“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 most 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.
It takes her a few hours, but eventually she does text back. Except she doesn’t say anything about my drawings—she sends three photos of her from when she was younger and asks which one I think is the prettiest.
I’m starting a blog, she texts. I want it to be beautiful.
I tell her I like the second photo best, and then I delete the entire conversation. Because even if I can’t unsend the drawings, I can at least pretend like I didn’t send them in the first place.
It hurts less this way.
? ? ?
I draw a girl shrinking into the grass until she’s hidden by a bed of flowers that are all so much prettier than she is.
CHAPTER FORTY
I’m sketching out some faces, thinking of the perfect color for the hair and eyes, when Hiroshi takes a seat next to me.
He places his elbows on the wooden table and lets out a hum.
I feel myself begin to shrink. “They’re just practice. I know I can do better.”