Sucker (ON HOLD/INCOMPLETE)

10: Hold On // Anxiety (Burlinda's Theme)

This chapter is dedicated to @TechnicalAngel, who started an Academy discord server and encouraged me to push my work off to write this chapter there. Naturally, I'm a people-pleaser, so here we go.

Songs: "Hold On" by Adele and "Anxiety (Burlinda's Theme)" by JoJo

(These songs are potentially the most lyrically perfect for my Gabriel, to the point I actually couldn't choose between them. Please listen closely to the lyrics or read them on Genius. Also, 30 absolutely destroyed me. If you haven't listened yet... get on it.)

TW: Mentions of self-harm (no active portrayals of self-harm, just mentions)

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Gabriel

I couldn't breathe.

Walls closing in.

Suffocating me in this tiny bathroom.

I stared down at my hands, the tattoos twisting around scars I'd shaped when she left.

If I couldn't live with her, I wasn't sure I wanted to live at all.

They served as reminders that I was stronger, that loss was just an essence of my being, that I could live without everyone I'd ever loved.

Until now.

I cursed that she was here, ever the whirlwind of trouble and beauty that set my heart running wild every time she walked into a room.

I rued the way she'd been able to move on, like I was nothing. Felt my guts churn with anger and the remnants of a love never-quite-lost, a deadly swirling cocktail of anguish.

I mourned; for myself, for everything we once were, for everything I thought we could be; for the way she'd cried and told me things could never work as long as her other three exes were working together with us; for the way I wanted nothing more than to run away right now and couldn't.

And, for the first time in days, as my throat tightened more and more, I cried, letting my impending panic attack unleash itself on me. I vomited, barely making it into the toilet.

I heaved and sobbed, heaved and sobbed, heaved and sobbed, until there was nothing left to expel.

I hiccupped, a constantly repeating refrain as I tried and failed to breathe deeply and calm myself.

Life fucking sucked.

I sprawled on the floor for a while, content to press my cheek against the cold tile until my breathing regulated.

Eventually, I stood, brushed my teeth, and dressed for the day. I'd taken a temporary teaching position at an art studio run by an Academy member's sibling, and it wouldn't leave a strong impression if I didn't show up for the first day.

In the car, I reflected on the last time I'd been in Charleston. About six months after Sang left, Pam had drunk herself into a stupor and crashed her car. She was dead on the scene.

I supposed it ran in the family.

We'd held a small service for the girls from the salon; no one else really knew or loved her. I swore I'd seen Owen and Sean in the back, but they'd slipped out before I could say anything.

I hadn't forgotten, though.

Her ashes were scattered soon thereafter, and I gained another piercing in my ear.

Charleston haunted me. And this time, there was nowhere to hide from my demons.

I arrived at the building and surreptitiously wiped at my eyes for any remnants of sorrow. Once in the studio, I arranged the room, setting out materials for each of the students: a bowl of fruit at the front, canvases, paint. I wasn't sure of the skillset of the students, so I figured still life would be a good place to start.

The students slowly filtered in. I walked around the room, making small talk I honestly wasn't engaged in. My mind kept racing back to Pam, to my former team, to a girl shaped from chaos, who left destruction in her wake. To everything I wanted to avoid but couldn't escape.

The class was comprised of students in their mid-teens to their seventies. The students seemed engaged enough; perhaps bored, I thought, as one yawned.

Teaching art was never really my passion, but it was my bread and butter when I wasn't selling paintings or working as an artist-in-residence in San Francisco. I could do it sleeping, practically, which worked to my benefit today as my mind went a million other places.

I set the students to their projects, answering questions along the way. Then, I turned to my own canvas.

When I dated Sang, all I could do was paint her. She was an obsession, the most beautiful creature I'd ever seen, and I had to capture her beauty somehow. My efforts were never good enough. Always the wrong shade to her hair, never the proper curve to her lips.

I'd grown out of it over the years, eventually. But as I sat in front of my canvas, all I could see were seafoam green eyes and chameleon hair. My hands moved faster than my mind could react, drawing the shape of her nose, the tilt of her smile, the gentle slope of her shoulders.

I cursed myself for the preoccupation, the compulsion to immortalize my—not my, I reminded myself—Trouble on the canvas. My hands kept moving, though, never ceasing or slowing even for a moment. I poured my pain, my agony, my heartbreak renewed onto the fabric.

I mixed the paint, cursing when the color wasn't exactly right. Even in my misery, she couldn't be anything less than perfect.

And then, I painted.

Each stroke was a shot of catharsis to my veins. I reveled in the pain, in the relief. The room disappeared around me as I continued.

Then I felt a tap on my shoulder. I turned to see one of my students, one of the young ones, standing beside me, looking over my shoulder at my canvas. I hunched protectively over it.

"She's beautiful! Who is she?" The girl next to me angled her neck to get a better look at the image.

I glanced down at it, then paused. "Just... someone I know." I internally cringed, but outwardly tried to smile politely.

She continued to ask questions, attracting an audience. I began to deflect. "So, how are everyone else's paintings going? Enjoying the still life?"

I amicably listened and answered questions until the class ended. Some students stayed afterward to ask about my next session. I considered it an accomplishment that I hadn't turned them off by zoning out into my own world for the majority of the day. I waved them goodbye, then turned back to my own project.

I wasn't sure what to do with it. As I stared at the image, I found myself in equal parts longing and anger. The likeness was strong, to be sure. But the tilt of her smile, the green of her eyes, the flow of her hair... none of it was quite right.

An ache grew in the pit of my stomach the longer I stared. No, it wasn't perfect, and she wasn't mine. I became confident that keeping it, her, with me would only prolong my suffering.

So, with a new resolve, I yanked the painting up—the acrylic still drying—and moved to my car. I grabbed something from my car, moved a safe distance away from any buildings, people, or objects, and poured.

Then I lit the whole fucking thing on fire.

And I sat there, for quite some time, and watched my love go down in flames.

_____

My quarter is nearly done. I should have more time to write next quarter; I've drastically cut my workload for my last two quarters of senior year.

My first grad school apps are due December 1. Wish me luck!

I'll be going through this book in the next few weeks and editing a few small discrepancies I've found in the telling of Sang's story. Nothing major that alters the story; I just want to fix them for clear continuity.