In my small, tidy room, I lie on the bed, heart thumping, mind whirring. What did Felix mean, an emotion? I worked so hard on those pieces, looked at all the books in the library, did everything the drawing manual said, practiced and practiced. Isn’t that what you do as an artist? I think back to Tony’s gallery show, when Ariel asked me to come to her drawing workshop. Ariel said I would never get anywhere unless I examined myself. Made myself my subject. I choke back a laugh. What does Felix want me to do, draw myself ? No one is going to want to see that, a girl with split skin and a sad face.
I press my face against the wall. I can hear them out on the back deck, listening to a soulful singer on the record player, voices mingling with the intermittent cries from the dark desert. I have nothing now. Not Riley, not Mikey, not Ellis, not my drawing. I suck in my breath, try to stem a fresh wave of sobs. I’m so tired, again. Tired of trying. My nose leaks; my eyes throb with the effort of holding tears back. I curl up, clutching my knees to my chest. I miss Riley so much, even though I know how wrong it is: his smoky, liquidy smell is ingrained in my memory; my fingertips ache when I imagine the velvety slope of his back; my heart catapults in my chest.
I rock back and forth on the bed. My mind fills with the bathroom down the hall with its box of razor blades under the sink. The kitchen with its slinky promise of knives. I uncurl myself, force myself to feel around my body, count off the scars and bandages, the sheer accumulation of my own damage.
There is nothing else I can do to myself.
Louisa comes to me then, an image out of nowhere: on fire, her fine hair rising in flame, skin melting off like butter.
I sit up so fast tape pops on my stomach. I press it back into place, wincing at the pain. My backpack’s in the closet. I drop to my knees, digging inside. It’s the only thing Wendy didn’t destroy.
Louisa’s composition books are still tightly bound. I work at the tape with my fingers.
The first page of the first book begins, in small, neat black script: A girl’s life is the worst life in the world. A girl’s life is: you are born, you bleed, you burn.
Louisa’s words hurt, but they are true, they ring through me. I read everything that night, each book. I can’t stop.
