“Why did you do it?”
“I don’t know,” she says. “I’ve been trying to figure it out. It’s just this feeling I got … like you didn’t have fun with me anymore. Like I suddenly wasn’t interesting enough. And I didn’t like feeling that way.”
“I don’t really know what happened to me,” I say.
“You just changed. You went from Katie to Kate. And I don’t really think you wanted to take anyone with you.” She shakes her head. “It sucks to be left behind.”
“I felt so lost,” I say.
“And then, what? Mark helped you find yourself?”
“I’m allowed to make other friends.”
“Of course you are. And you’re allowed to switch them out for me like I was just a standin for the real thing the whole time. You’re allowed to replace me, but I’m allowed to be angry about it.”
“I wasn’t trying to replace you,” I say, but even as I get the words out I’m wondering if it’s true.
But now—as Lehna wipes tears off her face—in this moment it’s what’s true. The thought of losing her forever is impossible.
“It’s fine if you make new friends,” she says. “We’re both going to make new friends. For the first time in our lives we aren’t going to live near each other. We aren’t even going to live in the same state. I just don’t understand why it had to happen now. This is the last week of high school, Kate. These are our last days together. They aren’t supposed to be like this.”
I nod.
“I know,” I say. “I’m sorry.”
We stare into our cups. Lehna takes a sip, and I do, too.
“People probably think we’re breaking up or something,” Lehna says.
I smile, wipe the tears off my face, and look around, but I don’t catch anyone paying attention.
“Seems like things are good with Violet,” she says.
Even in the midst of all of this, happiness surges up from some deep place within me.
“Yeah,” I say.
“I’m glad. You guys are gonna be great together.”
“And with Candace?”
She breaks into a slow grin. I recognize her feeling.
*
Brad waves to me as I step inside the gallery.
“Hey,” he says.
I brace myself for his verbal onslaught, but nothing follows.
“Hey?” I say. “That’s all?”
“Long day. Audra left early. Sometimes a boy’s gotta take a break.”
“A break from what?”
“From what everyone expects of me,” he says. “Come on back.”
He leads me through the gallery and up a short flight of stairs, his gait less buoyant than usual. Even his hair is more subdued.
“Welcome to my office,” he says.
It’s a small space with concrete walls, metal file cabinets, and a fluorescent light.
“Cozy.”
“It’s a fucking cell. I think it’s Audra’s idea of a joke.”
“She’s a real sweetheart.”
He snorts.
“I just need you to sign this, saying you’re giving the proceeds of your painting to the Angel Project.”
He hands me a contract.
“Sure,” I say.
“We raised over twenty grand for them.”
“That’s amazing.”
“Your painting accounted for almost a third of that.”
“Wait, what?”
“Yeah,” he says. “Total bidding war.”
My hand trembles as I sign my name. I thought Violet was going to be my only collector.
“Garrison’s picking it up today. I told him you would be dropping in around now. Mind waiting a few minutes?”
“Garrison bought it? I can wait.”
We head back into the sunny gallery, and only then do I see my painting. It’s hanging on a wall in a prime spot. I see my others, too. I want to throw a sheet over them to spare me my embarrassment. But this one is different. I can see that.
Brad stands beside me and looks.
“I’m going to miss this piece,” he says.
I turn to him. His face is pure sincerity.
“That’s the best compliment you’ve given me.”
“Is it?”
“Brad. You called my paintings quaint.”
“Not this one,” he says.
The door swings open, and in rushes the city noise, and then a tall, handsome man.
“Well, look,” I say. “It’s the manufacturer of my fifteen minutes of fame.”
“That fame is not going to be so fleeting,” Garrison says. “I swung by the night of the show just to say hello. I didn’t find you here, but I did find this painting. I couldn’t stop looking at it.”
“Thank you,” I say. It comes out a whisper—I mean it so much.
“What for?” Brad asks. “He’s getting a painting he wants and you’re not getting a dime from the sale.”
But it isn’t about the money. It’s about what I know is true. Because I’m looking at this bright red storm of color on a canvas, at all my delicate lines and passionate brushstrokes. I’m looking at something so urgent and true, so far beyond what I thought I was capable of making.
I’m looking at what happens when I let go and trust myself, and the vision of it thrills me.
*
The cashier at the de Young ticket booth tells me she can’t sell me a ticket this near to closing.