***
“Oh, Britt, thank you! If I were there, I’d give you a big hug!”
Britt grinned as she FaceTimed Savannah, who was in Springfield with Justin looking at houses. Despite her anxiety over being maid of honor, it was worth it to make her best friend happy. She was glad she’d talked to her dad about it today. Confiding in him was a brand-new thing. As soon as he left, she decided to tell Savannah before she chickened out.
“I’ll be home this weekend,” Savannah said. “We can discuss all the details then. Oh, Justin says hi.”
Justin’s face appeared on the screen. “Hey, Britt. Thanks for making my girl’s day.” He grinned and disappeared from view.
“Isn’t he the best?” Savannah put on her large-framed sunglasses. “We’ve got another appointment for a showing. This is the sixth—”
“Seventh,” Justin corrected.
“Okay, seventh house we’ve looked at today. It’s all running together.”
“Any promising ones?”
“Not yet. But we’ll find the perfect house, I’m sure. Thanks again, Britt. Talk to you soon!”
After Britt hung up, she went upstairs to her studio and looked at the large calendar on her wall. She had one more video to make this week, but she hadn’t figured out the content yet. She was still fielding comments and messages about the last one she’d uploaded two weeks ago when she had admitted the need for a change.
She’d surprised herself by saying those words, and she had considered editing them out of the video. But she didn’t, mostly to keep herself accountable. Now that they were out in the public domain, she needed to stand by them. Regardless of her father’s excellent advice, she still might not have called Savannah and told her she would be her maid of honor if she hadn’t been honest with her audience.
She sat down at her desk and started to doodle, something she did when she was looking for inspiration. But she wasn’t thinking about videos. She was thinking about her father.
He always seemed uncomfortable when he walked into the house, no matter how much he tried to play it off. Although she was only eight when he left, she could remember the fights with Mom, the times he didn’t show up to school or church events,the empty beer cans that littered the floor around his chair when he fell asleep drinking after work. There was one time when she got up before her mother, saw the cans, and picked them up so he wouldn’t get into trouble. She was, what, five? Six?
Her heart pinched, and she stared at the doodle that wasn’t a doodle at all. It was a pencil sketch of her father’s eyes. Clear, bright, engaged. Like he was today. She hadn’t expected him to figure out she was struggling with something. He’d told her he’d changed, and she could see it. But she also knew not to trust him—not yet. Even he’d said it would take time to build up their relationship. So far, it had been time well spent.
She did a quick fill-in of the rest of his features and set the drawing aside. She still didn’t have a topic—she’d done many tutorials on faces and portraiture—but she didn’t panic. There were endless ways to find inspiration. Eventually she would land on an idea, or several, she would want to explore.
Britt opened her laptop and went to her channel dashboard. One hundred new comments from yesterday, and twenty DMs, all from her “confession video” as she now referred to it. The unread DMs weren’t all recent. Several of them arrived shortly after the video, and after the first three creeped her out, she’d avoided reading the rest. She was almost to the point where she wanted to turn off DMs. But not all of them were inappropriate or bad. There were good and kind people who complimented her art and gave her encouragement. It had also been the way her father had gotten back in contact with her.
Maybe some music would make the process of going through her messages less painful. She slipped in her earbuds, found one of her beloved yacht rock playlists, and jammed while she opened her inbox.
Hello dear. I like you videos and you are beiutyful. I am African prince with one billion dollers to give you...
Delete.
Dear Britt—while I do enjoy your videos, I wish you would do something about your hair and makeup. You would be so pretty if you would just add a little lipstick and mascara, and for the love of God buy a straightener—
Delete.
Wow look at u. So famous. Remember me? We went to elementary school togthr. U know, I have this business where I make 25k a day. U can too, just click here—
Delete.
“And I’m not famous,” she muttered, even though she knew the message was a spambot. She didn’t consider having a large audience being famous. She was just teaching what she knew, and she was glad other people were enjoying it.
The rest of the messages were similar, and she deleted all of them until she got to the last one.
Hi Britt. I hope this doesn’t seem weird, but I wanted to let you know how much I appreciated your last video—the one where you talked about making a change. I can so relate. It’s easy to stay stuck in a rut, even when it’s uncomfortably comfortable. I’ve got some changes to make, but I’m not sure how to make them. I don’t even know why I’m telling you this.I just stumbled across your videos a little while ago. I’m not an artist. I can’t even color in the lines.
Anyway, I’m rambling. Just wanted to say thanks and good luck with your art and the channel.
H.
P.S. That beachscape you drew was very cool. Made me want to go surfing.
