Asking to go away for three months was going to be an issue with my parents, a hair-pulling, screaming, and possibly homicidal issue. What would they maliciously fight over if I wasn’t around?
Then there was the cost. Dad had the money. Mom probably did, too, but getting either of them to part with it seemed utterly beyond me as I stared down at the figure.
My fingers curled around the edges of the pages. I felt the paper cuts I was giving myself, but I didn’t care. I had to find a way to glimpse a future where I could tell the story I wanted, instead of starring in the never-ending nightmare my parents had cast me in.
I rose up on my knees on my bed and, feeling very Vivien Leigh fromGone With the Wind, made my vow. “As God is my witness...”
For some reason I thought of Adam as I struck my pose. If he’d been there, I’d have tried to get him to deliver a slightly modified Clark Gable line and say, “Frankly, my dear, it’s time to give a damn.”
I think he’d have done it, too.
He might have even let me draw a mustache on him.
And I know he’d have offered to help me with my essay.
He was still such a new part of my life, but he trespassed into my thoughts all the time. In that moment I imagined him sitting at my desk triple-checking whatever homework he’d brought with him and occasionally glancing over his shoulder to gauge my progress. My mouth curved up a little at the way his eyebrows would pinch together when he saw that I hadn’t even opened my laptop.
“I’ve finished six months of extra credit for all my AP classes and you haven’t even started yet?” imaginary Adam would ask.
“My muse will come to me when she’s ready,” I’d say.
“See, I don’t think it works that way,” imaginary Adam would say. “I think you put words on a page, and then you put more words, and then after that, you put even more words. Good words, awful words, wrong words.”
“That sounds wildly inefficient.”
“As opposed to not writing any? Get enough of the wrong words down and see what you have left.”
“Hmm,” I’d say. “Maybe you’re more than just a pretty face.”
Imaginary Adam would wink at me. Okay, not even imaginary Adam would do that, but he’d smile at me and he’d make me pull my laptop onto my lap.
And even though he wasn’t there, I filled my lungs with air and held it in until it started to hurt, then I let it out in a loud whoosh, opened a new document, and started typing.
I want to become a filmmaker to escape my parents.
I wrote another sentence, and another after that. I filled an entire page with awful, wrong words, and maybe, just maybe, a few that were okay.
IN BETWEEN
Jolene:
You never told me what you’re dressing up as for Halloween.
Adam:
I don’t know your costume either?
Jolene:
I kind of don’t think I should tell you.
Adam:
Why not? Unless it’s, like, a sexy lawn gnome or something.
Jolene:
I guess it would be embarrassing if we dressed up in the same costume.
