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It took her another five years for her to realize I wasn’t going to become an influencer or latch myself onto the richest boy in my school. I was seventeen when she came to the realization that I wasn’t like her, that I couldn’t sink my claws into someone just because I wanted to leech off their social status.
Really, I didn’t care about that. The only thing I cared about, still, was art.
And so, even though I could tell she really didn’t want to, her gallery hosted an event showcasing artists from the city who were under eighteen. She’d begrudgingly told me about it, and she’d tried to nudge me in the direction she wanted: no blood. No skeletons. No creepy paintings.
But if all that was off the table, then my art was too, so I didn’t listen to her. I spent a month sketching and drawing and painting a self-portrait of myself, in my signature style: the canvas was separated by a thick black line of paint. On the left side was a photo-realistic painting of me, expressionless, and on the right sat a skull. My skull.
My mom had cringed when I’d submitted it, but she’d kept any comments about it to herself. The night of the showcase, I insisted on coming. She’d told me it wasn’t necessary for me to be there, but I knew everyone else who’d submitted theirs would go—and, honestly, I wanted to see the rest of the art people my age and younger had put in.
I think my mom didn’t want me to go because I’d recently started to do my hair… and not in the way she approved of. I’d learned how to bleach my hair and dye it; right now, it was a mixture of blue and pink, all streaks.
I liked it. That’s all that should matter to my mom, but she hated the looks I got when we went out. The looks, she’d told me, were for the wrong reasons. Her feelings over it bothered me to no end, because I knew if I started a YouTube channel about dying hair or whatnot, my mom would be all for it. It’d become part of my brand, blah, blah, blah.
I didn’t want a brand, though. I just wanted to be me. And, okay, maybe I dyed my hair like that because I knew she’d hate it if the color wasn’t put to good use. I did a lot of things to spite my mom. After being stuck with her and only her these last few years, I’d decided something: I didn’t like her. Not as a person and definitely not as my mother.
But, anyway, the night of the showcase I wore a black dress and dark lipstick. No jewelry. My hair was straight, a few inches off my shoulders. I thought I looked good, but my mom only shook her head at me and asked, “Are you sure you really want to come? It’ll bore you, I promise, Brianna.”
Like I’d let her convince me otherwise. “Yes, I want to go.”
So we went. Had to go early because my mom had to help set up a few things, which let me roam the gallery before anyone else got there. There was no competition, so to speak, but that’s how I viewed the other pieces hanging around the place.
None called out to me. None made me stop walking and think,wow, that’s amazing. None made me read the small plaque next to it, detailing some information of the young artist. That was, until I got to my own piece, hanging in the back of the gallery.
It was a rather large canvas, three feet by three feet, hence why it had taken me so long. I stood there, staring at it, a feeling of pride swelling up in my belly. How could I not be proud of my work?
It was like I stared out from the canvas, watching. I’d painted my eyes perhaps a bit too lifelike.
Before I knew it, the gallery opened, and other people began to walk around, surveying the art. You could tell who the parents were. The ones who were typically brought their kid with them, took pictures of them in front of their piece. The ones who weren’t had wine glasses in their hands, chatting about the meanings and the skills of the young artists.
I’d never seen my mom at work before—the ones with no kids, the ones with big pocketbooks, were her kind of people. She gravitated toward them, laughed with them, guided them through the gallery all with a smile on her face… a smile she never gave me.
And then, of course, it was inevitable. People started to gather around mine in the back. They pointed at me when they saw me. Some tried to ask me questions.
My heart had started to beat fast, and I suddenly decided I didn’t want to talk to any of them, so I ducked away from them and scurried to the back room, walking through a door labeledemployees only. I leaned my back against the door, trying to calm myself.
What was wrong with me? Shouldn’t I be happy? Everyone who saw my painting loved it.
But maybe that was it. My paintings weren’t about love. They were… God, what were they about? Why did I draw? Why did I paint? Why did art in all forms mean so much to me?
After a few minutes of wrestling with myself, it hit me. My art wasn’t about love. From the start, it had been about the opposite. Not life, not love, not all the beautiful things this world contained.
It was about hate. Death. Rot and decay and blood.
That picture out there, the photo-realistic half… I wasn’t smiling in it. My painted self was emotionless, the other half revealing what dwelled within: nothing but bones. When you got down to it, that’s all any of us were. Bones, waiting to be crushed up by time and turned into dust.
Maybe my mom was right. Maybe something was wrong with me after all.
As the night wore on, I stuck to the back room. When my mom came to find me, she spotted me at the break table, picking at my nails. She rushed over, leaning her hands on the table. Her blue eyes were bright and vivid with appreciation as she said, “Bri—” She only called me that when she was happy with me, AKA just about never. “—everyone loves your portrait. I have multiple people wanting to buy it tonight.” She laughed. “There might just be a bidding war on it!”
“That’s great,” I muttered, frowning to myself.
She pushed off the table, setting her hands on her hips. She wore tight black pants and a pretty gray blouse, her short brown hair curled just above her shoulders. “I figured you’d be happy everyone loves your piece.”
“I am, I’m just… not feeling too good right now.” I forced out a smile, wanting her to go away.
“Well, depending on how things go tonight, maybe I can get the gallery to do a night just for you.” Something like that would’ve tempted me before, but now… now I just wanted to leave and go home, lock myself in my room and be alone.
I hated people sometimes. There were times when I hated everyone, and I didn’t know why. It must be why I had no friends. That, and my nose was always stuck in my sketchpad, even during lunch at school.
