“Yes, I remember,” I say.
She nods. “Despite how he seems, he’s a good guy. He knows his responsibilities. He knows what’s expected of him. So it’s going to be okay.”
Robbie is the reason why I was hiding in the first place.
He gives me the creeps with the way he keeps staring at my boobs, and I know he’ll do it again tonight.
But my mom is right. He is a good guy. He comes from a good family and I should give him a chance.
Like her, I nod too. “Okay.”
Finally my mother smiles, satisfied. “Good. Now go, okay? And you know what?” She reaches out and viciously pinches both my cheeks, making me flinch. “Do your cheeks a little bit too. You’re too pale and it’s clashing with the yellow. And come right back, okay? Don’t make your father wait for too long.”
I rub my sweaty hands on my thighs. “I won’t.”
My mother leaves then and I go to the bathroom and touch up my lipstick and do everything she tells me to. I really psych myself up to face Robbie and the Rutherfords and do what’s expected of me.
I psych and psych and psych myself up before coming out of the bathroom. I even start walking in the direction of the balcony, where everyone’s waiting for me.
But then I stop.
For some reason, I look over to the same spot that I saw that man.
My Mystery Man.
He’s not there anymore. That dark and lonely corner is empty.
I’m not sure why but I start to search for him in the crowd. I sweep my gaze around and start to look for the man I’d never seen before tonight.
Maybe because I’m still convinced that he’s not from Wuthering Garden. That he’s from out there.
From somewhere I’m not allowed to go. From a place I’m not allowed to think about.
Because this is my life.
My responsibilities, my duties.
And for some reason when I can’t find him, my Mystery Man, I start to panic. I start to hyperventilate. I start to feel suffocated. Hopeless.
It’s silly. I know that.
Even so I can’t stop myself from feeling faint and afraid.
I can’t stop this urge to flee, to escape.
So despite promising my mom and myself that I’ll be a good daughter, the daughter that my parents deserve, I run away.
I turn around and walk out of the ballroom and into the night.
***
I’ve made a huge mistake.
I know that.
I shouldn’t have done it. I shouldn’t have run out of the party like I did. My parents must be so embarrassed. Angry. My dad must be seething right now and my mom must be trying to calm him down despite her own anger at me.
But I couldn’t do it.
I couldn’t see Robbie. I couldn’t stay there and smile and mingle.
So here I am.
Sitting on the side of the road by a lamppost.
Because first, judging by my current location — a dark road flanked on both sides by the posh golf course that my dad and the rest of the town loves — I think I’ve walked close to two miles from the party, and in my heels no less. So I’m tired now.
I’m also tired from crying, but I don’t want to think about that.
And second, I need the light from the lamppost.
Because I want to see.
And that’s because I want to indulge in what my parents, Christine, my classmates and the rest of the town thinks is useless and inconsequential. The thing that makes me strange: painting.
Drawing, sketching.
Art.
I’m sitting here because I want to draw. Because when I’m nervous and agitated, that’s what I do.
I also do it when I’m happy and excited and bored and inspired. I do it all the time, actually. I have a whole secret sort of studio set up in my attic, hidden from everyone’s sight; my parents don’t like it when they catch me sketching so I’ve found a safe place for myself.
I root around in my clutch. I go past the lipstick and the powder case that my mother always makes me carry at such events and find the magic thing that I’m looking for: a pen.
It’s pink and has a thin sharp nib.
Then I pull the hem of my dress all the way up to my upper thighs and expose the patch of skin I want.
So I can make it my canvas and draw things on it.
On my skin.
Because I draw on anything and everything that I can find. And because the lack of paper will never stop me.
I start with a rose.
Because where there are roses, there are thorns. And for some reason, thorns have always been my favorite things to draw. Maybe because they’re protectors.
They protect the roses from the world, and I like that.
So when I make thorns, I make them extra sharp and pointy.
Dangerous.
I make them things to be reckoned with. And that’s what I’m doing, making them all stabby and piercing, when I hear something.