“But that’s not what I found in Chicago.” Their grip tightens around the brush. “My parents hired a private art tutor the second we settled in, and my grooming officially began at seven years old.”
“Grooming?” I ask, my voice soft and gentle.
They turn to me and nod. “With my parents’ success came their damnation.” Their jaw clenches beneath the mask. “They groomed me to become an art prodigy.”
Phantom returns to painting as they continue, “I’m sure the change didn’t happen overnight, but when you’re seven, it sure feels that way. After we moved to Chicago and I started working with my tutor, suddenly my only value came from my artistic success, skill... prestige. In my parents’ eyes, at least.” Their breathscome in heavier, giving away their anger. “They only showed me affection when I received top marks or won contests at school. They spoke about me and to me like I was a disappointment and a burden, until I achieved a feat worthy of bragging about to their vile, pretentious friends.”
My stomach flips uncomfortably as I approach the canvas again. I recognize parts of Phantom’s story, perhaps not to the same extreme, but there’s no denying Dad’s acted similarly with Grayson. Setting impossibly high standards. Being disappointed when those expectations aren’t met. Only acknowledging his impressive achievements. It all sounds horribly familiar.
“I remember the first time I realized I hated them.”
I swallow hard at the furious heat in their gaze.
“It was my ninth birthday. They forced me to have my party at the Art Institute of Chicago. I wanted to have a picnic in the park with my friends from school, but instead my parents invited their own friends and their children. I barely knew any of them. Except one. My parents’ best friends at the time had a daughter the same age as me. She came to the party. And like everything in my life by that point, my parents made my party a competition. And I lost. To her. In front of all of their fancy friends.
“That night was the first time my dad ever hit me. He was so drunk he didn’t even remember the next morning.” They turn back to the canvas. “I remember wishing they’d just die and leave me alone.”
“Phantom—”
They shake their head to cut me off and continue painting. “She laughed at me the following weekend, when I was forced to see her again. She laughed at my healing bruises.”
“The little girl?” I ask, horrified.
Phantom nods, then shakes their head even rougher. I know what that means by now. Echo.
“Shut up,” they mutter under their breath, pounding the back of their fist against the bare canvas.
I wait patiently, listening to Phantom’s breathing regulate.
Eventually, they continue, “She wasn’t a kind child. She was arrogant and proud. Because she could be. She was the prodigy my parents always hoped I’d be.”
“That’s impossible,” I scoff.
“I’ve been painting under immense parental pressure for years, Maeve. I’ve had time to turn into a diamond. She wasbornthat way.”
I blink at them, knowing there’s nothing I can say to that.
“From then on, it was a constant comparison. Why can’t you paint more like her? Why can’t you dress more like her? Why can’t you be more pleasant and more charming like her? Why? Why? Why!”
I flinch as they chuck the paintbrush they’d been holding across the studio. It hits the opposite side with a slap and a thud.
“I knew she was better than me. There wasn’t a fucking moment I didn’t know it. And theyknewI knew it. But they could never resist an opportunity to remind me, to shove it in my face.” They release a deep breath. “Sometimes I think they wanted to break me.”
Angrily, they grab a new brush from the table and continue painting, their brush strokes short and rough.
“I tried to rebel a few times, in the early years. I wanted to try my hand at figure skating and chess club. But dear old Dad knocked the rebellion out of me quickly enough. His drinking had gotten bad by that point. So, by the time I entered middle school, I was a robot. A cold, detached robot that fully believed my only value came from my art.” They hit the canvas again. “But it didn’t even matter that they’d succeeded so miraculously in brainwashing me because, in the end, Ikeptlosing to her.”
I watch as they fall into the memories, back into the despair they’d become so used to in their youth, and know I need to intervene. “Phantom, it’s okay. You don’t have to keep going.”
“I was dying, Maeve. With every brush stroke, every foul word, and every fist against my skull. After a while, my will gave out. I couldn’t eat, sleep, or even breathe because I wasneverenough.” Phantom’s breathing turns ragged and labored. “Eventually, my mother plucked up the courage to tell me she regretted giving birth to me. Can you believe it? My own mother actually said that to me.” A beat of silence passes. “So, I learned to hate myself. And I did... hate myself, so fucking much. I grew to hate myself even more than I hated them, more than I hated her. Why couldn’t I just be the child they wanted me to be? What was so phenomenally wrong with me that I couldn’t be that person for them? For myself?”
I stop painting completely and stare at Phantom.
“It felt real to me. Like life or death. I swear. I wouldn’t have done it if I had thought there was any other way to survive.”
“Phantom?” I ask, my voice a whisper.
“I started off small,” they say, their gaze going far and away. “I wanted to keep the doses low enough that she couldn’t taste it in her lunch meals. The oil paints.”
