Zittel’s door when I get there for second-period chemistry. He’s leaning against the door frame with his arms crossed and hair mussed, looking all GQ-ish, and I’m so mad at myself for fucking it up with him. Liss deserves him. And I mean that in the best possible way. They’re both good people, and beautiful, too. They make a pretty couple.

  I just about bolt. I could hide in the bathroom for a few minutes, tell Zittel I’m having lady issues to shut him up about me being tardy—but then Daniel looks me in the eye and smiles, his signature smile, warm and kind.

  “Georgia! Finally. I found you. Here.” He hands me a folded sheet of paper. “I can never catch you in Marquez’s class. You always disappear right when the bell rings. Meet me at Ellie’s after school, okay? We need to talk.”

  I open my mouth to say something, but I’m choking on the toxic air of Zittel’s ammonia solution seeping out from the classroom, mixed with a healthy dose of absolute shock.

  “See you later,” he says.

  And then he bolts.

  I stumble to my desk and open the paper.

  Three words:

  She misses you.

  What is he doing? Meet him at Ellie’s? Is it just going to be him? Or will Liss be there, too? Why is he getting involved?

  I haven’t learned much from Zittel, but I do know this: Never mix certain chemicals, like ammonia with bleach, because the subsequent vapors could knock you dead.

  I miss Liss, too, but I don’t know if it’s worth it—the two of us in the same room at the same time. And with Daniel in the mix as well.

  We might very well need emergency assistance.

  * * *

  I avoid making eye contact with Daniel, but I can feel him staring at me over Marquez’s balding head. Now that it’s nearing the end of the
year, Marquez has pretty much stopped teaching and he lets us do whatever we want, as long as we’re there and turn in a set amount of pieces every two weeks, and as long as we keep sketching.

  I try to focus on my Sharpies—black and gold and red—on this rhythmic, patterned piece that requires my very careful attention. It’s too hard, though. My hand is shaking. I have too many questions in my head. Fifty-two minutes until Ellie’s.

  I put aside my project and pull out my chem book. Zittel told us today that if we get a C on the rest of our tests, we can get a C in the class. The next big one is two days away. I guess a bunch of us are failing. Big surprise, considering the man can’t teach to save his life. Here’s hoping he curves the scores.

  I open to the homework. This is what it says:

  Practice Questions: Write the balanced equations for the following reactions.

  1. Na + H2O → NaOH + H2

  2. C2H6 + O2 → CO2 + H2O

  3. Ammonium nitrate decomposes to yield dinitrogen monoxide and water.

  4. Ammonia reacts with oxygen gas to form nitrogen monoxide and water.

  5. How many grams of ammonia, NH3, can be made from 250 grams of N2(g)?

  And on, and on, and on.

  It’s a fucking foreign language.

  But hell, it gets my mind off Daniel for a bit. I’m moving letters and carrying numbers and determining some kind of solution, even though I have no idea if the solutions are correct. Zittel said we had to at least try, so that’s what I’m doing.

  I look up at the clock. Five minutes left.

  I can’t help glancing at Daniel, who feels my gaze. He looks up from his project, gives me an enthusiastic thumbs-up, and mouths, “Ellie’s!”

  Hollow. Pit. In. Stomach. Growing.

  “Miss Askeridis,” Marquez yells across the room. “May I speak with you after class?”

  Ugh. Now what.

  I look back over at Daniel, who is shaking his head. “Not today,” he mouths.

  “Sorry, sir,” I respond. “Can’t today. Have an appointment.”

  But Marquez caught Daniel’s silent directive, so he responds accordingly, “Ah. A hot date with Mr. Antell?” Oh. God. No. Don’t be a smart-ass now, Marquez. “Well, that can wait.” He glances at Daniel and then back at me. “This can’t.”