Chapter Thirty-Two Beauty In Everything

“What do we need to go into town for?” I asked as we both got into her brother’s car. Jasmine had run into the house briefly to steal the keys from Jay’s jacket pocket, as well as grab a small zip-up, dark blue hoodie, which hung loosely on her shoulders. She stuck the ignition key in the car, checked her mirrors, and began to drive out of the driveway carefully, paying close attention to the small roads that lead up to the house. We weren’t even on the highway yet, and I could already tell she was a better driver than Sam.

“We need water, because I don’t trust the stuff that’s in the taps,” she stated, her eyes narrowing on the road up ahead. “Seriously. The last time I drank from the tap here, I was seven and well, that wasn’t a very fun night. I was throwing up the entire time.” She made a face, scrunching up her nose and turned to stick her tongue out at me. She was so blunt with her words, not caring if she was talking about herself in an unflattering manner. I really admired that about her. Most girls I knew in high school, though I had had limited exposure to them, were always concerned with themselves and how they were presented. They wouldn’t be caught dead talking about puking until there was nothing left in the bushes. I already knew that Jasmine wasn’t like the other girls that were here, but it was nice to have that belief reaffirmed.

I smiled at her antics, and she turned her focus back to the road, adding some other reasoning. “And I’m not drinking what my brother and his lame-ass friends are. All they have is alcohol and I’m about to die of dehydration. I guess we could have lunch in town too, since there is no fucking food in the house either.”

I smiled again, though her face was very serious and annoyed. It just was funny hearing such harsh words come out of her small body, even if it somehow suited her. I was transfixed with the fact that she could be so hostile and wild one moment, then flippy and a little kid all over again. I remembered her somber moments from the night before on top of the others, and though there hadn’t been many, they probably stuck with me more.

With her mere mention of food, I felt my stomach muscles tighten and send a current of hunger through me. I clutched my gut instinctively, as the walls of it felt like they were folding in on each other. She noticed my actions and nodded, mentioning how she couldn’t even have breakfast that morning because of the lack of food.

That had been pretty much the extent of our talking as she drove, her eyes always focused on the road. The radio was on, but it cut out as soon as we had been in the forest, so she didn’t bother to turn it up when we got back into frequency. The silence was nice, and I didn’t feel like I had to fill it constantly with mindless banter. She was busy with driving and actually trying not to crash, while I looked at the trees passing by, or just watched her. It was funny again, seeing such a small person drive such a big car, but she was doing a good job. Her countenance was serious and stern, her eyes narrowed as she watched the road carefully, and signaled properly. She wasn’t too high maintenance about her habits, being able to relax as we got onto the main roads and began to make our way into town. She leaned back in her seat, one hand draped out of the open window, while the other clutched the wheel.

She finished part of our journey by pulling into a gas station with a convenience store and a few small scattered shops around it, parking the car in one of the few vacant spots off to the side.

“Remind me to get gas before we leave,” she stated matter-of-factly, folding her keys up and placing them in the front pocket of the hoodie as she got out of the car.

I mumbled a response and we both descended upon the stores, heading for the convenience one almost by instinct. We split up inside temporarily, her wandering around to the back to grab a case of water, and me making a be-line for the food.

I had always been lectured by my mother to never buy food in these kinds of stores, because everything was so expensive, but at that moment, I really didn’t care. I wandered through the brightly colored aisle of potato chip bags and candy wrappers with my stomach doing flip flops and actually wondering how much it would be if I bought out the entire store. I figured it would cost about as much as Idaho, so I finally just found the pre-made sandwich area and decided that it was a safe bet. Jasmine walked up beside me at that point, balancing a twelve pack of water like it was nothing by her side.

“Oh, man, I’m sorry,” I apologized right away, rushing over to her and nearly forgetting my lunch. She looked at me oddly for a moment, furrowing her brow as I went to her side and tried to take the water out of her hands. Even if she looked to not be struggling, she was a girl – a small one, at that – and wasn’t I supposed to be carrying these types of things for her? My mom had always yelled at me when I was younger, and actually had female friends, to always be polite and nice to them. I had never listened, of course, mostly because the extent of my female friends back then were all about as rough as I was, so I didn’t really care about hurting their feelings or helping them. Jasmine, on the other hand, was slightly different. We were older now, apparently more mature, and stronger, but it just seemed to be my job to help her. My mother’s words of wisdom on food had been lost, but I was going to try and treat Jasmine ‘like a lady’.

Jasmine merely laughed me off when she realized what I was doing, clutching the water to her side and turning away from me so she still held onto it.

“I’m a big girl,” she teased, sticking her tongue out at me again. My hands were still extended trying to grab at the object, but I let them fall to my sides, feeling slightly embarrassed, but smiling in spite of myself.

“Sorry,” I apologized again, shrugging my shoulders.

“You apologize too much,” she stated, matter-of-factly. She gave me a weird look out of the side of her eye, cocking her head and making her bangs fall over her forehead.

“Sorry,” I said again, rolling my eyes and playing into her joke. She shook her head at me, nudging my arm and motioning to the sandwiches I was looking at only moments ago.

“You’re probably delirious from lack of food,” she continued to tease. “Just eat and you’ll be fine again.” She gave me another sly look from the corner of her eye, nudging me again. I gave her one back, not really know where this was going.

Finally, after fooling around in the aisle a little longer playing ‘guess what that sandwich filler is’, we paid for our food separately at the counter. The middle aged woman checking us out smiled at us, especially as Jasmine continued to jab me in the arm and crack random stupid jokes which I could merely smile and bat her away, trying to get my debit card to work. I never carried cash on me anymore, because I had stopped buying so much liquor and beer. I didn’t really buy anything anymore, because Gerard gave it to me all for free. I felt my smile fall a little, thinking of the man I was supposed to be missing. I did miss Gerard, that was for damn sure, but with Jasmine around, it was getting easier and easier to not feel so alone.

I had started to head over to the car with my armful of food, when I heard her yell at me, redirecting our focus to behind the nestled area of stores. She led me around the back of an old fashioned ice cream parlor, following a small foot beaten path in the dirt. She told me that there was this really nice lake around the other side, and she wasn’t kidding.

Aside from the road and the stores, everything else around the lot was full of nature. There were trees with green tipped leaves, starting to bloom once more from winter’s rest. The lake that Jasmine spoke about flowed forward in front of us, running its small pathway right next to the stores, going under a small bridge that was further up the road. It was honestly the prettiest thing I had seen in a long time. In Newark, there was never anything like this. There would sometimes be small lakes and rivers, but they were always taken over and corrupted by big companies, dumping waste, and adding pollution. It was never safe water to swim in and sometimes, you didn’t even want to be near it. During the summer, when the days got so hot it felt like the asphalt was melting, the water would give off this horrible putrid muggy smell, sort of like rotted fish sticks. It was honestly disgusting, and probably why I wasn’t so keen on seeing this lake at first. I should have known to trust Jasmine by this point in time, because when I took in an eyeful of the clear water flowing over rocks below us, I changed my mind entirely. The smell wasn’t even too bad at all; I was still aware of the faint whiff of gas from the station behind us, but as we got closer to the running water, sitting down on some of the rocks and cleared away dirt, all I began to smell was nature. The thick green lush smell of pine, and overturned dirt made by spring coming into full bloom.

“It’s so beautiful,” I finally gushed, stopping mid-unwrap of my sandwich to comment.

I could hear Jasmine chuckle and smile, her mouth still full with remnants of her sandwich. She placed the case of water next to her, ripped open and missing two bottles, while her sandwich was in her lap. She nodded her head looking over at me and then the running water, trying to stretch her feet out as if to stick her tiny toes into the blue current.

“My grandfather used to take me here all the time,” she stated after swallowing her food.

She was nearly done her sandwich by that point, somehow managing to eat it in a rush, without actually looking like a pig. I had been trying to control myself, taking the occasional bite because I felt like I was just going to jam the thing down my throat I was so hungry. I had gotten what I thought to be a ham and cheese sandwich, but for the most part, I couldn’t taste ham or cheese. There was some kind of meat in there, and I tried not to focus on what exactly I could be consuming instead. I just tried to watch Jasmine, who had what looked to be a tuna sandwich, and the nature around me. It was easy to get distracted as I gazed, and not focus on eating so much.

I really wished I had a camera to take a picture of everything. I didn’t think my family had owned a camera for years by this point. There were a lot of baby pictures of me (being the only child), but after about age seven, there was nothing. I was glad – I hated having my picture taken, for the sheer reason that I ended up looking like I had some kind of disorder. Taking pictures other than myself, though, I had never considered – until that moment when I was actually surrounded by something so spectacular. I wanted to keep it, it looked that good; something you only see in nature brochures or TV shows and only attempted at being described in shitty fiction.

“Really?” I asked, wanting to hear more of this place, especially from Jasmine’s perspective. I had never had a cottage, so everything was a new experience for me.

“Yeah,” she said, nodding her head and furrowing her brows as she recalled her memories. “I was a little kid. He used to take me here and we would try and catch fish together. He used to live up here when he was young, and would catch catfish all the time.” She paused to take another bite, swallowing it, then moving on, while I stayed quiet and exchanged glances from her and to running water, trying to find catfish buried deep below.

“The lake got over-fished quickly,” she went on, making me feel slightly stupid for looking. I just turned away and looked at her while she talked. The running water in the background and her voice made the perfect soundtrack as I ate.

“I was never able to catch anything, no matter how many worms my granddad tried to hook. At first, I had been so sad, but that was mainly because I actually thought a catfish looked like a cat, and I had been begging to get one for about two years at that point,” she giggled, putting her hand over her face at her child-like mistake. “Real catfish though, are so ugly. They have these weird whisker-like things on their face, black stringy messes, and just… ugh. I’m so glad I never got to see one up close when it was alive. I probably would have shit myself. But my grandfather did gut one in front of me once.”

She stopped, and scrunched up her face, making her eyes crinkle at the sides. “I was a bit older then, maybe ten or so, but it traumatized me so fucking much that I never wanted to go fishing again. The guts were all over the place, and the fish’s whiskers were just…uck.” She shuddered and shook at the memory, pushing her lips forward and twisting her countenance.

“I’m eating,” I informed her, not liking her description too much.

The story hadn’t been too bad, but since the remnants of my sandwich were still in my hand, while hers was long gone, I really didn’t need to visual. She looked over at me, almost forgetting that I was there. When she had told her story, it was like she went off in her own little world, on a tangent as she recalled the fond and not so fond memories of the lake in front of us. Once she saw my disgusted expression, though and now only half finished sandwich, she started to laugh and giggle, putting her hands over her face again.

“I’m sorry,” she laughed, making the strong words lose significance.

We teased each other for a few moments more, her poking at the contents of my food and saying that it resembled part of the gutted fish and me shuddering and shaking as she did so. She had been the one eating the tuna, after all, I pointed out, causing her to gag profusely. She started to shudder again at her memories, and I had to resist the urge to hug her. We were sitting shoulder to shoulder beforehand, nudging each other and goofing off, but as she started to analyze my sandwich again, recovered from her minor scare, she leaned her torso into my lap to look inside my sandwich, and I had felt myself getting nervous again. It was fine when we were joking around, but this was going a little too far. She seemed to sense my discomfort, because she suddenly said she’d be back in a second, then left me alone on the rocks.

I felt weird once she was gone, almost like I was exposed in the open air, her small side no longer pressed against me. I scolded myself for the thoughts, but again, her voice came into my head, reminding me that all we had had was just a kiss. She had wanted to kiss me then and only then, so she had gone for it. It took a lot of courage to do that, I realized, even if it didn’t really mean all that much. It had taken me weeks to work up that kind of courage to ever do that to Gerard, and by that time, the feelings I had manifested themselves into something I couldn’t control. I felt another sense of complacency that Jasmine’s feelings wouldn’t get that out of control, because she didn’t seem to dwell on things as much as I did.

I did wonder, though, as I sat there waiting for her to return, if I would be able to do the same, in any situation. To kiss someone for the sheer sake of kissing them. By the time I acted with Gerard, not only were my feelings stronger, but the kiss itself had to be monumental. I had gone in with a covert mission to pretend that I wanted to be drawn, to present myself in front of him, begging and fighting him until we had both gotten what we wanted, while Jasmine had just reached down and done it. I had come to the conclusion that she was easier to kiss than Gerard (at least at first) when her body was suddenly beside me again.

“Hey,” she greeted cheerfully, a full-bodied smile on her face.

“Hey,” I croaked back, my voice slightly shot from my surprised state.

Jasmine twisted her bottom lip deviously in her smile, letting me know she had other thoughts on her mind. I felt my heart pumping loudly in my chest, wondering if somehow she knew what I had just been thinking. I tried not to look at her face, and when I cast my eyes down, I noticed she held something behind her back. Taking the distraction as a necessary option, I began to squint my eyes, but I couldn’t see what mysterious object was.

“Surprise,” she finally stated when she thought she had tortured me enough. Her slender arms came around from behind her back, trusting a brightly wrapped object at my face.

“Ice cream!” she finally concluded.

As I took the cone from her hand, the biggest smile appeared on my face. She had bought us both drumsticks - something I hadn’t had in ages. I began to unwrap it furiously when I received the decadent item, forgetting all my woes of kissing from before. This time, I was the one that was infectious, and Jasmine’s soft laughter filtered through my ears.

“You’re so hilarious,” she cooed, starting to unwrap her cone as well.

The words made my heart stop for a moment, recognizing them as something Gerard had told me one of the first times we had been together. My happy thoughts of chocolate and ice cream had been overridden once more by my incessant relationship and cheating status dilemma. I needed to find a distraction quick.

“So, uhhh,” I started, looking up and around for anything to talk about. “You still go here with your grandfather?”

I stuck the ice cream in my mouth right after, biting off a thick piece of chocolate so I couldn’t do anything else with my mouth.

“No,” she said, her voice dropping a tad lower. She shook her head and began to unwrap her ice cream even slower, her eyes going down to her lap again. I felt my heart drop, recognizing the sadden tone and knowing I had made a horrible faux pas.

“I’m sorry,” I apologized and I didn’t care if she thought it was too much.

“Oh, don’t be,” she uttered, waving her free hand that didn’t hold the cone. She looked at me and tried to smile, but it was a weak one at best. Her eyes went to her lap again. “It’s not like he’d dead or anything. He’s just… not around. I don’t see that side of my family anymore.”

“Oh,” I muttered, licking my ice cream more. “Why not?”

She paused for a minute, scoffing lightly at a small memory that came to her head. It was only silent for a few minutes after that, but in my head it felt like too long, and I tried to back out of the question.

“You don’t have to answer. I’m being too nosy. I’m sorry.” My words rushed together in one strangled breath, and I waved my hand in the air, trying to brush away the words I had formerly said.

“No,” she laughed at me, despite the frail tone in her voice. “It’s okay. I don’t mind.” She brought her eyes over to meet with my own, looking my frightened countenance up and down. “I feel like I can trust you, for some strange reason.” She laughed again and rolled her eyes, taking her focus back to her cone, not wanting to dwell on the statement.

“You can,” I stated, not knowing what else to say. Actually, I did know what I wanted to say, but I couldn’t bring myself to let her know that I felt like I could trust her, too. It was too intimate and personal, and though I could stand hearing about her stories – I wanted to hear about them – I was not ready to share my own. If I got my way, I would remain a mystery until the last day at the cottage.

“That was my grandfather on my dad’s side,” she started, only licking her ice cream occasionally during her story. I clutched the frozen item in my hand as I listened, feeling like I was back at Gerard’s place all over again, hearing his stories of past lovers and art school. “I don’t see them anymore ever since my parents divorced.”

“Divorced?” I asked, cutting in already. “I thought the cottage was your dad’s?”

“Step-dad’s,” she corrected, motioning with her free hand. “I haven’t seen my real dad in ages. But I’m fucking glad for that.” She paused for a second, not doing much of anything. I wanted to perk up again, to ask for more details, but I knew she was going to come around. I had to give her time.

With a regretful sigh, she started again. “My real dad left when I was about ten or so. Actually, the police made him leave. He’s in jail now.”

“For what?”

“He was abusive. Beat up my mom and brother. Never touched me, thank God. Just made me watch.”

When she paused this time, I let my mouth fall open, but no sound came out. No sound came out because there was nothing there; I was struck mute. I had heard horror stories about divorce, but they consisted of the parents fighting over who got the child and massive custody battles. Occasionally, there would be some harassment, but nothing too bad. It was just middle-aged and unhappy people bickering to make their children miserable, too. The situation Jasmine was describing, though only in a few little sentences at first, spoke volumes. This was something completely new for me; I didn’t know how to act.

Jasmine was doing better than me, though, because at least she still had her voice to continue with while I sat there dumbstruck. She may have been taking a lot of pauses and breaks, but they were almost necessary for the heavy subject she was talking about.

“The first time was probably when I was about five or six, and completely an accident. I had been sleeping and then heard a noise, stumbling downstairs to see what the matter was. I had stayed up way late the night before, watching a horror movie with my brother, and though I was so scared that Freddy Kruger was coming in through the kitchen window, I had to go and see if I was right. I was a stubborn child.” She smiled and shrugged, adding a little of bit humor to such a bleak situation. I breathed out a small laugh, shifting my weight around on the rock. The edge dug into my side, but I didn’t care. I watched Jasmine intently, her eyes off to the side, recalling that night.

“I didn’t find Freddy Kruger in my kitchen. I just saw my dad, and my mom on the floor.”

At this pause, neither of us laughed. Neither of us breathed. Jasmine seemed to have gone into that other world of memories and beatings so deep that there was no turning back. I reached my leg over to her, nudging her back into reality. I didn’t dare do anything else.

“Oh,” she uttered, looking at me quickly and shaking her head. I was pretty sure I saw her cheeks flush with embarrassment, but neither of us said a word about it. She went on with her story.

“When he saw me standing in the doorway, he stopped hitting. And he didn’t hit for a long time after that, or at least I didn’t catch him. I think it was still going on, now that I’m older and can look back, just from the way my mother carried herself on some mornings. I only started witnessing everything when my brother was older, rebellious and defying him. He had seen the beatings just as much as I had, but he was a primary target – he was a male. My father didn’t want another male questioning him, so he shut him up. A lot.” She paused, breathed, and redirected her thoughts to give herself some redemption for one moment. She drew her face to me.

“It was just like the alpha male pride-type thing. I’m sure you and your dad go through the same type of power struggle, right?”

I nodded, if only vaguely. What else could I do? My dad and I fought, but not that bad. I never hoped it would be that bad. I didn’t want to get into it right now, and neither did she. She was still in the middle of her story.

“There were weeks where it was either him or my mom, or my mom and him being hit. It was getting to be too much. I tried to stop it at one point, but it never worked. He wouldn’t hit me, even when I told him to. He just hit my mom more, and when my brother tried to tackle him to stop, he got thrown into a wall.”

“Oh my God…” I breathed out under my breath, some fury and shock and whatever else I had raging inside of me just needing to get out. Jasmine was unaffected by my outburst.

“He broke his arm that night, and he needed stitches for his forehead. When he was at the hospital, something inside our family just snapped. We all went crazy. We were crying and yelling at each other, and then, he just left. “

“He was arrested?” I questioned, gaining back some use of my voice. I felt something sticky on my hand and noticed that my drumstick had started to melt a little, small beads of the sugary liquid falling onto my knuckle. I licked it off quickly as she corrected me.

“No, unfortunately. When I said ‘he’, I meant my brother. He left. He just picked up his things and was gone.”

“But, he came back, right? I mean, you and Jason…” I trailed off, watching as her facial features changed. It was a hard subject to talk about, I could see it from the way her smile fell, but at least she was still trying to smile.

“Jason is my step-brother,” she corrected, part of her smiling coming alive again. “Thank God for that, too. He’s a real prick sometimes. I don’t think I could have been able to stand growing up with him. He’s only been here since I was fifteen.”

I nodded, taking it in as I took another bite of my cone. The ice cream was becoming less and less solid, and I had to catch it quickly before it spilled down my chin. A light bulb suddenly went off in my head, and I realized why I could never picture how Jay, the burly football player still stuck in the repetitive vortex that was high school, and Jasmine, the delicate girl sitting before me, were related. They weren’t. There was no blood between them. I sighed, but there was still the matter of her other brother.

“What happened to him?” I asked, and she knew exactly who I meant.

“He never came back,” she answered, her voice trailing off.

And suddenly, something inside of me snapped. I didn’t understand how family could treat each other the way she was describing. You had to love your family, no matter what they did. I knew mine wasn’t perfect, and I knew it never would be (especially if Gerard and I were caught), but my dad would never hit me or my mom. We had aggression issues, but that was normal. Teenage sons and father butting heads was something that was supposed to happen. Not breaking their fucking arm. Or belting them because they were gay, I added quickly in my head, thinking of Gerard’s father. God, the world was so fucked up sometimes.

I couldn’t even see the reason that Jasmine’s family was being absurd. At least Gerard’s dad had had the excuse of being a homophobe to fall back on for his actions – though that was no excuse at all. How could this man hurt Jasmine’s mother? Her brother? Were they as delicate as her? How could someone with visibly more strength break something, because they knew they could?

And then I thought of Sam, and how that was his whole purpose in life. He was the creator and would break anything he saw, just to build it up again. Was Sam going to grow up to beat his wife and children, because he could? I hoped not, but just in case, I hoped Sam never got married. Everything in this world seemed like shit to me right at that very moment, and it took all of the strength in me to not jump into the lake and keep swimming until I was far, far away from his horrid place.

Instead of drowning, I had to keep reminding myself that I was one of the lucky ones, and that was saying something. I hated my home existence, and it felt as if my life couldn’t get more stressful, but at least I didn’t have to witness beatings every night. I suddenly realized that I couldn’t ask so many fucking questions about this issue to Jasmine without helping her in some way. I noticed how her strong demeanor, her confident shoulders, were no longer splayed and she was hunched over herself. She was being attacked by her memories once again, like her brother had been attacked that night. I felt something inside of me swell and ache, making me move closer to the girl I had been trying to avoid thinking inappropriate thoughts about.

Reluctantly, but for the good of someone else, I let my hand slide around her waist. She didn’t do anything to stop me, but she didn’t push me away either. At one point, I swore she shifted closer, but it was hard to tell.

“It was so weird,” she continued once her faith in her voice had been reaffirmed. “The night after the big explosion in the ER with all of us crying, David had wanted me to come to the store with him. He said he needed Advil or something for his arm from the drugstore. I was about eleven and it was way past my bedtime. I didn’t want to go with him, and when I told him, he looked so sad. But I didn’t care – I had spent most of the day crying over everything and I was so tired. So I went to bed, and when I woke up in the morning, he was gone.” She scoffed at herself, and I found my hand wrapping closer around her waist as she clung back just as much, finding more strength to add a final line. “I guess that’s why I always want to do things with Jay. I don’t want to lose another brother.”

I wanted to squeeze her so much, but it was virtually impossible. I crushed my eyes closed, feeing the weight of her words and the world they were in. I recalled our conversation on the trampoline when she had told me why she came here, even if she only knew that her brother was going to get shit-faced. She loved him despite that and wanted to recapture something.

My opinion on Jasmine suddenly changed. She was no longer the kooky girl who wanted to be a kid as long as possible, jumping on the trampoline until she flew away. She became so much more than that then as her story filtered through my ears and lodged into the pit of my chest. She was so child-like herself, always attached to the trampoline, and always constantly joking around, because her childhood had been fucked up by an abusive father. She was still trying to get it all back, to hold onto some memories that she could never quite recreate. It was probably why she wanted to come back here, to the lake of all places. It was why she jumped on the trampoline and it was why she came to the cottage, when she knew she would end up being the sober one in her brother-sister relationship. She had experienced so much fucking pain in her life, probably even more than Gerard when I thought about it.

Gerard’s life had been full of hardships, but he was older. He had a lot of time to build those up and dwell on them. Jasmine, though, she was my age and she already had so many stories to tell. I almost felt inferior, because I could never relate to the pain she felt, but I had to keep reminding myself that I was lucky. I was lucky. I was alive, I wasn’t a run away, and I wasn’t abused. Despite all my bickering and banter inside my head, my constant internal monologue and turmoil about something I could never change, I was fucking lucky. I had my parents, I had no siblings to lose, and I had Gerard. Even if I had kissed Jasmine that morning, he was still there for me. It was only a kiss, and I didn’t feel so bad anymore about taking it. Jasmine had needed it. And in a way, so did I. If just to make me realize how lucky I actually was.

“I’m sorry,” I finally gushed, rubbing my hand on her side to convey some part of my sympathy. The act itself was totally mediocre, but at least it was something.

“Don’t be,” she insisted, rubbing my knee through my jeans. “It’s not your fault.”

“I know, but I just feel so…” I let out a sigh as I motioned with the hand that was not touching her, unable to convey how deeply I felt for her.

“Hey,” she suddenly declared, her voice tweaked with an emotion directed at me this time. Apparently, I had gotten my sympathy across and she wanted to address it, her voice a little stronger. “Look at me for a minute.”

Her request was odd, but I couldn’t help but give in. I felt like I owed her something after she spilt her heart out to me, and I knew that I could never quite do the same. I felt her head move against my chest, moving over so we could both look at each other face to face. I stared at her like she wanted, as she ran her blue eyes over my face, twisting her lip in thought. Suddenly, a wet sensation was rushed at my face and withdrawn so fast that I didn’t know what had happened.

“What the…?” I uttered, touching my nose where creamy liquid goo fell onto my hand. I shot Jasmine a death glare, my mouth agape.

She had shoved what was left of her melting cone into my face. And now, she was looking back at me with wide eyes.

“Things were getting too serious,” she stated, her voice calm. She started to lick the same cone she had thrust at my face, not smiling, but obviously pleased with her action.

I could feel the rest of the goo dripping down from my nose, next to my lips and stuck my tongue out to grab a bead of it. My ice cream was almost done, much farther along than she was because of my lack of talking, but as I scooped my fingers down into the bottom of the cone, I found enough to coat my fingers and spread them across her face.

This time, it was her turn to be horrified. “What was that for?”

“You haven’t smiled in a while,” I explained, trying to hold back my own grin.

Her mouth had been gaped open at first, but with the mention of the verb and my own action, she let her lips be drawn into a sly grin. She lowered her eyebrows and gave me a scheming look, letting me know her next actions, but leaving me with no time to prepare for them. I was bombarded with yet another splotch of ice cream to the face, this time the opposite cheek of hers. I gasped out at the coldness this time, feeling a nut hit my face along with the creamy liquid. I started to reach my fingers into my own cone again to get her back, when she thrust her hands out to stop me.

“We’re going to get so dirty,” she breathed, smile still present on her face despite her warning.

At this point in time, I really didn’t care if we got covered in ice cream. It was nice to see her come around from her somber nature only moments prior. We were goofing around like kids again, and weren’t kids supposed to like getting messy?

“So?” I argued, shifting closer and motioning at her, but not actually touching her face with my fingers to make her jump. She did anyway, her shoulder rising in the air and her eyes widening, before she calmed down and gave me another devious look.

“Don’t make me get you,” she replied slyly, coming towards me. She leaned into me, her half eaten cone in one hand as the other snaked around my back, pulling me even closer to her. She held my body in place as she propped up the ice cream like a weapon in front of my face, challenging me. We were all smiles and giggles and if anyone had walked past us, they would have probably thought we were insane.

“What do you say now?” she questioned, moving the cold object in front of my already covered nose. I let out a fake exaggerating sigh and shook my head in defeat.

“Fine! We’ll get cleaned up.”

“Good,” she stated confidently, nodding her head a bit. She lowered the ice cream down onto the rock, forgetting about it as she moved her face closer to mine and proceeded to lick some of the goo off the side of my cheek. I gasped at first in shock, feeling my chest tighten and my thoughts race. My heart started to pound as I thought of the implications that could become aroused from this situation. Her tongue was only inches away from my mouth, gliding along my cheek smoothly. The action only lasted a few seconds, but it was enough to have a whole novel written with detailed depictions and descriptions of the actions occurring. It made me excited, but most of all, it reminded me of when Gerard and Vivian had done the same thing. It had only been last weekend, but it felt like it was ages ago in time. They had done the same thing with each other, though, only with pancake batter and it didn’t mean anything.

This was okay.

Gerard and Vivian had also kissed, and it hadn’t meant anything, I told myself. And there were some times when you just had to kiss someone, Jasmine had told me. I figured it was one of those times.

As Jasmine finished her split second lick of my cheek, she turned her head around, allowing me – fucking inviting me – to lick hers next. I found the courage to lean forward and do the same action, her smooth skin and rolls of thick cream causing my stomach to churn upside down and inside out. When I was done, instead of moving out of the way like she had, I made my way to her lips and placed them there, the sticky trail following. I didn’t move at first, just rest over her soft skin like we had that morning, only with an added barrier of sugar. My heart was pounding still, thinking that she was going to pull away at any moment and run away, leaving me to walk back to the cottage, but instead, she pushed her lips to mine and began to move them slowly. Her tongue poked past her lips a little to lick the remnants of ice cream around my upper lip, but I pulled her back down and took her into my mouth.

I couldn’t believe what I was doing; I was just doing it. Acting on instinct. When an animal is hungry, it wants food. And when it wants to be kissed, it will go for that, too. I had both of those essential needs working in my favor as I tasted the sweet vanilla taste of her mouth, her smell mixed with the nature air and fake sugar permeating my nostrils. As I slid my own tongue into the warm space of her mouth, I felt her fingers tighten around my back, keeping me there, and not wanting me to leave. I knew this was wrong, even if Gerard and Vivian had done the same thing, I just couldn’t shake the feeling. Only the waves of sugar and hormones made my mind ease into things eventually, and before I knew it, the kiss was over. Our lips and tongues moved quickly in and out before we pulled away mutually, our eyes opening and meeting for a brief second before I turned away from her. I watched as the rest of our ice cream melted into the grass, both of our stomachs too infested with butterflies to finish them.

I sat there and licked my lips incessantly, wondering if it was the ice cream or Jasmine that had tasted so sweet and was still invading my mouth. And each time I thought of her name, a slue of swears followed. It was one thing to kiss her to feel connected and just for the sake of it, but did it still apply to near make-out sessions? I felt embarrassment creep through my system and display itself all over my sticky cheeks in a violent red shade, especially as I felt her hand slide off my shoulders and back into her own lap.

In the morning, she thought she had fucked this up, but now I knew it was totally my fault. I had taken advantage of her in a moment of weakness after she had spilled her story. She was looking for compassion and a playful fun time, and I had shoved my tongue down her throat. This kiss was far worse than the one in the morning, too. The kiss she had initiated before had been an innocent peck that lingered. With this one, we were inside each other’s mouths instead of just testing the surface, and I felt something so much more that I wish I didn’t. It wasn’t just a nice kiss, one that I could recall in a moments notice for a wholesome memory. This one was very different. I had liked it, too much, and I had to shift myself on the rocks to get comfortable again. My internal monologue of despair and depression flowed through my brain, interspersed with images of Gerard. I couldn’t fucking believe I had done this. Again.

“I miss painting,” I found myself confessing after way too many moments of awkward silence.

What I had really wanted to say was that I missed Gerard, but I couldn’t just come out and say that. She would have no idea who the fuck I was talking about, and I sure as hell wasn’t going to explain a relationship that was too complicated even inside my head. But in a way, the action of painting was like Gerard, considering that was one of the ways we first formed our bond.

When I said my disguise out loud though, I realized something else. The actual act of painting itself I didn’t miss – at all. Not once since I had been at the cottage had I had the urge to just pick up a paint brush and go for it. The same went for drawing. Even when the sun had been setting the night before and I watched Jasmine on the trampoline, I had not wanted to paint it. Sure, I saw the beauty in it, but the means at which I was used to capturing it, the means that Gerard had been teaching me almost daily since day one had not come into my mind. Only Gerard had.

And as I began to think more and more, I realized I didn’t miss my guitar. I hadn’t gotten the urge to play it, not even when I listened to music. I played my guitar when I was at home, but that was only to practice for Gerard. I had to use him to motivate myself. And it applied to painting, too. The act itself never actually led me to motivation, it was always him. He was still my fucking addiction, and it hit me in a wave, knocking me out internally. I looked down at my hands after my remark, studying the lines that Vivian had pointed out.

Those acts weren’t my passion, but merely to pass time. Something to do to fill the many hours until I could see Gerard again. I still had a lot of work to do, to keep looking for the thing that would always be on my mind and keep me up at night. It seemed that the only passion in life was the one person who told me to go out and look for my passion: Gerard.

That answer was way too easy; too ambiguous. A passion was something that I had the power to control and change. It was why Gerard painted in different styles, why I was learning new songs on different scales. A passion in life could not be a person, because you could never control them, and you needed a certain amount of control in your passion. You could never control what it was – it had to come to you – but once you got it, you had to be the one to mold and shape it into whatever you wanted it to be. Some people left their passions at the door, ignoring them and living a mundane life. Others never discover theirs and do something for the wrong reasons their entire life. And then, there were people like me, who use a person as their passion and completely miss the point. I was a failure at finding what to keep me alive, but also if Gerard really was my passion, at least for right then, then I was doing a fine job in fucking it up already.

“You paint?” Jasmine’s voice suddenly came into my mind. I looked up finally, meeting her curious eyes. She had wiped off the rest of the ice cream, leaving no remnants of guilt on either of our faces. And with this new change of topic, the tension in the air began to ease again and we moved on with our lives. Or tried to, at least.

“Yeah,” I nodded, feeling slightly embarrassed that I had told someone the first half of my secret. I wasn’t planning on revealing the second half anytime soon.

“That’s so awesome,” she gushed, bringing her knees to her chest and folding her hands around them.

“Really?” I asked, my brows furrowed. I had just finished telling myself that my temporary art fascination was nothing to be proud of; it would never get me anywhere. I was also surprised not to hear a gay joke mixed in with it somehow. Before, gay jokes were just pulled out of the air by association, but the actual idea of me doing art itself was so fruity; even I could admit that.

“Yeah,” she nodded again, baring her white smile.

“Do you paint?” I found myself asking, giving her my full attention. I folded my feet up on the rock as well, my art knowledge and obsession coming back to me again in large brush strokes in my mind. Just because it wasn’t my passion, didn’t mean I didn’t really like doing it.

She laughed at my suggestion, rolling her eyes. “Only if you count finger paint, which I doubt is a form of art.”

“All art is art,” I informed her. I could hear the teaching tune in my voice and I almost didn’t recognize myself. “Finger painting is probably one of the best forms.”

“True, I guess,” she said slowly, rolling her eyes at me again. “But I don’t really know much about art. I stopped taking it in elementary school.”

“Me too,” I agreed, then clarified when I saw her furrowing her brow at me. “I’m kind of taking lessons again now, though. I’m not very good.”

“I’m sure if you’re getting lessons outside of school, you’re good,” she countered. “Are they private? Or recreational?”

“Ummm,” I uttered, biting my lip and looking away as I thought of how to phrase things. “Private, kind of.”

“Cool. How much are they?”

I bit my lip harder. I didn’t like the way these questions were going. “They’re free?” I stated, my voice raising at the end and making it a question. When her eyes bugged out at me, and she cocked her head, I quickly clarified as best I could. “Well, kind of free. I mean, I clean his brushes and stuff and in exchange, he teaches me how to paint.”

“Ah,” she breathed in understanding as she nodded her head. “Who’s he?”

“Gerard,” I said, probably a little too fast. This was the first time I was actually receiving general interest questions, and not vapid insults at my story. And really, it was a story. Though the truth may have resonated here and there, but I had to keep some details hidden. I just had to.

“He’s an older artist,” I added at the end, to give Gerard any other label than one that was not associated with me.

“How old?” she asked like an inquisitive child.

“Forty-seven.”

“Wow. That seems so ancient compared to us.”

“Yeah…” I said slowly, looking down into my lap.

She had no idea how right and wrong her statement was at the same time, but I didn’t want to go into specifics. I didn’t want to ramble on and on about how Gerard didn’t look or act his age, how age was just a number, and how Gerard wasn’t old, how his wrinkles were a good thing and told a story… I was trying to divert attention from myself. I stayed quiet, having some pride that at least I had said his name out loud to someone else. He wasn’t entirely a secret anymore; at least people (or a person) knew he was my art teacher. There was such a sense of relief flooding through me right then. My chest felt more open, like the seizing up feeling and the cracked sensation were healing. I had told someone – now I knew why Gerard had gabbed about us to Vivian. It felt good saying his fucking name, if I knew I could have trusted Jasmine with every last detail, I knew I would have told her. I wanted to gush to someone, anyone, about how much I needed him, missed him, and how brilliant he was. In a way, just saying his name felt like he was here.

“What kind of stuff does he teach you?” she asked again, the small lines on her face deepening with interest.

“Umm, how to paint?” I said again unsurely, making my statement seem more like a question.

She laughed at my discomfort, but didn’t say anything directly about it. “I can figure that much out, but, like how does he teach you?”

“Ummm…”I trailed off again, thinking hard. I didn’t have much time to think of anything though before she started laughing again.

“It doesn’t seem like you’ve retained much knowledge,” she teased, nudging me with one of her extended limbs.

“Hey,” I retorted, taking more offence than I needed to because I was trying so hard – too hard – not to slip up. “I’ve learned a lot from Gerard.” My words came out so strong that they almost scared me with their force.

“Like what, then?” she challenged playfully.

“Like…” I accepted the offer, looking around the area we were in to see if I could find something around me as an example. I let my eyes rest on the flowing stream, seeming to make everything around us more beautiful. Then it hit me.

“To find the beauty in everything.”

“And how do you do that?” Jasmine asked again, this time without as much confrontation in her voice. She actually seemed genuinely interested.

“It’s easy, really,” I started, motioning with my hands. “I mean, just look at where we are.”

She nodded her head, but I could tell she wasn’t impressed yet. “I know, but that’s easy to find beauty in something that is beautiful. I want you to show me how to find beauty in something people would find ugly. Like…” She paused, an idea gripping her and spreading her lips into a smile. “Sam’s face.”

I couldn’t help but burst out laughing, and she was soon to follow. Sam’s face was never ugly per se, but it was certainly unique. If his flattened nose and too soft cheekbones weren’t enough to set you laughing, his high octave voice was the perfect soundtrack for this train wreck. And since Sam had been a jerk to us both yesterday, this little joke took on extra hilarity.

“I’m afraid that one is impossible,” I teased back, holding a hand against my chest mock gravely.

“Okay, but seriously now. How do you do it?” she started again, our chuckles no longer present, but the smiles still on our faces. She began to look around as she thought hard of a realistic object to test me with. Her eyebrows raised a few moments later, an idea coming to her.

“How do you see the beauty in garbage? Litter in a place that shouldn’t be taken for granted?” She pointed to a candy bar wrapper on the ground in front of the footpath, left there by some other teens hours before us.

I nodded my head, accepting her challenge, but taking my time to word it properly. I knew I could do it, but it was hard to relay all the images, metaphors, and Gerard’s distinct voice that were rushing through my head.

“Okay, well,” I started nervously, motioning with my hands as I talked, constantly referencing the piece of litter she had identified. “Beauty as a whole is made of imperfections. If we were all the same and fit into one model, things wouldn’t be unique, and therefore, beautiful.” I paused, waiting to see if she got it. She nodded her head and I continued. “So, that piece of trash is showing that Mother Nature is very smart, actually. She’s going to keep her imperfections around to remind people of what beauty is. It’s almost like she’s saying that she knows she can be ugly, but she’s going to keep it around anyway, and her confidence in turn makes the imperfection - the garbage - beautiful.”

I took a breath once I was done, feeling a slow smile spread across my face. At that point, I didn’t care if Jasmine got it entirely, because I was finally speaking the way I had always wanted to; like Gerard. I was spouting my own philosophical babble, instead of just relying and repeating his words. They were there to guide me, but the conclusion was all my own. I was adding little bits of myself here and there, making everything mine.

Jasmine’s eyes had gone wide with my talk, but it was clear that she understood. She couldn’t believe it either.

“Oh, and there are also double meanings everywhere, too,” I added with a smile, my pride oozing out through my teeth.

“I can see that,” was all she said, nodding her head slowly. “I’m very impressed.”

“Thanks,” I said, blushing.

“But I want to know more,” she added quickly, leaning in, her eyes intense.

“What else do you want to know?”

“Everything.”

Her request caught me off guard. With the sheer mention of that word I was brought back into Gerard’s apartment on that Friday night, my body half naked and begging for him to listen to me. Gerard and I were everything, and wanted everything because we were artists. Now, Jasmine had come into my life. She may not have been an artist, but she showed more interest in art that I had ever seen in anyone outside of that world I thought was fictitious and unusable. Jasmine wanted to know everything about art – but everything was art and Gerard and I were everything. It was a cycle, a circle – because real artists hate corners and straight lines. All of it connected together, and I was going to have a hard time sorting through everything if I wanted to tell her. Because I realized I wanted to tell her – I really, really did. It was going to be hard, and I stayed silent for a long time, debating if I even should. There was too much of a risk, too much exposure, too much of all of it – but that was what art was about. And as I looked into her deep blue eyes, wide and ready to learn, I felt ready for the challenge.

I opened my mouth and began to speak the words I thought I would never use again.

Date: 2015-12-17; view: 524