The Book at the Top of the Closet

Chapter Fifteen

By the time I'm sitting back in my room at school again, an ugly feeling has bubbled up in my chest. I put myself through the absolutely agonizing anxiety of coming out to my parents- and they literally blew it off after one conversation. Like it just wasn't on their radar, or more likely, like they were too damn uncomfortable to talk about it. Well you know what? It was fucking uncomfortable to tell them in the first place! And it was uncomfortable to have to sit through the rest of break with talk shows on in the background like nothing had changed at all.

I guess I expected things to change. Like maybe they would be mad or maybe they would reevaluate their beliefs, but I don't think it occurred to me that they could just pretend the entire conversation never happened. I know they're disappointed, so why don't they just buck up and admit it? There's really nothing quite so irritating as waiting for the other shoe to drop.

In the journal, Aria talks about how painting helps her sort through her feelings a lot of times. I've never been much good at painting, but it's worth a try.

I think I've got some art supplies buried somewhere from my abstract art phase a while back.

Once I dig out the bag of acrylic paint tubes and find an unused canvas, I set to work laying everything out neatly on the floor. I don't have a smock, so I throw on my old playoff shirt from basketball and toss my hair up in a ponytail before I start. Five minutes later, I'm blasting Avril Lavigne on my phone and painting wiggly whirls of blue and green across the canvas. I reach for my water bottle to get a drink and end up spilling a little on the canvas, and the drips of watery paint pooling on the surface give me an idea.

I pick up the canvas and tilt it one way and then another, letting the colors mix haphazardly as the wet rivulets swish around. Setting the canvas back down, I run my fingertips through the wet paint, smudging new shapes into the design. Aria's work is probably a lot more refined than fingerpainting, but damn, this feels good. The sensation of the slightly rough canvas under my fingers and the wet paint squishing around lulls me into an almost meditative state, until I can almost forget what I was upset about in the first place.

And then, I bump into the open tube of green paint, and it squelches out onto the floor. Just like that, the tranquility vanishes. The spell, as it were, is broken.

A dime sized gloop of paint rests on the floor. I hurriedly screw the cap back onto the open tubes and move the wet canvas and brushes aside. Careful not to step in the paint, I dash to the bathroom and grab as many paper towels as I can, wetting down about half of them. Then I'm down on my hands and knees, scrubbing furiously at the stain. The harder I scrub, the bigger the stain gets.

The mess keeps growing. And I'm tired and frustrated and prone to melodrama, so it occurs to me that this stain is pretty much how my life seems to work. I make a mess, and the more I try to fix it, the bigger it gets.

I was anxious about what would happen if my parents ever found out I liked girls, so I told them. I made the scary thing happen, just so it would be over with. And the mess got bigger, because now I'm uncomfortable around them and I resent them for dismissing me.

I was anxious about starting school, and whether I'd do okay in my classes, and I let myself get completely obsessed with a journal and magic, and I sabotaged myself. I don't know exactly what my grades are right now, but they'd be a lot better if I were half as invested in class as I've been in Aria's life.

Hell, I was anxious about my anxiety, and people finding out about it. And what did I do? I befriended Veronica and let her pull me out of my shell and I let myself crush hard on Liam and Wendy and I don't even know how to really talk to anybody about how I'm feeling. I don't know where anything stands, and my anxiety just feeds on that shit, that uncertainty.

The stain just keeps growing.

And I'm so disappointed in myself. And I'm worried I won't get my security deposit back. And my arm is getting really, really tired.

Screw this.

#

Veronica shows up not even ten minutes after I text her. I'm still sitting in front of the stain, little bits of shredded paper towels littering the floor around me. She crouches next to me and holds out her hand.

"Come on babe, up you go."

I grab hold of her hand and let her haul me to my feet. Before I can explain my sorry state, she hugs the breath out of me. I'm awkwardly smushed against her chest, and so glad she's here that I almost burst into tears. After she lets go, I mumble a bunch of nonsense about how the green paint is a metaphor, and she rolls her eyes and shushes me. Like, literally, puts a finger over my mouth as if to say "shut up."

"But I- It's like everyone else has their life figured out and I don't know how to be a person," I say, pulling my mouth away from her hand.

"You can't compare everyone else's highlight reel to your bloopers, Pipsqueak."

"And you sound like a greeting card," I say. She pokes her tongue out at me. I can't help but crack up, and it feels good, it feels like I've got some spark back in me.

"No pun intended, but you look a little green." She cocks her head to the side, assessing me.

"Yeah I get kind of uhm...pukey, when I'm anxious." I stare at my feet, but look up when I realize she's walking away. "Wha-" I mutter after her. She's already in the other room, rifling through the snacks.

"You've got to have ginger ale here somewhere," she says, then holds up a can triumphantly. "Ha, here we go." She pops the can open and hands it to me while it's still hissing a bit. "This should help your stomach."

"Thanks." I look up at her over the top of the can, taking a tentative sip. The carbonated bubbles tingle my tongue, distracting me from how wretched I feel. Veronica sort of hovers until I sit down on the couch, and then to my surprise, she disappears back into my room. What is up with her just walking off?

She returns after a few moments of rustling around, my duvet slung over her arm and dragging the ground. She drapes it across my shoulders and tucks it around me until I'm basically just a blanket lump with a head and arms poking out, still sipping the ginger ale.

"Thanks," I repeat, and she flops down on the couch next to me. I reach over and grab the tv remote and hand it to her. After a bit of channel surfing she settles on a station that's playing The Golden Girls, and for the rest of the evening the only conversation we have is about which one of us would be Dorothy. Of course, I point out that she's really more of a Blanche, and she concedes with a smile. I don't even notice that I'm drowsy until sleep starts to creep up on me. Instead of fighting it, I sink into the arm of the couch and close my eyes.

#

Dear Diary,

I'm really starting to like the painting I've been working on. I've always disliked the kind of characters in stories who can take on the world without messing up their perfect hair, the kind of characters who never have to pee, who never have period cramps, who are apparently not made of flesh and bone with the same array of zits and weird smells the rest of us have.

When I was younger I wanted to read a book where the hero has to take a bathroom break in the middle of their dramatic monologue, or befriends the antagonist because one of them ran out of tampons. That's the kind of story I try to tell with my paintings. The girl in the painting isn't glossed up, even though she's a princess. I've painted her crown askew, her hand wrapped around a sword, nails dirty. In her other hand is a tea cup, partially because I love tea, and partially because I wanted her to be powerful and feminine. Sweat beads on her temples, as if balancing her roles takes effort.

I'm afraid that no one will want a princess who sweats. I mean sure, she's a sword-fighting badass, and she's empowered, but what if making her flesh and blood ends up distracting from the kind of feminist message that I want to portray. What if no one notices the sword-fighting because they're too focused on the fact that she has resting bitch face and sweat? Nobody really wants that much realism, do they? But... do they? I mean. I did. I would've loved this princess when I was younger, I love her now, even though I'm the one painting her. I guess I'll just have to stick it out and see which works, the princess with perfect hair or the princess who sweats.

Either way, there's definitely some of my sweat on the painting.

-Aria