Someone to Love

by Melissa de la Cruz

  “It’s one of the only things that makes me happy.”

  It’s true. Despite constantly feeling like I’m struggling with my work, I feel like I could be a great painter one day. It’s the one thing that helps me settle my mind. I can forget about my body when I’m making art. I can put my pain on the canvas.

  “That could be a good direction for you,” she says. “But I’d like to see you put it to critical use in your education. You might consider going to a traditional university and taking art and design classes. It would give you more options.”

  “Honestly, I don’t even know if I want to go to college right now...” I say. My voice trails off as I try to think about the future. It’s a big black hole.

  “Is everything okay?” Mrs. Cline asks.

  “Oh sure,” I lie, which causes my stomach to knot up.

  “It’s normal to get jitters about college,” she says, giving me a reassuring smile. “Have you talked to your parents about studying art?”

  “They want me to keep my options open. I think they’re afraid of what a struggle it is to be an artist. They don’t think being a painter is practical. Or important.”

  Mrs. Cline leans forward in her chair like she’s excited that she might actually get to discuss something other than class schedules or graduation requirements.

  “Have you asked yourself why you want to be a painter?”

  That’s something I thought LeFeber might ask, not Mrs. Cline, the high school counselor.

  “It’s what I like to do with my free time,” I say. “But I haven’t been getting much work done lately. I’ve been too busy this year. I feel...stuck.”

  I think about painting.

  I love how painters are able to observe their surroundings and combine them and transform them in new ways. I love the colors of the paint and the textures of the brushstrokes. I love how when I work deeply for hours on end I can just forget my thoughts and exist as I paint. I love how painting helps channel emotions and remakes them into something beautiful.

  “I’ve heard this many times,” Mrs. Cline says. “It sounds like a motivation problem. There has to be an underlying motivation for why you want to pursue this path. The reason I bring it up is that motivation connects the part of your brain that feels with the parts responsible for action. Once you identify motive, then you can start taking the action required to achieve success.”

  Her words sound like psychobabble at first, but I know she’s right. If I could only figure out what I want to say with my art, maybe I could get over this slump of not being able to finish anything. Sure, I’ve been drawing and painting, but that’s not the same.

  It’s not what’s going to get me into the show at that gallery.

  “Some people don’t discover their motivation for many years. But you’re young and smart, and I bet you can figure it out. Is it developing the skill, the technique? Is it simply a love for art? Maybe it’s the creativity required. Or, is there something even deeper?”

  “Like what?” I say.

  “I don’t know. You tell me,” she says.

  Frida was injured in an accident that severely limited her mobility, but she didn’t condemn herself to never walking again or to hiding her injury. She decorated her shoes. Embroidered them with gorgeous, brightly colored flowers. She laced her boots with ribbon and tied bells to them.

  Everyone knew she was coming. She didn’t hide under her clothes.

  I’ll never be as brave as her, but maybe I can try to do the same. Maybe I can use art to make something beautiful out of broken things.

  “Thanks, Mrs. Cline. You’ve given me a lot to think about,” I say, standing up from my chair and heading toward her office door.

  Mrs. Cline is right. I have to figure out more of my life, or I’m just going to be lost until I’m forty or fifty years old. I need to discover my motivation. I don’t want to be some guy’s trophy or the daughter of a famous politician my whole life. I want my name to mean something. I want to make the world more beautiful.

  I hope I get to talk to LeFeber at his show.

  As I head out of the office, I’m feeling more determined than ever to finish my portfolio when I run smack into Antonia. She almost knocks me into the wall. Apart from her sniping at me in passing, we haven’t spoken since she came to the house totally pissed off at me, and I’m totally paralyzed about what she’s going to say this time. Antonia can hold a grudge.

  “What are you doing here?” Antonia asks, blocking the doorway.

  “I have to get to class. I’m going to be late.”

  “I didn’t know you cared so much about school.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” I ask defensively.

  Anger surges up my throat. Why does she care about anything I do? She practically pretends like I don’t exist at school except for when she’s telling me off.

  “It seems like you’re more interested in your social life... I mean, look at you,” she says, crossing her arms and looking me up and down. “You’re a Cinderella story. Dating Zach Park. Great job. You’re in with the popular crowd. None of them even knew you existed until you started dating him. You must be really proud of yourself, Liv.”

  Is she jealous? My life definitely isn’t worth being jealous over, but I don’t try to explain. I know how Antonia and I both get when we’re angry. There’s no use.

  I try to move past her again, but she doesn’t budge. She’s going to make me listen to her. I have no choice. “Stop, Antonia. I don’t need to hear—”

  “The shy, awkward artist daughter of a famous politician who’s never fit in with her perfect family somehow gets herself a celebrity boyfriend, then dumps her best friend so she can climb the social ranks by sucking up to the people she used to complain about when they wouldn’t give her the time of day.”

  “You know that’s not what happened,” I say, trying to defend myself. “You were the one who pushed me away. I wish I’d never gone! I didn’t even want to be there.”

  “I didn’t leave you. You left me,” Antonia says. “Now you have the famous boyfriend. You want to hang out with his glamorous friends. I get it.”

  “That’s not how it is,” I try to explain.

  “You could’ve explained what happened when I came over to your house, but then you blamed me for leaving the lounge and going home without telling you.”

  I’m breathing hard. I’m shaky. My skin feels clammy. I need to eat something for my blood sugar, but I don’t want to gain any weight. It’s the one thing I can control.

  “It was a bad night...” I want to tell her what happened in the car with Jackson, but I don’t want anyone in the office to overhear us. “I have an explanation.”

  “You don’t need to explain,” she says, cutting me off. “Your actions have been speaking pretty loudly. I see how easily I’m replaced. I’ve seen you fawning over Felicity and that dumb art show. It’s been your plan the whole time. To get in with Zach and his crowd. Congratulations. You’ve done it. You’re such a fake. Everything about you is fake.”

  “In case you haven’t noticed, I haven’t been living it up,” I snap. “That was never my plan. You’re the one who stopped talking to me. You’ve been ignoring me.”

  “Fake,” she says, elbowing her way around me. “You and your fake friends.”

  Everything I do or say comes out wrong. Everything about me is wrong. My emotions are wound around the knot in my stomach like rubber bands. I can’t take this right now. I finally have one moment where I start feeling that this year might not be a total disaster, then the next I’m attacking my best friend. Maybe our relationship isn’t salvageable. Maybe I waited too long. I close my eyes and imagine my insides rotting and decaying, turning black and crumbling. I’m becoming the skeleton girl from my portrait. Nothing left except an empty rib cage.

  A secretary looks up as tears
start to run down my cheeks, so I leave the office as fast as I can and text Mom to come pick me up from school because I’m feeling sick.

  When Mom drops me off at home and leaves for a meeting, I go straight to the kitchen and grab the food with the most fat and sugar I can find. Peanut butter, raw cookie dough from the fridge, candy bars my parents bought from a school fund-raiser, anything and everything I can get my hands on that my parents won’t really miss.

  I eat until I’m so full I want to die.

  This body needs to be punished.

  It makes me feel sick. I’m shaking and cold. And now I’m feeling guilty for letting my emotions control my eating. I lean over my toilet and wait for the weight to magically lift from my stomach and disappear, but nothing comes out.

  I poke my finger down my throat, gag and heave.

  The food begins to come up. It comes up over and over again. The act of vomiting is so forceful that my entire body heaves and shakes. Tears form at the edges of my eyes. The smell of bile cuts through the bathroom, stinging my nostrils. I just want everything out.

  I want to be empty. I want to start over.

  I heave again, gagging on my own bile, but nothing comes up this time except for painful memories. Those don’t purge. They just swirl around in my head while my stomach burns from the knot still on fire in me.

  I slam the lid closed and try to catch my breath.

  I feel disgusting. I am disgusting.

  I grab the straight razor wrapped in the bottom of my makeup bag. Nothing else can work as well to get the anger out. I’m angry with myself for being a terrible friend. Angry at Antonia. Angry at my parents for creating this big gray storm cloud over my junior year. Angry at my body for its disobedience. I need this fog of anger to lift.

  The blade gleams in the fluorescent light like a silver fish that wants to leap onto my skin and swim along the surface of my thigh.

  I scrunch up my skirt over my waist and pull the skin tight between my index finger and thumb. Then I push the blade down through my skin and slowly pull across my thigh. I watch the pain drip. Dark red blood slowly pools around the blade then slides down my pale leg, dripping down the toilet onto the white tile floor.

  And then I snap out of it. I’m back. I’m me again. In control.

  There’s blood everywhere. On me. On the floor, all over the toilet seat.

  It drips and drips.

  I’m terrified. I’ve never cut myself like this.

  I grab piles of toilet paper and press against the wound. Images of Jackson pushing me against his car seat and trying to reach up my skirt flood my mind. His hand touches my inner thigh, lingers and brushes against my underwear, his body so heavy on top of mine that I can barely find the air to breathe.

  I lean back and try to think about Zach. I need to see him—he’ll make me feel better—but I suddenly feel like I might cut our relationship so deep that it’ll bleed out like a fatal wound.

  t w e n t y - f i v e

  “A person learns how to love himself through the simple acts of loving

  and being loved by someone else.”

  —Haruki Murakami

  I can’t take it anymore. I’ve lost Antonia. I can’t lose Sam too. He’s my oldest friend.

  It’s the silence I hate. We’ve been through deaths of family members together. We’ve been through graduations. Through arguments and road trips and summers you couldn’t find one of us without the other.

  I figured I would start with Sam. He’s easier to talk to than Antonia after a fight. Less stubborn. I sent him a text to meet me at the harbor. Everything is blue. The sky. The water. The reflections on boats. Nothing feels right without Sam in my life.

  When Sam walks up to the bench, I stand up and hug him. He’s quiet at first and his hug feels stiff, but when I apologize he starts to loosen up.

  “Please, Sam. Please. You have to forgive me.”

  Sam deserves better. I acted like such a loser. An apology doesn’t seem like enough to make up for how I acted. I was confused about our relationship, but I was also jealous that I wasn’t the only girl in his life, so I led him on then blew him off.

  I never tried to make things better.

  I start crying. It’s embarrassing, but I can’t stop.

  He’s standing there, wearing his sunglasses, trying to hide his face. He probably doesn’t want me to see how little he cares about me now. This is probably hopeless.

  “My behavior has been so awful.” I wipe my nose on my sleeve. “You deserve better, and I want to do better. I miss our friendship. I miss you. Please forgive me.”

  I fight the tears. I feel my face redden, and I try not to care who might be watching. “I know I haven’t earned your forgiveness, but please don’t give up on me like Antonia did. I can’t imagine my life without you in it. I don’t want to lose your friendship.”

  He doesn’t respond. I’m probably scaring him.

  “I’m lonelier than I’ve ever felt in my entire life,” I confess. “I can’t sleep. I can’t focus.”

  “What about Zach?” Sam asks.

  Wiping the tears with the palm of my hand, I tell Sam the truth. “I really like Zach, but I can’t talk to him like I talk to you. He doesn’t know me the same way.”

  “Maybe you should have thought about that before you held my hand last time,” Sam says.

  “I know,” I whisper. “I’m sorry. I seem to disappoint everyone I love. My parents. Antonia. You. It really makes me hate myself.”

  “Jesus,” Sam says. “I didn’t know you felt this bad.”

  Sam lets out a sigh and finally really holds me, and I crumple into his arms, listening to his heartbeat. It’s the comforting kind of hug I’ve needed for so long. The kind that says things are different.

  After a moment, I sit up on the bench and look at him. My eyes are puffy and my vision is blurred from crying, but I can tell that Sam’s face has softened.

  “Of course I did,” I say. “But I didn’t know how to say sorry. I was wrapped up with Zach and the campaign. And when Antonia stopped talking to me, I kind of shut down. It’s not an excuse for how awful I was, but I care about you. I’ve always cared about you.”

  “Liv,” he says. “We’ll always be friends. I’m sorry I’ve been silent for a while. I guess I needed some space. Some time to just step away and stop running after you.”

  He’s right.

  “I guess what it comes down to,” he says, “is you can’t pretend like I’m everything to you and then treat me like I’m someone you can just blow off. I won’t put up with that anymore. Not to punish you. Just because I can’t take it. It’s not cool.”

  “I’m sorry,” I say again, sniffling.

  “Also...” Sam says.

  “What?” I ask.

  I’m ready to plead even more if I have to. I guess friends have to do this sometimes. I’m ready.

  “You’re going to fail science if you don’t start working harder. I saw your grade. It’s pretty awful. You’ve totally tanked the first quarter.”

  And that’s all it takes. We both start laughing.

  He shakes his head and gazes out at the water.

  “Will you help me? Please?”

  I don’t want him to think I’m taking advantage of him. I just need his help. He’s right anyway. I need to get back on track with school. Zach and the election can’t be the only things I focus on. I need to concentrate on making my own dreams happen too.

  He throws an arm around me. “Duh. Haven’t I always?”

  We laugh again. Talking with Sam is so easy. I want to tell him everything. About my depression. About the cutting. About how there are days I can’t go to sleep at night without puking up whatever I ate for dinner.

  “I do a lot on my own,” I say instead.

  I can’t tell him. He’d think I
was disgusting.

  “Of course you do. I don’t mean that,” he says. “You’ve helped me a lot in classes too. It’s what friends do. Oh hey, look!” He points.

  And then Sam laughs even harder, because he spots a crab boat sputtering past that has a fish painted on its hull smoking a cigar and holding a rifle. It’s named The Codfather. I laugh too. At the same time, I cling on to his arm, thinking about more than fixing my relationship with him. He’s there for me, and that’s a revelation, because everything had been feeling so broken. But not everything is fixed, or perfect. My nerves well up, disguising themselves as laughter. As I feel Sam’s warmth and sudden acceptance, I’m excited about seeing LeFeber’s art. Because, if art reveals anything, it’s how much love matters in the world.

  t w e n t y - s i x

  “If you ask me what I came to do in this world, I, an artist, will answer you:

  I am here to live out loud.”

  —Emile Zola

  The LeFeber show is at a private Laguna Beach art gallery set against a hill less than a mile from the water’s edge. The lot is already filled with cars and people greeting each other as Zach pulls in and parks. Everyone’s dressed to the nines in suits, dresses, shoes, handbags and chic eyewear. The women are fashionable in that edgy, artsy way.

  It’s the first time Dad has let me go to an event with Zach.

  I want to look good next to him.

  Cristina and Felicity are going to be here.

  My stomach grumbles. I’ve been fasting for four days.

  I reached my goal. Finally. When I stepped on the scale this morning, I thought I was going to scream. 100 pounds. Double zeros. Put together they almost look like the sign for infinity. It took me a little longer than I thought, but Zach telling me he was falling for me at the campaign announcement was just the motivation I needed. Every meal I skipped, every calorie I worked off. Every day I netted under zero calories.

  It was all worth it.

  I’m totally nervous to meet LeFeber. I have so many questions. How did you find your voice? When did people start to notice your work? Why is making art so hard? And why do I avoid my paintings when not working on them makes me feel like I’m dying?