; the heart's way

2

"Mom." I called out, walking briskly into the living room, where she was seated on the couch end, buried in yet another one of her novels.

She quietly grumbles before raising her head at the sound of my voice. Her eyes were immediately fixed on my figure, her gaze ice cold, freezing my feet exactly where they stopped.

I sharply inhaled, twiddling with my own fingers before speaking.

"I... want to be an artist in the future. Is that okay?"

I felt my breath catch, watching the way my mother suddenly sat up straight, almost as if she had to resist squirming uncomfortably hearing my words. She closes the book with one hand, letting its pages flatten against one another with a distinct thud amidst the heavy silence hanging in the room.

"Do you know..." She hesitated, letting out a singular syllable of a hum as she silently and carefully pieced her words together. "Are you aware of how the art industry is faring nowadays? You won't make it far."

There it was. The answer I had mentally prepared for.

"But mom- there are really successful artists out there too. I'll make it just fi-" I hastily say, before her overpowering voice cut in.

"They're all in the past. You're outdated. Wouldn't you have noticed that you weren't born in the 1900s by now?" her sarcasm was like a fishing rod, cast out to reel me in with the intention to gaslight me.

Gaslight her own daughter against her dreams, all over again. Of course. I've been knew.

"You're always like this," I complained, mildly ticked off by her incessant attitude against me. "Regardless of what I say, what I want, what I do. You're always like this."

"It's for your own good. I don't want a delusional child." She was calm, very calm. I was not.

"Mom-"

"Listen to me." She snapped.

"Look at yourself," she says, motioning at me.

"You're not going to be a successful artist. Especially with that... talent you have."