t w e n t y - f o u r
“Here then at long last is my darkness. No cry of light, no glimmer,
not even the faintest shard of hope to break free across the hold.”
—Mark Z. Danielewski
I’m desperately trying to get my head above water with my grades. It’s only about a month into the second semester, but I feel like a permanent fog has settled over my brain.
I’m sitting in the back of pre-calc, trying to work out some complicated trigonometry problem, when my teacher calls me up to the front of the class and hands me a pink slip of paper. I’m being called out to speak to my counselor, Mrs. Cline, about my senior year schedule. At least I get out of class for a few minutes.
“I know you’re busy with your academics,” she says, looking at my schedule on her computer as I sit down. She rattles off my classes. “Almost all AP or Honors. That’s impressive.”
“I guess,” I say. “It’s not like I’m at the top of my classes.”
Doing well in school is just expected in my family no matter how hard you have to work. It’s status quo. Nothing special.
“Most students tend to expect senior year to be their hardest,” Mrs. Cline says. She’s wearing her bleached blond hair in a stiff hairstyle piled on top of her head. “But after working at this school for twenty years, I can tell you that junior year is certainly the most stressful time for most students. You’ve got your first year of AP classes, SATs to prepare for, researching colleges you may want to attend...”
Just listening to her talk about all the things that I should be thinking about when I spend most of my time focusing on other things is stressing me out.
“And—in your special case—your father running for governor. How are you handling things?” she asks as she pulls up my grades. “I see that you’re doing well in most of your classes. Chemistry is lower than normal, but nothing that can’t be salvaged.”
“I’m working on it,” I explain.
“That’s good to hear. And the campaign?”
I shrug. “It’s the campaign.”
“I hope your father wins his election,” she says. “At the same time, I’d hate to see you leave us early. Would your parents consider making plans to let you stay?”
I look out the window at the campus. Despite all my problems with Antonia and Sam this year, I feel like I was finally getting comfortable here. I don’t want to leave. I don’t know what to say to her, so I just smile weakly.
“Well... We’ve got to build your schedule for next year anyway. Have you thought about what you might want to study in college? That might help you decide.”
“I don’t know,” I say. “My parents want me to go to one of their schools.”
Mrs. Cline peers at me over her glasses. “Is that what you want?”
Do I tell her what I actually want to do? Or what my parents want me to tell her? Is planning for senior year even worth having this conversation if I might have to leave halfway through school? I might as well tell her the truth. It won’t matter anyway.
“I want to study painting.”
“You’re a very talented artist.” She nods.
“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.