Total pages in book: 97
Estimated words: 93785 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 469(@200wpm)___ 375(@250wpm)___ 313(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 93785 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 469(@200wpm)___ 375(@250wpm)___ 313(@300wpm)
If not, I’ll just bring her to my house and force her to paint. It always helps me.
I start to close my phone and move on with my day when my gaze lands on my second-to-last response.
Don’t “we’ll see” me. It sounds like my mother, and it makes me want to sneak out and go on the hunt for a delinquent.
I haven’t thought of this in years. So many nights I’d sneak through my bedroom window and dart into the night, telling myself that I needed freedom. In retrospect, I probably needed the opposite. I probably needed attention. But doing something over the top was the only way to get more than a half-assed conversation at dinner, and I’d stopped trying to impress my parents years before. They made it clear that I would never live up to their expectations, and I chose to believe that.
Eventually, pissing off my parents became a badge of courage—a war patch. Dating men on motorcycles covered in tattoos, much too old to be with a sixteen-year-old girl, was where my power was harnessed. The more my parents tried to strip me bare of who I was as a person—no art, no rap music, no colored streaks in my hair—the more I pushed back with all my might. I craved some form of control over my existence. I wanted someone to love me for who I was and not what they wanted me to be, even if it was a liar named Dale waiting for me on a bike at the end of the darkened street.
This isn’t an epiphany. I’ve known this since my parents sent me to a therapist in high school to try to root out my behavioral issues. But seeing the words typed out by my own fingers hits different.
I scroll to my sister’s name on my phone.
Me: Was I a bratty kid?
Lucia: Obviously.
Me: I’m serious.
Lucia: Anchor me into this conversation. What are we doing? Where are we coming from?
I get to my feet and pace around my office. My brain is spinning too quickly to sit still any longer.
Me: I don’t have a five-year plan.
Lucia: Are we supposed to have one? Who is checking?
Me: Audrey just told me “we’ll see” and I could hear it in Mom’s voice. And I just had a moment when my past and my present kind of collided.
Lucia: What does that have to do with a five-year plan?
“I don’t know,” I say, groaning. But they feel linked.
Me: Forget it.
Lucia: No, you weren’t a brat. Mom and Dad were hard. I remember all six hugs they gave me, and I’m not sure Dad ever told me he loved me. But no one is without issues, Gianna. I’m sure we both have shit that a few good night kisses could’ve fixed, but we are who we are. And I’m proud of us both. We’re doing the best we can.
I hold my phone to my chest and stare out the window. We’re doing the best we can.
Are we? Lucia has curated an intentional life that she loves. She’s doing the best she can—the best anyone can. But am I?
Me: I’m proud of you, too.
Lucia:
Am I doing the best I can?
I noticed Drake’s pause when I told him about my house and fulfilled life. He didn’t look convinced, but being the gentleman that he is, he didn’t call me out on it. But the momentary pause was noted.
As I stare out the window, I note the sun is out, but the rays don’t quite touch the ground. The park is empty. Everything below is still. It’s like it’s all waiting for something. More sun? Rain? Snow? A thunderstorm? The world is clinging to the bleakness until something comes to bring it back to life.
Hmm …
My life has been shaken up recently, and it’s felt a little sunnier.
A smile touches my lips as his name comes to mind. He’s felt like warm sunshine and powerful thunderstorms all in one. Never did I imagine that I’d be going on dates with a guy like him and talking. Staying up late at night texting about everything and nothing. Plotting outfits to drive him out of his mind because he thinks it’s cute to frustrate me sexually.
I open the coat closet and check out my reflection in the full-length mirror on the back of one of the doors.
A black skirt with a texture that makes you want to touch it in a length almost too short for the office. A white tank that hugs every inch of my torso and the wicked curve fading into my hip. My hair looks intentionally messy—like I just rolled out of bed like this. A pair of heels makes my legs look impossibly long. But the pièce de résistance?
A red lip that will undoubtedly draw Drake’s attention right where I want it. To my mouth.