Homesick (Lesbian)

Chapter 4: Ellen Dumont

Is it supposed to happen like that? You're heartbroken, with a deep sense of worthlessness. You start having these ideas that you're not good enough, that they were right when they left you, and my personal favorite, 'How could anyone love you?' and you sink into a pit that requires a lot of energy and effort to get out of. Those thoughts can become so persistent. Thoughts that according to some therapists are very akin to depression.

And then you meet someone and they successfully manage to get your head off of it. It distracts you from the pain, it fills you with this sense of arrogance and self-important. Feeling that someone can be interested in you when someone else wasn't is very addictive.

It's that colloquial idea, isn't it? That in order to get over someone, you need to get under someone else.

Deep down we know. Everyone knows. It doesn't work like that. When you try to get over someone by getting under someone else you're basically creating a new problem for yourself, and leaving the first one unsolved. So now you've got two problems instead of one.

Getting over someone, it takes time, effort, acceptance, reflection, and more than anything... it takes forgiveness.

Not for them. I didn't do it because Ellen deserved it. And what happened later with Riley, I didn't do it because she deserved it either. It wasn't about them. Either of them. It was about me.

I wonder, if I would've known what I know now would've dealt with things differently? Probably. But then I wouldn't have learned what I needed to learn so, you need to put a price on the lesson.

This price was particularly high. It's the whole reason I'm writing this.

Ellen Dumont.

 * * * *

I saw her four days later, at her opening, which Caroline made very clear was mandatory for me. Unlike the party, this time I decided to go all out. I bought a fancy blue dress, high heels, and even wore make-up for once. I kept having to buy dresses because the few I own, I left at the house. 

Scott arrived to pick me up at around 8 PM. He said Dumont like's her art opening to be more like parties than actual openings so we could get there fashionably late.

I didn't understand what he met until we were there.

There was loud dark techno music coming from inside the gallery. With the exception of the lights illuminating the sculptures, every light was dimmed down, like a club's. Caterers were walking up and down offering people champagne, wine, and tapenade on toast. The glass walls of the gallery were now covered with a thin black veil, so while I could still see inside, it was a little blurry, so I couldn't figure out where Dumont was, assuming she'd even arrived.

"Names," the bouncer asked.

"Scott Keane and Faye Burton-Brenan," I said.

He took a while to find our names, once he did, he nodded and let us inside. The music was a lot louder than I thought. Everyone had a drink in their hand while walking around or discussing the pieces and Dumont was nowhere to be found.

"I was not expecting something like this," I said.

"Yeah, well, Dumont does like her opening to be... over the top. And it seems to work for her. Most of these will be sold by the end of the night."

I looked around at the sculptures. Ellen had a very peculiar style. It was an odd combination between Rachel Ara and Tara Donovan. She didn't focus on the materials she used. There were sculptures everywhere from wood, to crystal, to cables, to what looked like a statue made out of salt. Instead, her focus lied on the themes themselves. Ellen's sculptures were... well, women. No, that's not quite right. The sculptures were goddesses. There was something on their demeanor that allows you to understand that, while they looked like women, they were much more than that.