“Hey, welcome in,” a familiar, bright, cheery voice says.
I close my eyes, taking a deep breath, and turn around to face Lily.
“Oh my God, I love your classes. I see all of the stuff that you do online, and I’m not old enough to go to the adult classes, but I’m here at this one, and I can’t wait to paint this axolotl because it’s one of my favorite animals,” Zea says in one breath.
I pause and look at her.
“That’s a real animal?” I point over at the painting example we’re going to do. “I thought that was from a cartoon.”
Zea looks at Lily. Lily looks at Zea.
And they both shake their heads.
Lily puts her hand on Zea’s shoulder. “Thanks for coming out today. I hope you enjoy it.”
She walks away without saying anything to me. Hell, I might owe Zea $1000 by the end of this.
The actual class–the painting and instructions and stories she shares as she guides us through–is engaging as hell. I see why people love doing this and why they flock to her classes.
Lily has a quiet pull to her.
I don’t know how I missed that.
I have so many regrets when it comes to Lily. Number one was letting her go. I noticed she left, and I didn’t do a damn thingabout it. And now it’s been over a year. She’s obviously vibing and thriving without me, and damn. I miss that girl.
She’s over there right now, showing people how to fling drops of paint onto their canvas to make it look like stars.
She’s so focused. And beautiful.
She’s so damn good at what she does.
And I never saw it.
“Why are you staring at her like that?” Zea interrupts me. “You know her?”
“I... something like that,” I tell her, sighing.
“She is pretty. Did you fuck it up?”
I turn my head to my little sister, who has such an unladylike mouth. “Stop cussing at me.”
“Boy, please,” she says. “Sometimes it just be like that. All right, if you fucked it up, you fucked it up. What are you gonna do to get it back?”
I pinch the bridge of my nose. How am I the oldest? How am I the adult? What am I supposed to do here? I can’t discipline her. I just met this girl.
She really is cussing a lot.
“Yeah,” I say. “I messed things up with her.”
“Don’t look like she misses you.”
I scoff, because she’s right. She doesn’t look like she misses me at all.
“That’s true,” I say. “It doesn’t look like she misses me.”
“You going to make her miss you?”
“I don’t know. I gotta think about it.”
