Sealed With a Kiss

Twenty Five Part I

XXV: Wanted

WE ALL HAVE SECRETS. We all have darkness inside us, things we're ashamed of. All I've ever known is shame.

From the moment I was born, I was tainted with the mark of the Devil. A child born out of wedlock, abandoned, left to drown in her own self-hate. These pools of insecurities grew. They manifested inside me, filled my lungs more and more every day until it consumed me. With each punch and nasty remark thrown my way I became better at hidding it, at hidding myself.

But the girls at school knew, they saw past each one of my defenses. Behind every chortle and quirky smile, they saw a crumpled Poppy in the meadow. Worn and torn and dead--lifeless. They fed off it, they enjoyed tearing me down even more than I already was. They made me hate myself.

Still I hid. I put up a front and I smiled, pushing my oversized glasses higher on the bridge of my nose and shaking my head no. No, they're not bothering me. No, they didn't push me. I fell. Silly me. No no no no.

I'm fine.

Everything's okay, good, just tired.

I'm fine. Only I wasn't.

I thought leaving London would save me but it didn't. I was even more lonely here than back home. Acceptance became my drug, and the first one to give me the time of day made me dependant. Desperate for my next fix. The lines between love and lust blurred. So I gave and gave. They didn't think, just took. They took all that I gave.

All I ever wanted was to be wanted.

I thought I had found him, found someone who wanted me. But now I think I want him more than he wants me. Cole Richmond, I was a fool to think someone like him could love me.

Sitting here alone I can't help but cry. Cry because I'm losing him and I don't know how to hide. Cry because I'm pushing him further and further away with my denial.

He tried to talk to me after the ballet all those weeks ago, but all I could do was smile and kiss him goodbye. All I could do was get in the car, dance around the topic, just leave him standing frozen on the sidewalk.

I can't hide from him and it scares me. All I've ever known is hidding. I feel so exposed, even with my façade.

THE MESS AROUND ME WAS BEAUTIFUL. The tarps put down on the ground, the paint-splattered crew on ladders hard at work, the roar of the power tools. All the noise, the mess, the chaos, it was beautiful because it meant I was a day closer to the opening of my gallery. In the heart of the city, my gallery was going to bring something beautiful to the bleekness of Brooklyn's streets. I'll run my gallery like no one before.

Who cares about the already established art and the poshness of it all? I'll display modern art, not the abstract stuff of other galleries, but the real, raw, freshness of undiscovered talent. Local artists will be featured, ones who take risks and take something and make it beautiful. People who love and treasure humanity, and the human form in all its glory.

I don't expect White Lies to be as well known as galleries like 89 Designs. I expect it to be better, to become a staple name in the years to come. I want to show the world that art wasn't always made by the hands of world-renowned sculptors and painters. They all started somewhere, as someone's apprentice or selling in a flee market. They were all once working side jobs to make ends meet, skipping meals for new brushes and other supplies. I want to feature the undiscovered, the new, the untainted.

"Hey boss," a worker said running up to me, "someone's here for you. Should we let them up?"

"Did they give a name?" I asked walking with him through the chaos on the third floor of the gallery. My team was installing a huge surprise on the roof in the coming weeks and the rest of the building had to be finished by then so we were scrambling to make the deadline.