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 gotten 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.