by Amy Sparling
“Yeah,” I say, sitting up in bed and thinking of something to wear. “That sounds good. I’ll see you in a few minutes.”
Chapter 7
Park brings me home around noon and we practice our fabricated story about where we’ve been all morning in the truck. “You’ll say you wanted to get to the donut place first thing in the morning so all the good donuts wouldn’t be gone and I’ll say after we ate, we decided to check out the farmer’s market.” I nod to myself as I come up with this plan while Park drives toward my house. “Mom knows the farmer’s market is open early in the morning and that’s where all the good produce is sold. The place is crap in the afternoon.”
“Okay but there’s two problems with that story,” he says, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel.
“What’s that?”
“One, you don’t have any fruit purchases. Do you really think she’d believe that you went to the place with the best blueberries and didn’t buy any?”
“True,” I say as my shoulders fall. “Maybe I ate them all on the drive back?”
He shrugs. “Maybe.”
“What was the second problem?” I ask. The radio starts playing some awful song that sounds like animals trying to kill each other inside of a metal barn. I reach up and turn down the radio. Park glances at me and smiles. “I don’t think your parents will care that we went out early in the morning. I mean, it’s better than going out late at night, right?”
I consider this a moment. “You might be right. I don’t know. This is my first time doing boyfriendly things at random hours. I’m not really sure what my rules are.”
“You’re nineteen. The rules can’t possibly be that restricting.”
“True. Maybe we won’t tell them anything.”
Park sits straighter and smiles. “If we have kids one day, I hope they’re as sweet as you. Then I wouldn’t have to sit up all night with a shotgun when she goes on dates.”
“That was…out of left field,” I say, feeling my throat dry up. Doesn’t he realize that to have kids with me means we’d have to have sex first? Maybe he wants to adopt kids. Whatever the case, he just mentioned having kids with me and now I am freaking out.
My parents don’t say a thing when we get home. Score one for Park. Mom is eating a sandwich in the living room and Dad is passed out next to her on the couch. It’s weird realizing that one day you’re a legal adult and your parents just don’t care what you do anymore.
I still haven’t said anything about Park’s mention of our future children, instead choosing to do the easy thing and change the subject. We head into my bedroom and I plop backwards on my bed. “I’m still tired,” I say with a yawn. Although Park and I had snuck in a few hours of sleep this morning, it hadn’t helped much.
“What happened to the rest of your boxes?” Park asks. He’s on the other side of my room, eyeing the corner that used to be stacked with unfolded triangle mailing boxes. What started out as a stack that came up to my hip, is now a stack only knee-high.
“They got shipped out all over the country,” I reply, feeling warmth rush to my cheeks. I don’t know why it’s embarrassing admitting that a lot of paintings have sold. I guess I still feel weird about the idea that people want to buy my stuff.
“Damn, girl.” Park joins me on the bed, lying on his stomach next to me on my back. “I told you people would love your work.”
“I’ve almost made a thousand dollars so far,” I say. As if it heard me bragging, my phone vibrates and I check it then turn the screen around for Park to see. “Look, I’ve sold another one.”
“Thirty-five bucks? Babe you should charge a lot more. Like twice as much.”
I shake my head. “I can’t do that…it’s weird.”
He takes my hand in his and brings it to his lips. “Why is it weird?”
I shrug. “It’s just weird that people are spending money on my art.”
Park chuckles and kisses the top of my hand again. “Honey, your work is amazing and it’s original and I hate to say I told you so, but…”
“But what?” I say, rolling my eyes.
“But I told you so,” he says with a laugh. “You’re going to be a famous artist one day. And I’ll be that artist’s boyfriend.”
“I’m hardly famous. You’re the famous one.”
“I tell you what,” Park says, leaning over and kissing my cheek. “We’ll both be hardly famous together.”
Later, after Park left, claiming he had something to do with Jace, the smell of Mom cooking dinner brings me out of my painting trance and into the kitchen. I had been painting a series of canvasses with romantic quotes on them, no doubt because of the massive amount of love Park had left me with, flowing through my veins and all over my heart.
I know I don’t know much about love, but when your heart aches for them while they’re still in the same room with you, that has to mean something. And now that he’s been gone a few hours, my heart aches more than ever before. I think I’m finally ready to take our love to the next level—the sex level—but I need to make sure all of my bodily issues are gone before letting Park know this.
Mom notices my good mood the second I walk into the room. “What’s up with you?” she asks, pointing a spatula at me. “Sell more paintings?”
“Yeah, actually. But that’s not why I’m smiling.”
I take a seat on the barstool at the kitchen island and watch as she quickly chops up hamburger meat and then moves to grating a block of cheddar cheese. Immediately, I regret the last words out of my mouth because they make my mother give me one of her Mom Looks.
“Really? Well then why are you smiling?”
I shrug. Stare at the counter. “No big reason or anything.”
“Park left kind of early, didn’t he? I take it you’re not fighting or anything?”
I shake my head. “He had some appointment with Jace or something. Said it was boring motocross stuff. He’ll be back later.”
“Ah ha,” Mom says, nodding to herself as if she’s suddenly got everything in the whole universe figured out. “So it’s something to do with Park.”
“No,” I say with a groan. “Can’t a girl just smile for no reason?”
“Teenage girls never smile for no reason. I think someone’s in love.”
When Mom says it all plainly like that, my heart speeds up as if she’s just confessed my biggest, deepest secret. My love for Park isn’t a secret and I’d never be ashamed of it, but this is my mother who’s talking about it. Awkward.
What’s even worse is the next few words out of my mouth. “I guess I’m just smiling because I realized he’s the one.”
“The one?” Mom says, placing a terrifying amount of meaning on that one individual word. “What makes you think Park is the one? You’re only nineteen.”
I shrug. “You knew Dad was the one when you were sixteen.”
“No I didn’t.”
My mouth falls open and I stare at her waiting to see her laugh and tell me she’s joking. When she doesn’t, I say, “But you and Dad have been together since you were sixteen. At least that’s the story I’ve been told my whole life…”
“We were, honey. We were high school sweethearts. But that doesn’t mean I knew he was the one back then. I didn’t know until I was much older.”
“Well you stayed with him the whole time, so it’s kind of the same thing.”
Mom dries her hands on a dishtowel and pats my arm. “If Park is the real deal for you then I’m excited for you. But don’t worry too much about putting labels on him. If it doesn’t work out the way it did for your father and me, that doesn’t mean anything. I want you to be happy.”
“Thanks, Mom,” I say. Now that a sufficient amount of awkward chit-chat has filled the room, I am dying for a subject change. “So when will dinner be ready?”
Chapter 8
I got the email two hours ago. I’ve been avoiding it like the bad omen that it probably is, wishing it would just disappear from my inbo
x and never resurface in my life.
With November here already, the air is colder, crisper and somehow more annoying than ever. Nothing in my closet looks good and I wonder how I got through last winter with such a pathetic wardrobe. Then it hits me. Park wasn’t here last winter. I was able to go days without shaving my legs and I wore the same three sweatpants on rotation every day of the week. When I wasn’t wearing my paint pants of course.
The paint pants are an old pair of yoga pants that I once got paint on while I was making a canvas. Now I wear them almost every time I paint, just in case I spill anything.
Last winter was easy when it came to finding clothes to wear. However, it was the hardest winter ever emotionally. I missed him like crazy. His racing schedule was hectic and I barely saw him for Christmas.
Now this year he’s here for good, and all of the time. As much as I love seeing that boy every day, right now my closet is looking pretty dreary.
In an effort to prolong picking out something to wear, I grab my phone again and look at the stupid email. Midterm grades are in. I’m only taking two classes this semester, both because I suck, and because my parents had some massive house expenses to fix last summer and couldn’t afford to pay for more classes. Not that I minded. I hate college.
I know I need to get it over with, rip off the proverbial bandage and see what kind of grades I’m making so I’ll know if I need to drop a class. Or two. When I click the link and see my grades load, I’m not exactly sure how I feel.
I’m passing both classes, but barely. As I’m contemplating how pissed my parents would be if I dropped out of school forever, my phone gets a new email message. I have another sale on Etsy.
A familiar feeling falls over me as I read through the email, noticing that the buyer has purchased two canvasses. It’s the same feeling, the same nagging idea that’s been bothering me every single time I make a new sale. The idea that maybe I should just quit school, cut back my hours at C&C and focus on painting full time.
It’s crazy, right? I can’t possibly think this is a smart idea.
But it feels like a smart idea. My inspirational quote canvases have been selling almost as quickly as I can list them, and it’s been steady since day one. This could be a thing. This could be my thing. I scroll back through my emails to the one that displays my class grades. Community college isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Maybe some people do well in these stupid mandatory classes and then go on to be super successful business people who sit in a cubicle all day and stare at a computer and so business work.
That’s never going to be me. I’ll never survive a cubicle job. I need to be creative, to keep moving, keep dreaming, keep making beautiful things.
Scowling at the grades email, I swipe back to the new sale email. On the bottom of the invoice, the buyer has written me a message in the notes section.
I’m so excited to get these for my office wall! PS – do you do custom work? I’d love to have my company’s slogan painted on a canvas. The girls in my office are going nuts for #BeccasInspirations!
I frown. Are people so obsessed with using hashtags that they now use them in random conversations? She does know this is an email and I can’t actually click on it, right? My stomach fills up with butterflies as an insane idea comes to me. Maybe the hashtag symbol wasn’t some kind of mistake. Maybe…
I find the Instagram app on my phone and open it, going straight to the search feature. I type in #BeccasInspirations and gasp. There are already forty-two images with that tag, all of them are of my artwork. One has a picture of a girl holding up her canvas and smiling. The caption reads: This quote motivates me so much! I LOVE IT #BeccasInspirations
Another user has posted a screenshot of a canvas on my Etsy page, saying they want to buy that canvas for their sister’s wedding gift. I look at every single picture and read the comments, finding that all of them are positive and sweet. Not a single person has said anything like: These canvases are dumb and pointless. I hope the artist doesn’t quit her day job. #BeccasInspirations
My cell phone screen gets blurry and I realize I’m shaking with the buildup of emotions inside of me right now. Not only are random strangers buying my art, they are talking about it on social media.
Maybe my dream isn’t so stupid after all.
When Park calls me in the afternoon, he sounds exhausted. “Hey there, beautiful,” he breathes into the phone as if he’d just finished a hundred yard dash.
“What’s wrong?” I ask.
I hear the beeping sound of his truck’s door being opened while the keys are in the ignition. “Just worn out,” he says, pausing to take a drink. “Jace and I have been looking at some land and I just walked like a thousand miles through knee-high grass.”
“Why are you looking at land? You just bought and house.”
He hesitates for a moment and I can almost picture the face he makes as he contemplates telling me the truth or making up a lie. So I beat him to the punch. “Tell me the truth, boy.”
He laughs. “Well…I was going to tell you about this in a more … exciting … atmosphere.”
Okay, now I’m curious. “What does that mean?”
“Trust me, it’s cool and you’ll like it. But can it wait until dinner? Jace wants us to double date and tell our old ladies the good news at the same time.”
“So Bayleigh and I are old ladies now, hmm?”
“Hey, those were Jace’s words, not mine.”
“Okay fine, I’ll wait. So what else is up?”
“I don’t know, you tell me. You sound like you have a secret yourself.”
I bite my lip and clutch the phone tighter. He knows me so well. But I don’t know why I’m so worried about telling him my idea—it’s a good idea. I take a deep breath so that I can let it all out at once. “I’m selling a lot of artwork and I just found out that people are talking about me online and they like my work and I kind of hate college and I’m thinking I should just drop out and focus on my business.”
“Wow. How did you say all of that in one breath?”
I sigh into the phone. “Seriously? Is that all you have to say?”
“No, Becca, I’m sorry. I was just playing around.”
I hadn’t even realized my heart was pounding until I take a deep breath and feel like I’m running a marathon. Even though this is my life, Park’s thoughts on it really matter to me. Maybe I’m just delusional. I need some confirmation that this could be a good idea. “Well?” I ask impatiently.
“You really want my opinion?”
I nod and then realize he can’t see me. “Yes, I do.”
“I think you should do more than just paintings. You should take your most popular designs and sell digital prints, stickers, coffee mugs, stuff like that. Put your designs on T-shirts and handbags and stuff. The world likes your art and you could set all of that up online without having to paint more canvases.”
“That sounds like…like you’re encouraging me…”
“Of course I’m encouraging you. I’m very much a ‘follow my heart’ kind of person. If that’s what you want to do, do it. I’ll support you.”
“You’re the best,” I say with a smile.
“Hey,” he says suddenly.
“Yes?”
“I miss you.”
“I miss you, babe.”
“I mean I miss you, miss you.” I can almost see his eyebrows wiggling in that suggestive way that makes my stomach flutter.
“Maybe we can remedy that,” I whisper into the phone, hoping that I sound at least a little bit sexy.
“I hope so.”
Chapter 9
The remedy comes quickly. Ollie calls me just a few minutes after I get off the phone with Park and tells me that C&C BMX Park will be closed down tonight, courtesy of a transformer outage that left the facility without power. The power company will have it up and running by tomorrow morning, but for now, I’m free.
It’s only four p.m. when I get the good news, and I dec
ide to surprise Park with my company. He had said he was planning on cooking a frozen pizza for dinner, so I know he’ll be home. Nervous is about the most underrated word in the world to describe how I feel as I shower and get ready to drive over to his house. I use the fancy conditioner so my hair will look great, and I shave my legs…twice. I want tonight to be perfect because you never know if it’ll be the night.
I’m so excited and anxious to see him that I don’t bother going through every outfit in my closet to deliberate on them—I just grab something quickly. Luckily, that something I chose was a form-fitting pair of ripped up jeans and a black tank top with rhinestone decorations along the neckline. If the cleavage on this shirt happens to make my boobs look awesome well…that’s just a random coincidence.
Knowing that boy can eat an entire frozen pizza by himself, I stop at the grocery store and grab another pizza, a dozen brownies from the bakery and a two liter of Coke. The whole time I’m shopping and driving to his place, Park is texting me silly things about how much he misses me and how he can’t wait to see me. Even with those texts as confirmation, I’m still freaking out when I arrive at his house.
His truck is the only vehicle in the driveway and that makes me oddly relieved. It would have been awkward to stumble upon a party I wasn’t invited to.
Then, of course, of course—as soon as I’m feeling good about surprising Park with dinner and brownies, he doesn’t answer the door. I knock again, feeling increasingly stupid as I hold a bag of food and stand on his front porch. When he doesn’t answer, I take out my phone and shoot him a text.
Me: So…what are you doing?
Less than a minute later, he replies.
Park: Playing Xbox. How’s work?
I smile. I know how that boy plays Xbox—loud as hell and taking up all of his attention. He’s probably in his bedroom upstairs and can’t even hear me knocking on the door. Because he’s unknowingly scared the crap out of me, I decide to play a little game with him too.