Have You Ever Seen The Rain? (Tate Langdon Fanfiction)

Epilogue- chapter 22

And I've been a forest fire
I am a forest fire
And I am the fire and I am the forest
And I am a witness watching it
I stand in a valley watching it
And you are not there at all

***

"You got your speech ready?"

I look at him startled. I am hypnotized by the large crowd that came to watch me and my work.

"I'll improvise."

"You'll improvise?!"

"Calm down, you know I'm good with my words. If the speech was prepared beforehand, it wouldn't be as genuine as i want it to be."

I don't bother to listen to him anymore. One of the people working at the museum comes and tells me that i have to be on stage in the next 30 seconds. She starts leading me through the people backstage.

I don't know why, but I'm not nervous. If anything, i feel more prepared than ever for this. I am finally reaching my goal- to have my paintings displayed in one of the biggest museums in Los Angeles, The Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

When i step on the stage, people start clapping enthusiastically. I can see familiar faces in the crowd, as well as men and women dressed fancy in suits or a long dresses, or normal people that have enough money to get a ticket to this exhibition.

I don't want to take people's money right from their pockets. The exhibition will be open for three weeks, and the tickets will be way cheaper after today. Today is the grand opening, and it is mostly destined for business men and women interested in my art that can offer me a job. Also, critics are here, but I'm not afraid of what they have to say about me. I just have to be myself and speak from the heart, just like Paul said.

"Hello everybody and welcome to my newest exhibition, "What you were; what you became". This is a huge moment for me, and to be honest, i never thought that i would get this far with my art. But i know that every artist has a feeling at least once in their career in which they think that they won't make it. But i made it, and i cannot be more thankful for the people that guided me and helped me to get here. Without a team and a support system you can't succeed. So i want to thank my mom first, the person that has been here by my side all my life, the person that supported me and never even thought of telling me to stop chasing my dreams. I want to thank Jean Garcia, my manager and my friend, that saw my talent faster than anyone else. I want to thank the museum's team and all the volunteers that made this whole event take place, and also Andrea Rich herself, that allowed me to show my paintings in such a beautiful museum in the heart of LA. And last but not least, i want to thank all of my friends that remind me everyday that they are my biggest fans, and my fiancee Paul, that has been here since the beginning of this journey."

Everyone starts to applaud again, while i look at Jean. He is still nervous about my unprepared speech, but he is smiling at me, trying to encourage me.

"Art has a different meaning for everyone on this planet, so everyone is free to interpret my creations the way they want to. But, i still want to say a few words and introduce the exhibition a bit.
All of these paintings represent pieces of my life, fragments that stuck with me until this day. I was a rebellious teenager, and between the ages of 14 and 18 i tried to find my place in this world and i tried to experience life the way it should be experienced. I got in a lot of trouble, did and witnessed terrible things, but now I've matured. I tried to represent in my paintings significant moments of my life: playing with your friends as a child, going to parties, getting high for the first time, falling in love, getting heartbroken, loss and forced happiness, not knowing who you are and how to find yourself and being on the verge of taking your own life. What i want to show is how i started my life as an innocent kid, that was happy all of the time and that loved and was being loved. And then I started growing up, getting influenced by the wrong people, and slowly entering the worst period of my life, that was supposed to be the best. And, in the end, managing to pull myself together, learn from my mistakes, meet the right people and make a good life for myself.
Since you are going to get a glimpse into my life through these paintings, i felt the need to explain to you what the title "What you were; what you became" means. So, as a conclusion, this is about living your life and feeling your emotions to their extreme, going through time and learning and developing to become the adult that you are today.
I won't keep you any longer because i am beyond excited for you to see what we've been preparing for these past couple of weeks. Thank you and enjoy."