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Chapter 15
Amanda
“Yes, I’d be more than happy to come in for an interview.” Whether or not my tone of voice agreed, and despite the hiccup that followed my reply. “Thank you for taking time to look at my resume and portfolio, Mr. Dryden. I’d love to work for IntelliMax.”
I hung up my phone and lay back on my sofa, staring at my apartment’s popcorn ceiling with the flecks of silver glitter. Glitter that looked like stars in the night sky over Queenstown, New Zealand. Conversations with Calvin flooded back. Feelings resurged, unstoppable like the rising tide.
Oh, no. There I went again. Wasn’t it enough that I’d quit my job at SolutionX? That I’d finally gotten annoyed enough with that dead-end job and its progress-stopping culture to put myself out there for a job change? Did I have to feel bad about losing the chance to see Calvin every morning, too?
The sniffling into my couch’s throw-pillow would say no. Not yet. Instead, life without Calvin felt like I’d been hit by an asteroid, and all that remained was a crater, smoking and dusty.
I opened up social media and, out of habit, logged onto Awful Art in Thrift Shops. Ah, there was VelvetElvis’s post right at the top—the art we’d found in New Zealand. Ugh, he’d posted it before I got the chance. Curse him. I typed a nasty comment below it but then backspaced it out.
I may have been irritated, but I couldn’t turn into someone with bad manners. Mom had taught me better than that. Then I typed, I miss you. Before I could delete it, my phone’s battery died.
I plugged it in, but it’d be an hour before I could get enough juice in it to erase the comment. Fabulous. Oh, my life was fabulous.
From the coffee table, I picked up my personal thoughts book. Thumbing through, I found some good quotes, but then something caught my eye I’d written a while back, right after re-reading Tolkien.
I’m a little like a hobbit, I guess. For one, I think there’s an adventure for me—although I’m not sure I want to take it.
Well, life had handed me one—in the stomping grounds of Middle Earth. How about that?
I value things that are precious—beyond gold or power. When I finally identify them, I hold to them and never let them go.
That had been true all my life. I’d learned to cherish good friends, my education, the chance to express myself artistically. Luckily, life had reminded me to value my art again. I’d been lost for a while.
I was about to write a new observation in my book, but my pencil hovered in midair. A hissing whisper, like that of a ring of power, penetrated my mind and soul, striking with force. It said, Life itself didn’t teach you to value your art again. Calvin Turner did. He believed in you—even when you’d forgotten yourself. He urged you to share your portfolio, to stop hiding your talents, to shine. It was Calvin who made you better.
Oh, shush, voice! Calvin had made me worse. He’d made me cry, for heaven’s sake.
But without the trip to New Zealand and Calvin’s bumbling help—even though it hadn’t turned out the way I’d asked him to make it happen—I never would’ve had the courage to branch out, or to get away from the stifling management at SolutionX.
The voice wasn’t wrong—Calvin had believed in me. He’d made me see myself in a new light. He’d irked me enough to get me … unstuck.
Calvin didn’t deserve my derision. He deserved my thanks.
Well, if I ever saw him again, I’d at least tell him thank you. Then I’d probably buckle, plagued by memories of the best kisses and most connection I’d ever felt with anyone in my whole life.
Of course, then he’d pat my head and cast me aside just as he had Lego.
It was much better if I forgot all about Calvin and everything that might have been. I closed my eyes and went to sleep, where I dreamed about lost black kittens mewling in the night.
