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Andrew gently put his hand over mine, and I stopped worrying the skin. “You mean, it’s easier to give up than to fight it.”
My lungs burned with the fire of a thousand suns. “I’m not giving up completely. Besides, what am I supposed to do? I don’t even have a real job. I’m only eighteen. They support me.”
He turned back to the clouds with a decidedly holier-than-thou air. “Then get a real job.”
“So you’re just giving up then?”
We were practicing yoga in my living room when I broke the news about my rejection to Cat. I figured that it wouldn’t be a big deal. Very few people even knew I loved taking photos, so it wasn’t like I had a following of any notoriety. But Cat had been my best friend since she stole my crayons in kindergarten. If anyone was going to call me out on not following my dreams—other than Andrew—it would be her.
I sighed long and low at my own willful ignorance. I should have known that Catalina would never let my dream go quietly into the night.
“It wasn’t meant to be.” I pushed my hips into downward dog and breathed deep through my nostrils. “It was stupid, anyway. I submitted my photos on a whim. I figured that the prize money would pay for any last-minute wedding things. Asking them about their job openings was just a side note.”
Catalina grunted as she flopped into child’s pose. “Okay, but you’ve loved doing photography since you were a kid. Being rejected has gotta hurt, even if just a little.”
I shrugged as best as I could in the pose. The TV yogi walked her feet up toward her hands and I followed. “It wasn’t my best work,” I admitted. “I submitted the flowers and pond stuff.”
“The safe stuff, then.” Catalina stood up and brushed off her leggings. She watched as TV Yogi lifted her foot into tree pose. “Typical fear of success. Why are we doing yoga again? I hate this shit.”
“It’s good for flexibility”—Catalina waggled her eyebrows as I rolled my eyes—“and heart circulation, and peace of mind, which I need right now. Besides, this is my damn apartment. What do you mean by ‘fear of success?’”
“Fear of success is when people get in their own way on their path to achieving their goals, for fear that they will be too good.” Catalina looked at the tree-pose variation and shook her head. “You do this every time you get close to getting what you truly want and need.”
“What does that mean?”
“Take last year, for example.” Catalina sat on the ottoman and crossed her legs. “You had the opportunity to take photos at Ana’s wedding. I know that Ana was your brother’s wife, but you two are pretty close, so it would have been a great opportunity. Did you take the gig?”
I studied my fingernails.
“Exactly. And what do you love to do most, even more than watching gymnastics?”
“Event photography.”
“Point made. Fear of success.”
I scratched my knee and picked at a scab on my elbow. “That wasn’t me getting in the way of my own success,” I said. “It was me trying to avoid the wrath of Quinta Jones. Can you imagine if I even attended Ana’s wedding after everything that’s happened, let alone take photos for it?”
Catalina narrowed her eyes. “Since when does your mom run your life?”
I lowered my eyes to the ground. “Since always.” I looked at Catalina. “We are in a good place right now. If I rock the boat, it will cause a major blowout, and the wedding will be ruined. And you know how hard Michael has worked to make sure everything is okay.”
“How hard Michael has worked?” I’m sure the whole eastern seaboard felt the scorn of Catalina’s eye roll. “News to me. Last I heard, he couldn’t be bothered to look at silverware for the wedding, let alone do actual work for it. And anyway, why is it more important to make your mother—and Michael—happy than it is to pursue a career that’s actually sustainable? You can’t work at your mom’s old law firm forever.”
I shrugged. “It’s just a couple more months, and then I only have to talk to my mom on holidays and birthdays,” I said. “Sure, I work at her old law firm, but it’s not like she visits them. Besides, we only talk about wedding stuff, so once the wedding is done, we’ll have nothing else to talk about. If I only have to make her happy for this one day and never really talk to her again, it’s worth the sacrifice.”
“Is it though?” Catalina said. “Is it really?”
Catalina’s argument wasn’t new. I had been fighting this fight with everyone I knew—except my parents, and Michael—for years. Once Cat left, I rolled up the yoga mat, trying to push a similar argument, from years ago, from my head.
Dante, my late brother, was always pushing. He pushed me to apply to the best colleges, even ones that were on the opposite coast. He pushed me to fight against that part of me that just wanted to stay hidden. And most importantly, he pushed me to listen to what those closest to me were saying even if I thought it was complete nonsense.
Consider the possibilities,he would say. You never know.
I closed my eyes and leaned my back against the ottoman. My watch beeped as it monitored my heart rate’s steady climb. I could feel the tears gathering in my eyes as I pressed my knees to my chest, willing the anxiety, that elephant on my chest, to go away. You’re not dying, I reminded myself. Keep yourself in the present.
I did all the things my former therapist told me to do. I thought of five things that I could see, four things I could hear, and so on. But nothing could stop the suffocating feeling that overcame my entire being, that feeling that this was, truly, the end.
After a few minutes, I felt my heart rate come back under my control, but Dante’s words stayed with me: consider the possibilities.
