Total pages in book: 63
Estimated words: 59947 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 300(@200wpm)___ 240(@250wpm)___ 200(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 59947 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 300(@200wpm)___ 240(@250wpm)___ 200(@300wpm)
She leans into me, resting her head against my shoulder. “I think I’ll hold onto them for a little while. I do love the thrift store ones. But it felt good to use the entire canvas again. To make something fully mine. I’d forgotten how good.” With a heavy sigh she adds, “And having them around might help me remember why I need to stand firm. When I’m in the middle of it.”
Of all the shit she’s about to go through. “I hate that you’ll have to go through that.”
“I do, too. But…I have to.”
She’s staring at her mother’s painting. And though she doesn’t say a word, I can tell that she’s hurting.
“Abbie?”
“I know you said you don’t love your father. What do you feel for him?”
“Frustration. Revulsion.”
“There’s no respect left at all?”
“No. Do you think I should?”
She shakes her head, then exhales a shaky breath. “I just…I don’t know if I love my mother anymore. And it feels like I’m such a bad person for even saying it. I care, because how can I not? But there’s no respect left. And no trust. It seems that all that’s left in me is a sense of duty and obligation—and even that, she’s broken. And she’s not someone I ever want to be around. There’s still the relief that I have reason to make her go, but this. This. Not loving her anymore. It feels just…as if I’m so horrible.”
“Do you think I’m horrible for not loving my father?”
With the back of her hand, she wipes her eyes. “No.”
“Then give yourself the same clemency as you do me, Abbie girl. What about your sister?”
She pulls in a deep breath, visibly calming herself. “I still love her. Maybe there’s just more there to begin with.”
“Will you be giving her the option to stay with you?”
“No,” she say, and I have to conceal my relief. Because it’s not my decision but it was the one I hoped Abbie would make. “Because everything she does is still so hurtful. I don’t want to live with that. And it’s not like I’m kicking her out in the street. She’ll still have a place with my mom.” She blows out a breath that puffs her cheeks. “And I think I’ll always hope, because I would like my sister as a friend again. You know she wasn’t always so negative?”
“No?”
“And I’ve thought on it a lot more since I vented to you last week. Thinking about why she became this way.”
“So what did you come up with?”
“I think she retreated into hating everything because it’s safe. Isn’t it? If you like something or love something, you can be hurt. Disappointed. And that goes for so many things. Those favorite books you have as a kid, then you find out the author’s a bigot or a sleaze. And if you like someone’s music? Well fuck, he’s a rapist. And that politician you supported and voted for now backs down on every issue he campaigned on, never puts up a fight now that he’s in office, never calls out the political bullshit that should be called out. So if Lauryn hates everything, well…instead of being disappointed, she’s just proven right when something turns out shitty. And it protects her from being judged the way she judges other people.”
“Sounds like a pretty fucking unhappy way to live.”
“It does. And if it’s true, I feel bad for her…but protecting herself doesn’t excuse how she so carelessly hurts me while doing it.”
“No, it doesn’t.” Nothing could fucking excuse it. But she’s not my sister…and I could imagine taking a whole lot of shit from Harris before making that break.
“Though I understand the need to retreat. Obviously, since I’m here. No one has the energy to always fight. Everyone has to recharge. But then you have to try again—not just stay where it’s easy to stay.”
“So you’re saying cynicism and negativity is for cowards and weaklings,” I say to make her laugh.
And she does, bumping against my side. “Not everything negative. There’s nothing wrong with expressing an opinion or not liking something—though of course there’s always a time and place. And things that hurt other people should be called out. Not all cynicism is bad, either. Only when there’s no attempt at anything else. And it has its place, too. Like, I’d be a complete fool to think that, after I tell my mom that I caught her out in her lies—Well, she learned her lesson and she’ll never do that again! But hope in general isn’t foolish. I think hope takes far more courage than cynicism does.”
“What of love? Love takes more courage, too, yeah?”
She narrows her eyes at me. “Are you thinking of your book?”
“A little.” I always am, a little—which Abbie picked up on days ago. I know she’s not offended now because she likes it when I bounce ideas off her. “Because I like that as a theme: Blanket cynicism and negativity is a coward’s refuge. That might be what she’s truly fighting against. A monster is never enough. There has to be something else, the thing that’s the real horror—or what that horror represents. But I’ll have to work out how. Either she’ll be fighting her own cynicism or it’ll be someone else who is the cynic, someone who has more power than she does. But she has enough strength to hope and love, so she uses that strength to win. Or maybe hope and love give her strength. Something.”